People who consider Mario a gameplay-only game are not true Mario fans

[amp316]

Here's my feelings on it, Happy D. What you are saying about it being a new and fantastic world the first time that you played Super Mario Bros or whatever Mario game that it was that you played first is 100% true and in that way it isn't all about the gameplay. But to criticize the Mario series because it does the same thing doesn't make sense to me. It's still the same brilliant world and as Veknoid_Outcast pointed out earlier, there never was a deep mythology present like Tolkien's books which you referred to in the OP.