I wonder what SSBB will actually look like...

It's Mario that spoils it for me. He just looks naff with that huge bulbose nose and silly moustache. Also he's not exactly fashionably dressed, does anyone seriously think that daft cap with his initial on it looks cool?

Oh well. If I cover up the bottom right corner the Mario Strikers cover does look okay.  

@Pedro - Aw, cmon. You've gotta look at it comparatively, to other normal pics of Mario. Next to that, he looks pretty badass on the Strikers cover.

And if you got rid of Mario's bulbous nose, silly moustache and the cap with his initial, what's left for anyone to know it's still Mario, overalls? Unfortunately, any depiction of Mario has to resemble Mario. Sorry 'bout that.

It looks like they tried to make him appear badass but they failed miserably. It's impossible to make Mario look anything but naff. I suppose the crappy design is one of the reasons many people love the character, but personally I've never seen the appeal in Mario.

Right... well the point I made and am making is that comparatively, he looks badass. It's not like Nintendo made Mario and suddenly, just this year, went "Hum, I know we created Mario to be a symbol of masculinity way back then, but maybe we coulda done a better job. Let's start with the Strikers cover art."

And for the record, Mario's design was totally chance. He had a moustache because otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell he had a nose (the graphics back then weren't stellar, mind you... everything was made up of rather large pixels.) He wore overalls so you could tell he had pants on. The character that evolved from there was given more detail as time passed, but the main attributes had to remain if he was to be identified as the same character.

And so now we have this admittedly goofy character, who people love because the games he is put in tend to be very fun and well designed, not because the character himself is terribly interesting. That, you see, is the appeal of Mario.