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A Few Unanswered Questions about the Mario Community I've Never Worked Out...
As a longtime fan of the Mario series and Nintendo as a whole, there are still quite a few things I don't understand about the fanbase and their general interests, and which I'm quite eager to know the answers to. So if anyone can give possible reasons for some of things mentioned below, that would be great. Never the less, the list of things I never quite understood about the Mario series fandom as a whole.
1. How come it overlaps so much with the Kirby fandom
First question, and something that has bugged me for quite some time, is why it seems about 95% of Mario fans are fans of the Kirby series (and especially Kirby Super Star). This is a question I just can't fathom, not because of anything bad about the Kirby series (or Mario series), but because the two series aren't that closely connected and don't have the same kind of gameplay as each other in any way.
I mean, I know why many Mario fans also like Donkey Kong Country, and I know why many fans of Donkey Kong Country like Banjo Kazooie or other Rare made games, but that's simple to explain. Donkey Kong Country was very influenced by the Mario series in gameplay and level design (and a whole host of other things). And Banjo Kazooie, as well being a good series, was pretty much the template for Donkey Kong 64, meaning there was likely going to be some overlap in fanbase.
But why are so many Mario fans also die hard fans of the Kirby series? Kirby has pretty far different gameplay mechanics, the whole eating enemies to take their powers thing, the easy levels and far more difficult bosses and the general atmosphere of the games being different, so what's the reason?
2. How come there's less fan obsession than say, Sonic the Hedgehog
This could also be a good question to raise about the Sonic series as well, about why it's basically a lightning rod for people with various mental insecurities to make recolours and bad fan work based on it. Indeed, Sonic gets works as mind numbingly bad as Sonichu based on it, and Mario thankfully gets some more... level headed fans. Nothing wrong with the Sonic the Hedgehog series though (it's a great series, at least in 2D), and nothing about it would indicate to me that people... with various autistic tendencies would be attracted to the series and fandom.
3. How come there are so few large communities online to actually discuss the games or series as a whole
Or why Mario has basically no online forum community. Or community as a whole, while every other series imaginable gets at least one big board based on it. Zelda gets Zelda Universe, Pokemon gets Serebii and Smogon, and Final Fantasy gets quite a few major forums based on it. Mario? Zilch in many cases, with thousands of relatively small fansites but no general 'hub' to the online fanbase. Sure, Mario Wiki is probably one of the most active fandom wikis as a whole, but the forums and communities seem like they get stuck at about 100 000 posts maximum.
Sonic gets this too for some reason. Tons of decent sized forums, but none over 500 000 posts.
4. How come the series seems to often go unnoticed by so called 'professionals' in the video game industry?
Another pet peeve, and point that has long irritated me, is how the majority of developers and 'professional' writers seem to ignore the series as a whole in terms of what it brings to video games, or the genres it's in. No one recognises the Paper Mario or Mario and Luigi games, and hardly anyone even recognises the mainstream platform games. This doesn't seem to tie to any critical disdain or gamer disdain in general either, almost all review outlets give the games highly positive scores, they sell millions of copies, and nearly every game writer around (yet no one in the industry except Sirlin) seems to have at least Super Mario Bros 3 on their favourite games of all time list. Or maybe Super Mario Bros 1, 64 or Galaxy.
They seem to get their work ignored quite a bit as well, the Mario RPGs having answered many criticisms of standard RPGs for YEARS before the so called fancy indie games mentioned in such articles attempted the same thing. I wrote more of this in another article by the way.
5. Where Mario Kart gets the reputation of being a luck based game only?
Finally, Mario Kart and luck. For some reason, the game seems to have a reputation synonymous with a casino or roulette online, with much mention of the items apparently making it a free for all no skill allowed luck game. Problem is, things like time trials (and even outside of it), there is a definite possibility for becoming a better player and winning by pure skill, the items are dodgeable, and people practice for world records and tournaments for hours and days and months on end. A true luck game? Mario Party, although that's thankfully the second game mentioned whenever 'depends on luck and button mashing' gets brought up online.
So, anyone got reasons for any of the above being the case online? Anyone?
Comments
1.Look at the games. Switch
1.Look at the games. Switch characters and how different are they really?
2.You anwsered this you self. THe 2-D games are good which few seem to care about in this Next-Gen world.
3.Hmmm....
4.If it's not a hard-core action game it's a kiddie game to them.
5. Because it is. Sure there's skill but items makes that matter less. Sometimes the worst player can beat the best player just because of sling shoting to first place by a bullet Bill and the expert getting hit over and over by unavoidable items.
Guesses as to why they are that way.
1: The gameplay may be different, but they are both well desinged platformers published/developed by Nintendo. So the first easy answer is company and genre loyalty. Both are kid friendly and set in idealistic worlds, so the second easy answer is that younger players can play both without worring parents (a rarity in this market filled to the brim with Mature-Only-rated shooters and beat-em-ups). Thirdly, the same idealistic settings may bring out older players' sense of nostalgia, but that may be over-analyzing it.
2: I imagine that the greater number of weirdos in the Sonic fandom may be do to the decline of the series. Most people gave up on the series and move on, leaving only the furries, the less sane fans, and the most dedicated normal fans, who get accused of being the former two enough to frustrate them into rude behavior. The fact that fewer reasonable fans remain means that less good fan-stuff is made, making the bad stuff even more obvious. In other words, the Mario fandom is not without it's Sonichus, it's just the sane fans are still around to help hide them.
3: I'd say it's due to the nature of the Mario series. It doesn't have much in the way of plot outside of the RPGs, and even then, many of those are (well-written and very funny variations on) stock RPG plots at first glance. It's hard to compare stratagies for most platformers, and aside from badge layouts, there's not a lot of customization to stratagize about in the RPGs. Zelda has that big timeline issue, giving fans much more to talk about, plot-wise, while Pokemon has so many possible team variations, even when only considering fully evolved, non-legendary Pokemon, that you could spend ages testing out every strategy and combination.
The Sonic series has a similar problem to the Mario series. During the good games, there wasn't much to talk about, and once the games got plot, they started to head downhill for unrelated reasons, so nobody stuck around to discuss it.
4: ... This one stumps me as much as it does you.
5: I'd imagine this is mostly an exageration due to frustartion here. I didn't really mind the possibility of items hitting me in Mario Kart until MKWii, when you were not only required to come in first place to unlock certain karts, bikes, and characters, but you also had to win the cup in enough time to get a star ranking. The higher standard, combined with three more overpowered power ups available only to those in the last positions makes it easier to blame the game. (Also, you know how to dodge a blue shell? Without a Mushroom? You're amazing!)
<i>2: I imagine that the
2: I imagine that the greater number of weirdos in the Sonic fandom may be do to the decline of the series. Most people gave up on the series and move on, leaving only the furries, the less sane fans, and the most dedicated normal fans, who get accused of being the former two enough to frustrate Normal 0 them into rude behavior. The fact that fewer reasonable fans remain means that less good fan-stuff is made, making the bad stuff even more obvious. In other words, the Mario fandom is not without it's Sonichus, it's just the sane fans are still around to help hide them.
True, there are still bad works in the Mario fandom, see A Haunting Past and Currently Unnamed on this page:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Horrible/Fanfic
I still don't get why they make more fan work in general though, although I'll admit I likely overstated all this due to how Sonichu is... very, very well known for being awful. I would like to say though... I don't think most Sonic fans are insane, just as I don't think most Harry Potter fans are insane after reading (part of) My Immortal. Just comparing the insane segments of the fanbase.
3: I'd say it's due to the nature of the Mario series. It doesn't have much in the way of plot outside of the RPGs, and even then, many of those are (well-written and very funny variations on) stock RPG plots at first glance. It's hard to compare stratagies for most platformers, and aside from badge layouts, there's not a lot of customization to stratagize about in the RPGs. Zelda has that big timeline issue, giving fans much more to talk about, plot-wise, while Pokemon has so many possible team variations, even when only considering fully evolved, non-legendary Pokemon, that you could spend ages testing out every strategy and combination.
True, although I would have thought there'd be more people trying to theorise about the characters and other elements, there's already enough discussion of Yoshi and Donkey Kong Country to make an overall Mario/Nintendo platformer forum hugely successful (see, DK Vine/Universe). Then again, I wish people like Artemendo of Waluigious and whoever ran Coin Heaven actually posted on the internet more.
And there's always game announcements to discuss and rumours to ponder semi meaningfully...
But the point about the Legend of Zelda and Pokemon still stands.
5: I'd imagine this is mostly an exageration due to frustartion here. I didn't really mind the possibility of items hitting me in Mario Kart until MKWii, when you were not only required to come in first place to unlock certain karts, bikes, and characters, but you also had to win the cup in enough time to get a star ranking. The higher standard, combined with three more overpowered power ups available only to those in the last positions makes it easier to blame the game. (Also, you know how to dodge a blue shell? Without a Mushroom? You're amazing!)
well, you can dodge both blue shells and red shells purely with mushrooms in Mario Kart DS. Or by being hit by something else before the explosion, causing you to spin out rather than fly into the air.
As for Mario Kart Wii... I think you can dodge them without a mushroom, you can via boost pad on the floor or tunnel, no idea if you can dodge them with a Mini Turbo any more. But a good reason for the items is called '12 players'. Basically, one third more opponents, more chance of random item generators causing world war three to break out.
But that's a good reason for Mario Kart never to get more than 12 racers in a race at once. Anything on F-Zero or simulation game levels (20, 30 racers) would be... a sheer chaotic free for all. But getting stars in GP modes is annoying, although much of the luck level falls when against human opponents and where rubber band AI doesn't occur.
But thanks for your comments!
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