do you just so happen to be a fan of sean malstrom, rol?

I think you hit a good point for Mario - the only place we really need a cutscene for Mario is in the ending, as a prize for when you beat the game. That's what a cutscene should be: a prize.

I think Zelda in general tends to handle it pretty well, though. Nothing wrong with the amount of cutscenes in Ocarina, and a few of them in Twilight Princess were very good (though if there had been fewer of them I agree it might have been more effective).

Cutscenes are a plague on us a lot of the time. Miyamoto was right! Miyamoto was ALWAYS right!

On the Wii, there are already almost 700 games available. On the N64, Mario 64 was one of 3 games available for the first 6 months; it took years for the N64 to pass 100 games total. Mario Galaxy has already outsold Mario Sunshine by quite a bit, and by the end of the Wii lifecycle will have outsold Mario 64 as well.

Its funny that you mention time. When I got SMG I had a lot of time on my hands. I loved the game, but just before finishing it I decided to take a break from it. A couple of weeks turned into a couple of months, and then all that free time I had before went away.

Since then every few months I crack it out and try to finish it, but I can't. I have discovered that its just not possible to beat the game  only playing it an hour or two a week.

I am sure this is why depending on who you ask, the game is either absurdly easy or absurdly hard. If you have time for SMG you will finish it, but if you don't have that time to commit, there are a lot of intricat details that will always elude you and it is highly unlikely you will get very far.

that's a big problem though. You pick out bits that actually make sense while we bash Mal because of everything else he leaves in.

Hrmm, trying to figure out why you'd pick WALL-E of all movies. I mean, WALL-E is far better than Episode 3, too! Hell, throw Ep6 in there as well...

Haven't played SMG in a while, so I don't remember how bad the cutscenes were. I could have done wtihout the rabbits, and I recall my bro yelling at the game after walking into Rosalina's room and being forced to read through like, 7 chapters of stuff (he hadn't entered the room before). That was funny.

I do recall the beginning of Twilight Princess feeling like torture. They definitely need to trim most of that crap out, for a good 2 hours I had thought, "this is definitely the worst Zelda in the series."

The balance was better in Ocarina, wasn't it? You get a short cutscene, then a mini-dungeon to get your sword and shield and familiarize yoruself with the controls, then you get a short cutscene telling you what to do, then you get your first REAL dungeon. After that you get a cutscene of reasonable size and a shiny bauble.

It was a good balance.

That's why they're now going to make a 2D Mario game to make us cutscene-hating folk happy.

Now I'm even more glad they're making a Galaxy 2, then we'll get another piece of 2D awesomeness to satisfy us. ^_^

I will fully admit I only read about 1/3 your post.

Having said that, I bet I have heard nearly everything you said before. And going with that, I will just say this. Games that reviewers and 'bigwigs' in the gaming 'industry' (aka, people who 'critique' the gaming industry) keep calling 'game of the year' or 'must have' are not necessarily games which sell the best or are the most popular.

With that knowledge in mind, You now understand why Mario Galaxy didn't sell as well as something like Mario Kart Wii, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games or won't sell as well as New Super Mario Bros Wii.

Along with the simple fact that 3D Mario titles don't sell as well as 2D Mario titles.

But Nintendo still makes 3D Mario games because Mario needs diversity and some people prefer 3D Mario games over the 2D ones.  Especially in America.

Well, if you have then you sure didn't address it.