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Mario characters you’re surprised didn’t get more love

Phendrift

Phendrift

Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,909
A ton of bosses for some later 3D Mario games. They do this a LOT where they just invent characters and then they go MIA. I'm not gonna say anything from Odyssey since it's the most recent so the jury is still out on who they make recurring, but it does have a ton of characters/species I can see just never coming back at all lol. Also won't get into the RPGS because Nintendo forgetting them is a conversation that is worn out at this point

So yeah, agree on Kamella for sure. The Galaxy games have a ton of giant alien bosses that wouldn't really work as playable characters in the spin-offs so it's understandable, but she definitely sticks out. Motley Bossblob from 3D World would've been an easy add to Mario Kart.

I didn't personally love him (I mean come on his hub host competition was Rosalina) but I'm shocked Lubba never made it out of Galaxy 2. Same with the Chimp who hosts the minigames.

Overall, espeically if they're gonna keep reusing Bowser, adding more mainstays to his army is something they really should do. Only characters from the SNES era and before (Kamek, Koopalings, Boom Boom) seem to get that recurring privilege barring Junior. From Galaxy onward, he has tons of new boss minions that just get dropped the next game lol. I get for the mainline 3D series they wanna try something new each game, but spin-offs could pull so much more. And NSMBDS had unique boss fights - fighting Petey in 2D for example, before they reverted back to the Koopalings and Boom Boom for the next 3 games.
 
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Benzychenz

Benzychenz

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 1, 2017
15,714
Australia
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The Star Bunny's from the Galaxy games seem like a super simple character to reuse in spin-offs too.
 
Zen Hero

Zen Hero

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,751
I wonder if Glydon the gliding lizard from Odyssey will ever return. I thought he was cool!
 
Scrappy-Fan92

Scrappy-Fan92

Member
Jan 14, 2021
9,884
Phendrift said:
A ton of bosses for some later 3D Mario games. They do this a LOT where they just invent characters and then they go MIA. I'm not gonna say anything from Odyssey since it's the most recent so the jury is still out on who they make recurring, but it does have a ton of characters/species I can see just never coming back at all lol. Also won't get into the RPGS because Nintendo forgetting them is a conversation that is worn out at this point

So yeah, agree on Kamella for sure. The Galaxy games have a ton of giant alien bosses that wouldn't really work as playable characters in the spin-offs so it's understandable, but she definitely sticks out. Motley Bossblob from 3D World would've been an easy add to Mario Kart.

I didn't personally love him (I mean come on his hub host competition was Rosalina) but I'm shocked Lubba never made it out of Galaxy 2. Same with the Chimp who hosts the minigames.

Overall, espeically if they're gonna keep reusing Bowser, adding more mainstays to his army is something they really should do. Only characters from the SNES era and before (Kamek, Koopalings, Boom Boom) seem to get that recurring privilege barring Junior. From Galaxy onward, he has tons of new boss minions that just get dropped the next game lol. I get for the mainline 3D series they wanna try something new each game, but spin-offs could pull so much more. And NSMBDS had unique boss fights - fighting Petey in 2D for example, before they reverted back to the Koopalings and Boom Boom for the next 3 games.
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Boom Boom wasn't in any of the New Super Mario Bros. sequels, though he was in 3D Land and 3D World.
 
Foffy

Foffy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,033
Wario, in general. It's been nearly 15 years since the last platformer, and this is a grave sin. I worry much like the Paper Mario games, Nintendo wants the core IP to be more visually cohesive, so a lot of that wacky original character design is a hard no go today. Wario's had the weirdest bosses in the larger Mario franchise.
 
Ninjadom

Ninjadom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,316
London, UK
HibbySloth said:
Another one. Donkey Kong Junior.

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I know why he was retired, but I feel enough time has passed since Rare's buyout that Nintendo could just reintroduce Junior without replacing Diddy or something. Keep the Cranky Kong and DK Lore, but instead of making DK be Junior grown-up (or DK III) just give the modern DK a son, and have him look exactly like DK Junior. They basically did that already with Bowser Jr. and Baby Bowser.
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Nintendo used the Super Mario Kart version of him in Mario Kart Tour.
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Shurp

Shurp

Member
Nov 29, 2017
285
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To be honest, I'm not really surprised, but I do want more appearances for this guy
 
Nocturnowl

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,373
Rollodillo_Artwork_-_Super_Mario_Galaxy_2.png

It's a shame how one off some of these 3D Mario bosses can be for how much I dig some of their designs, Rollodillo is PEAK

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Also I hope Wingo from Captain Toad turns up again, y'know when we get the necessary Captain Toad 2


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Also Sprixies are such EZ spinoff fodder like picking a Shyguy in different colours, shocked that it never went further than the green sprixie in the WiiU's abominable mario tennis outing, they seem like prime MKTour content
 
Shin Kojima

Shin Kojima

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,578
Goomba deserves to be in Mario Kart. I don't care that he doesn't have arms. Just hang him from the wheel by his teeth or something.
 
DaToonie

DaToonie

Member
Oct 26, 2017
1,178
There's so many, dude.

E. Gadd is super weird with how he conveniently never appears in anything Mario unless it's Luigi's Mansion. He had like a super brief period in the early 2000's where I believe he appeared in some Mario Party games and Mario & Luigi RPG games? But then... nothing. He feels like he's being kept behind this arbitrary barrier where he just cannot co-exist with the standard Mario cast and I hate it. I wanted him in Strikers Battle League, and he should be in games like Mario Kart AT LEAST.

Daisy's a weird one just because of how relevant she manages to be while completely underutilized. Honestly, I don't have much of an idea of how she can be used in non-party games without damseling her (which would be lame as fuck), but it feels a liiittle weird we've seen her in zero mainline games since her debut. It almost feels deliberate to me at this point. Putting her in a Luigi's Mansion game seems like an easy no-brainer thing to do, but we get Peach in LM3 instead. Having her playable in either 3D World or the Switch port would've also been like... super simple to do, but again, nope. What is that about.

Waluigi is just a victim. Dude's created to fill a role in Mario Tennis, but then never gets used for anything greater. Toadette was literally conceptualized for THE EXACT SAME need to fill a partner role, and she's in so many games now. She's fuckin player 2 in Captain Toad now. What a glow-up.
Waluigi has inarguably become one of the most popular and iconic extended Mario characters, and all he gets to do is just show up for party games. That HAS to change. Though I think the perfect future for the character is to be properly adopted into the "player 2" role for a Wario game, I also think a more inspired thing to do is to throw him in a Luigi's Mansion game as a Majima-esque boss. Just have him be a randomly recurring mini-boss that fails at thwarting Luigi. That'd be fun as hell.

And even though it feels weird to list him here cuz there are clearly MANY other characters in worse positions, imma have to say Wario, too. Dude is one step removed from being another Daisy and Waluigi. Like, the standard, core design and concept of Wario straight up doesn't exist anymore outside of Mario spin-off games. Isn't that weird? I think that's weird. Lord forbid we stop seeing new Wario Ware games, because that'll just be it for him.
We need a new Wario Land/World or even a completely new platformer IP, SOON. And put Waluigi in it as a playable character, you ghouls.

But yeah...
TLDR; I'm a huge non-fan of how Nintendo treats the extended Mario cast. It's bad.
 
Scrappy-Fan92

Scrappy-Fan92

Member
Jan 14, 2021
9,884
At least Daisy has Super Mario Run. That's more than the nothing she had in platformers between 1990 and 2016.
 
Zan

Zan

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,949
Prince Pine and King Flint. Jewelry Land in general could be a good setting for a Mario and Luigi title.

(...if they made those anymore...)
 
Crashman

Crashman

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,749
I wish Rex, the purple dinosaur dragon enemies from Super Mario World, showed up more. I think outside of SMW itself, they're only in Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, which is a shame.
 
GreenMamba

GreenMamba

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,093
Unknownlight said:
Fly Guys are in Mario 64, which is close enough I think.
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D'oh, knew I was forgetting something.

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Super Mario 64 had a really weird and eclectic enemy selection. Reminds me they had a super weird take on Snifits as these bizarre floating heads.
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They were reinterpreted as ghost Snifits in Super Mario 64 DS and renamed "Snufits." Guess they were just too damn weird to stay as regular Snifits.
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The Snifit Patrol in Mario Party 2's Space Land was the only other time I can recall this weird Snifit variant got used, and they got turned into regular Snifits in Mario Party Superstars' version of the board.
MP2_Snifit_Patrol.png

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I also might be wrong on this but I think Superstars was the very first time the modern Snifit design has appeared in 3D not counting games with heavily stylized graphics like Yoshi's Woolly World, despite how often they get used in the Paper Mario series starting with Sticker Star (which always defers to modern standardized looks for enemies these days). Just in time for a Snifit to appear in the movie, too.

That's my pointless Snifit tangent.
 
Richietto

Richietto

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
24,519
North Carolina
GreenMamba said:
MPS_Snifit_enc.png

I also might be wrong on this but I think Superstars was the very first time the modern Snifit design has appeared in 3D not counting games with heavily stylized graphics like Yoshi's Woolly World, despite how often they get used in the Paper Mario series starting with Sticker Star (which always defers to modern standardized looks for enemies these days). Just in time for a Snifit to appear in the movie, too.

That's my pointless Snifit tangent.
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Oh wow I think you're right. No wonder it felt off looking at that 3D model.
 
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