Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

Speaking of Paper Mario, I do feel like a new Paper Mario game could come any day now. It's not a series I'm interested in (I tried to get into it, but I just wasn't enjoying it that much) so IDC when they announce it, but it wouldn't be a title I would be surprised to see pop up in a Direct in the next year or so.

Probably won't be out until 2027 or '28. Paper Mario games usually come out 4 years after the last title.

@squiddu-real What's funny is that I'm pretty sure they did the opposite with Splatoon's Octo Expansion, where they made the villain more of a genocidal racist than he was in the Japanese version of the game. So it makes things even more confusing that they're avoiding Ganondorf's hatred Rauru because he was a Zonai- and him believing the Zonai are too soft and didn't deserve the right to rule.

@UpsideDownRowlet It sucks, yeah. This Ganondorf is pretty much one of the most petty incarnations of him- and yet they soften that aspect of him for some reason.

I'd think that there is a tendency of translators to play it safe and avoid contentious topics. So, toning down sexual, political and religious references is just par for the course and, with games rated teen and under, they're probably not so much concerned about offending the players as their parents.

Ah well, just learn some Japanese. You don't need to be particularly fluent to play a game with subtitles on, and you'll start picking up on the ways that translators try to dodge the hot potatoes fairly quickly.

@VoidofLight
"While it is annoying that lore elements are tied to these DLC, there are breadcrumbs in 3 that can lead to the conclusions the DLC came to."

This I did not know, this makes it so much more likely that I will just eventually get all three games physically and skip any and all DLC, for the sake of not having to deal with the massive file size (see, I have another reason besides just kind of disliking NOA for preferring to get games physically over digitally, though I'm not entirely against buying the occasional digital game, especially if it's on a good sale). Thanks for the info 👍. I really do think that playing Xenoblade 2 despite the strange English translation should be overall fine despite the disappointment, considering I love Pokémon, where pretty much every name for everything is different for the different languages.

"avoiding Ganondorf's hatred Rauru because he was a Zonai- and him believing the Zonai are too soft and didn't deserve the right to rule."

A lot of my research about gaming over the past few years has been about finding out which Japanese games are more true to their original Japanese counterparts and which ones aren't, and I somehow never knew about this. That's a disappointment honestly.

@squiddu-real NINTENDO's translators have FORGOTTEN about OSMOSIS

@N00BiSH Well then it's late, the last title was 6 years ago.

@Bolt_Strike I see we're ignoring the TTYD remake, which... Y'know, admittedly is valid since it isn't an original title but like, it also took four years to make so in a way it doesn't really invalidate the development cycle. It's not like they stopped making PM6 partway through production to remake TTYD or something like that.

Also important to note that Paper Mario is made by Intelligent Systems, which is releasing a new Fire Emblem soon. That, and the guy that's been responsible for the past few Paper Mario games is now retiring from Nintendo I believe.

Yeah, they'll probably make a new Paper Mario eventually, but not in the same year as a Fire Emblem, and they're also the studio that makes the Wario Ware games, so one of those might come in first, too.

@VoidofLight new blood for paper mario either means total disaster for the tone, removing anything vaguely interesting about it to make it extra kiddy,

or not and i'm just overly nervous lol. would be funny after everything with ttyd if they just doubled down on every npc being a red koopa troopa or something

@squiddu-real I think the main thing that would be funny is if somehow they end up making the next one extremely experimental and in a direction that's worse than what Sticker Star and Color Splash did.

I love how every loathes Tanabe for what he did to Paper Mario and Metroid Prime 4 and such....forgetting he also started those franchises, and Luigi's Mansion.

Let the man cook I say. Everyone gets a project they want to make every now and then. Sometimes it doesn't work out, sometimes it does.

Aonuma got Majora's Mask, Tanabe got Prime 4, Sakamoto got Other M and Emio...

@Haruki_NLI Tanabe didn't create Paper Mario, his involvement with the series started with the original TTYD and he only started being a producer for the series with Super Paper Mario

@Haruki_NLI Tanabe wasn't the sole creator of metroid. Sure, he was a key member on the team, but he wasn't the only one on the team that had say in where the series went or what it was about. A good chunk of the worst parts of Metroid came from Tanabe- like the focus on the Galactic Federation and wanting to effectively cram it in everything he could.

As for his involvement in Paper Mario, he pretty much ran the series extremely downhill after Super Paper Mario. People say it was the fault of Miyamoto, but from what we know of the original beta for Paper Mario 3D, it wasn't actually going to be all that much better in comparison to Sticker Star. It was around the same level, if not just as bad. Color Splash was a step up from Sticker Star, and same with Origami King being a step up from Color Splash- but it felt like this was a direction that was an entire misstep from the root of Paper Mario.

@VoidofLight You're right, it was Gunpei Yokoi's team that made Metroid, eventually being handed to Sakamoto's team.

As for Metroid Prime, it was a first person demo that Miyamoto said should be turned into Metroid, as the legend goes, and Tanabe became involved with the series from there.

However that doesn't overstate that creators are allowed to take a series in the direction that they want to take it in, does it?

If the games keep getting the greenlight from the finance people that be, something must be working.

Sometimes you just gotta go with it. Let the Animal Crossing guys make a shooter. That sort of thing.

But it just dawned on me, we dislike "Genre saturation" yet we also want multiple Mario RPG series running alongside each other? Why can't one be different?

@Haruki_NLI I mean, devs are allowed to take the directions they want with their games- but they're still not immune to criticism or people not liking their works. I feel like a lot of what Tanabe did through his career is a mixed bag. He did some good work at times, but a good few large missteps happened towards the end that ended up taking series into directions that hurt them horribly. Prime 4's open world and the focus on the Galactic Federation in that game genuinely harmed the feel and gameplay of the game.

I don't think all the Mario RPGs have to be the same. However, I feel like Paper Mario went too far into a direction that hurt the series. They took all the original ideas and characters and threw them away. Most of the NPCs in the series pretty much became generic Mario enemies and Toads. They wanted to change the direction of the RPG gameplay in Paper Mario, but still stuck to RPG formula with consumable attacks and items that were needed to beat bosses (which you had to collect and conserve or you're screwed). They got rid of the partner system which no other Mario RPG really had as well.

I like Origami King myself, and I think it was the best out of the three modern Paper Mario games. I liked how it pretty much made boss fights into puzzles without making me want to rip my hair out because I needed to conserve an item, or I missed an item. However, I still think that it would have been far better if they didn't keep the consumable attacks and if the NPCs actually had unique designs akin to the older games. If the partners were fleshed out more and meant something other than being characters who occasionally tagged along. If the areas were more creative in terms of introducing new races, or having interesting visuals to go along with them.

For a while this mindset actually almost tainted Mario and Luigi, the other Mario RPG. With Paper Jam, they did a crossover with Paper Mario, and the game followed the same rules that modern Paper Mario had to follow. All the unique characters and races were completely gone. The story was extremely bland. The area design was paint by numbers, and didn't stray into the territory that previous Mario and Luigi games went into. It was genuinely awful. Of course, Brothership would come out and (kind of) take the series back to how it was meant to be.. but that's a whole can of worms that I don't want to get into (mainly because I also really dislike Brothership).

@VoidofLight It's interesting then that the mindset of bland Paper Mario bled into a series the person tagged for ruining Paper Mario had little to do with.

Which then begs the question, was it part of the 2010s Mario steralisation that happened as a result of New Super Mario Bros.? Putting everything in the brand in one nice little conformist package.

Obviously it (Mostly) didnt last, what with new character designs, old games being remade etc, but still.

As for Prime 4, and this is me speaking a casual again, its fine. Did the Federation bother me? No. Do I think Metroid needs to be all about isolation and Samus on her own? No. The series certainly hasnt thought that since 2002 when Adam started yapping.

If we took Metroid down to what everything thinks, or wants, it to be, the series would be dead. There is only so much you can do with Samus goes to planet, kills Metroids, repeat. In fact, the genocide of Metroids in the second game led to this exact problem. Because now, unless you pull the contrived "Metroids are everywhere" card, you need some vehicle for them coming back....which is the people she gave the Baby to....which is the Federation. So now THEY become the crux of the new story telling, and again, have been since 2002.

In the Prime games, bar the first one, some race, or the Federation, or both, drives the story, the reason for Samus being there and what happens.

The reason Dark Samus was made is because you can't just repeat the formula of faceless aliens and Ridley, especially not in a universe that can stretch its legs, and when they established other bounty hunters like Sylux, more possibilities open up.

Were they used to the fullest? That's a matter of opinion. But characters like Sylux, Raven Beak, the Federation, they give Samus something to work with, even if they don't fully show it.

But I suppose this is down to how I personally view games, as individual products. Is Paper Mario Colour Splash a good game? Yeah, its funny, looks pretty, sounds good, fun to play through in short bursts. Is it a good Paper Mario game? Don't care. I haven't got that baggage. I liked TTYD too. And I started Paper Mario with Super on the Wii. So I have no frame of reference for what it "Should" be. Just what each game is.

@VoidofLight His long time second-in-command Risa Tabata was the producer of the TTYD Remake instead of him so it seems the series will be in familiar hands even without him.

With Paper Mario, I think TTYD will get a Switch 2 Edition in 2027. We saw what happened to Xenoblade, there were those rumours about XCX 60fps in 2025 and then in 2026 the Switch 2 Edition happened which gave 60fps. TTYD remake experienced a similar situation in 2024 but considering the longer timespan, I'm leaning towards it being more like Forgotten Land. Base game gets 4K 60fps and there's an an extra story campaign connected to Luigi's adventures.