If only 1 game series could survive...

[Cloudman]

Wright said:

Cloudman said:

Surprisingly, mine was not made from a selfish choice, haha. Mario isn't my favorite video game series, but I felt it is one I thought would do well in covering a large varying number of bases. There's single and multiplayer games, RPGs, sports games, party games, puzzle games, and racing games. It's missing a couple of genres, but I think it was a good fit to cover as much ground as possible.

Final Fantasy while may have some varying games, I still don't feel they appeal to everyone. Many of their games are focused on single player and RPGs, which I don't think every one would be into. And the games it has in other genres, they don't have as many in others as they do as Mario. The different genres Mario cover has at least a couple of games in each one. Plus, Final Fantasy has done some weird questionable things with its game.

In a way, Mario was designed to appeal to as large of an audience as possible. Sometimes that's their aim, like they did with New Super Mario Bros, which was aimed to bring people who fell out of gaming back into gaming, and that succeeded from what I recall from sales.

Anyways, that's my case for Mario.

 

I mentioned that Mario was indeed a nice, thoughtful option considering the premise of the OP. It has over fourty games, and there's an arrange of diverse genres and themes present on them. Regarding Final Fantasy not being appealing to everyone, that's true; but the fact that the games try reinventing themselves on each entry means that (considering you're pretty much forced to play those or nothing) there's gotta be at least one that you eventually like. Doesn't even have to be a mainline entry (but it's questionable, considering how much the gameplay has changed after all these years), you could just chill around with Crystal Bearers and have fun with that one instead. Mario, despite having entries on diverse genres, is consisted mostly of platformers that adhere to a specific (though somewhat evolving) core formula. There's not that much differences between Mario Bros and New Super Mario Bros, or Galaxy and 3D World, but FFVI and FFVII feel like different things altogether, and you could probably remove the Final Fantasy tag and no one would blame you for thinking they're two different games. Same with almost every other game on the franchise, aside from the originals (FF1, 2 and 3 being very alike, for example). One thing that definitively Mario trumps Final Fantasy is Sports games, so that's a huge base covered there.

The thing that made me put FF edging it was the fact that Mario lacks any meaningful MMORPG kind of game, on which FF has two and would certainly cover this (huge) demography as long as they could endure the setting and specific in-game mechanics. It's one of the biggest gaming markets, and it features an ever-evolving crowd of gamers. Now all they would need later is a MOBA, and that fits Final Fantasy much more than Mario, though it would not be impossible in either case considering it would be this specific franchise or nothing at all. xD

That is true. FF covers bases that Mario doesn't. Though I would argue that Mario and FF aren't that different when it comes to their development over time. Both games do change around some, but their main games don't really change at their core. Mario is about platforming your way through obstacles to the end, and FF is set around traveling the world, battling enemys and stopping an evil force in the end. And, while FF will have a game that will fit every person, most of the Mario games are approachable to everyone. More recent Mario games have it where there is variety within each game, with tricks or gimmicks that aren't really re-used in other levels.

Mario would def leave that MMO base hanging though, and shooters as well...