Board 8 > The Mount Rushmore of: Bad Mario Games

(+) Yeah! (+)

Rules

1. You may vote up to 4 entries that fit the prompt.
2. No alts.
3. No deleting or editing posts; though, editing posts shortly after you post is fine.
4. If you change your vote, clearly indicate that you are changing a previous vote. Same for adding or subtracting picks.
5. In general, if there are two picks that can be considered the same product (i.e. Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle), I will combine them.
6. If a vote is vague, I will pick the first available choice that best matches the vote (i.e. "Mario" for Wii Games becomes Super Mario Galaxy).
7. I will post the parameters of each Rushmore topic. Other than that, feel free to vote however you like and based on any criteria that best fits the "Mount Rushmore" of that topic.
8. If a vote doesn't fit the topic, it will count as a blank vote.
9. You may nominate as much as you want and have an unlimited amount of seconds for established nominations.
10. Every Sunday, I'll post the schedule for next week. I will pick based on the number of nominations. Any ties will be determined by RNG.

Spreadsheet & Nominations

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aatA25pW6OsDn2RlAAGP1_GOGCMNvLLumAKckHOhtFk/edit?gid=1117984190#gid=1117984190

Last Topics Results

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d46c7b91.png
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/43bbe4e2.png

I thought this would be clear cut and, in some ways, it was. I was pretty impressed by the long list of those that didn't make it though!

Last 5 Rushmores

Video Games with Unusual Cartridge Colors: The Legend of Zelda / Pokemon RBY / Donkey Kong 64 / SNES Red Cartridge (Doom/Maximum Carnage)
The Twilight Zone Episodes: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet / Time Enough At Last / It's A Good Life / To Serve Man
GameFAQs Contest Match Pics: Melee vs Brawl (2010) / Sora vs Snake (2005) / Mario vs Crono (2005) / Spyro vs Morrigan (2002)
Star Trek Characters: Picard / Spock / Kirk / Data
Fictional Detectives: Sherlock Holmes / Hercule Poirot / Batman / Columbo

This Week's Rushmores

Thursday: New York City locations (9/11 special)
Friday: GameFAQs Contest Updates
Saturday: Sesame Street Songs
Sunday: Non-Trilogy Ace Attorney Cases

Next Themed Week: Fictional Characters based on Seven Deadly Sins (September 29 - October 5)

Today's Parameters

You must pick bad Mario video games.

What's considered a bad game is subjective. Bad could mean bad in terms of critic response, fanbase response, overall trajectory of the Mario franchise, personal opinion, etc.

Any game that takes place in the Mario universe or extended Mario universe (Yoshi, DK, etc.) is OK.

https://gamerant.com/worst-mario-games-of-all-time-metacritic/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Mario/comments/17bwo6q/all_mainline_games_ranked_by_metacritic_scores/
https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/the_15_worst_mario_video_games/s1__38716528
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls082225321/
https://www.ranker.com/list/worst-mario-games-of-all-time/ranker-games

Hotel Mario
Mario Is Missing
Mario's Time Machine
Super Mario Run

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Marios Time Machine
Paper Mario: Sticker Star

considered Super Paper Mario for the tenor wars but its a good game so

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Hotel Mario
Mario's Time Machine
Mario Teaches Typing
Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Mario is Missing is better than all these imhotbqh

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Marios Time Machine
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash

Although Sticker Star is a meme, it is (barely) positive on Metacritic and is a complete functional game. Ultra Smash is not, it was released incomplete which is very unusual for Nintendo as they were rushing it to release before the Switch came out.

LightningStrikes posted...

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Marios Time Machine
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash

Although Sticker Star is a meme, it is (barely) positive on Metacritic and is a complete functional game. Ultra Smash is not, it was released incomplete which is very unusual for Nintendo as they were rushing it to release before the Switch came out.

Man, whatever happened to the Nintendo Seal of Quality?!?

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Marios Time Machine
Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Super Mario Sunshine

Feels like Sunshine gets more hate than any of the others.

Hotel Mario
Mario Clash
Mario Party 10
Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Hotel Mario is the obvious one. Mario Clash represents the failure that was the Virtual Boy. Both Sticker Star and Mario Party 10 have to be on there for representing how bad both series had gotten. The earlier games were great and arguably among the best of their respective genres. Sticker Star and MP10 lost everything that made those games special and while they may not technically be worse than some other games, their impact/influence were far worse and combined with Color Splash and MP9 really gave the sense Nintendo didn't give a shit about what the fans wanted.

The educational games are bad, but I'll at least give them a pass for the direction they were trying to take.

Hotel Mario
Super Mario Bros. 2 (JPN)/The Lost Levels
Yoshi's New Island
Mario Party 10

yoshi's new island is a personal "i bought this and it was complete garbage" pick, lost levels is both legitimately bad and probably the most impactful failure of any of these, MP10 makes it above sticker star because mario party feels harder to mess up the way they did than the RPGs are

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Mario Party: Island Tour
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Marios Time Machine
Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Mario's Time Machine
Mario Party Advance

• Hotel Mario
• Mario Party Advance
• Mario's Time Machine
• Yoshi Topsy-Turvy

The meme one, the lowest Metacritic one, the worst edutainment one, and one of the bad extended universe ones.

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Mario Party Advance

I put Mario Party Advance over like 10 or Island Tour or whatever since apparently it reviewed worse and honestly a series like Mario Party on the GBA was always going to be a complete non-starter. Sticker Star meanwhile is one of the most infamous "real" Nintendo games of all time.

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing!
Marios Time Machine
Mario Party 9

Donkey Kong (Atari 2600)
Super Mario Bros. Special
Mario is Missing!
Hotel Mario

I have to imagine that people are unfamiliar with Super Mario Bros. Special

Hotel Mario
Mario Is Missing
Mario's Time Machine
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash

I feel weird about the prospect of including Sticker Star, because while it's flawed, it still feels competent. >>

Also sad I missed yesterday's. I like detectives. They're cool.

I get that Sticker Star isn't "bad" from a technical perspective, but it's a 1 seed in the category of "the people making this game don't understand why fans like this series," so it deserves inclusion for that (as well as making random battles actively detrimental to the player in an RPG).

Leonhart4 posted...

I get that Sticker Star isn't "bad" from a technical perspective, but it's a 1 seed in the category of "the people making this game don't understand why fans like this series," so it deserves inclusion for that (as well as making random battles actively detrimental to the player in an RPG).

I would make the argument that to fans of the Mario Sports games Ultra Smash is even more disappointing than Sticker Star is to Paper Mario fans. Like Sticker Star took the series in the wrong direction but it delivered on the basic mechanics and aesthetic enough to still get reasonable reviews at the time. Its shocking that Nintendo even released Ultra Smash.

Also change Marios Time Machine to Mario Party Advance.

Super Mario Bros. Special
Hotel Mario
Mario's Time Machine

Super Mario Bros. Special is a blight.

Mario's Time Machine is significantly worse than Mario Is Missing imo. You could make the argument that's designed to be an educational game, but it fails at being even that.

Hotel Mario
Mario's Time Machine
Super Mario Sunshine
Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Hard with Mario Party/Sports because the ceiling isnt exactly high with those games

we should probably have one mainline/RPG and Sticker Star sticks out like a sore thumb there

LightningStrikes posted...

Like Sticker Star took the series in the wrong direction but it delivered on the basic mechanics and aesthetic enough to still get reasonable reviews at the time.

I don't really care that it got barely passable reviews. "Bad" encompasses a lot more than "unplayable mess." There's an allowance for creators not understanding why fans like their content.

Leonhart4 posted...

There's an allowance for creators not understanding why fans like their content.

yeah like for final fantasy

I've only ever watched streamers play it, but I kinda unironically like Mario's characterization in Mario's Time Machine. He's so delightfully curious about everything.

pjbasis posted...

yeah like for final fantasy

And Kingdom Hearts, yes, 100%

Leonhart4 posted...

I get that Sticker Star isn't "bad" from a technical perspective, but it's a 1 seed in the category of "the people making this game don't understand why fans like this series," so it deserves inclusion for that (as well as making random battles actively detrimental to the player in an RPG).

I definitely understand that logic, it just feels weirdly dirty for me to adhere to it for my personal Rushmore. Maybe I'd feel stronger if this was a franchise I was particularly attached to outside of like two entries.

Sticker Star broke the mythos surrounding Miyamoto and Nintendo for me. There were always rumblings of that leading up to it, but the Sticker Star rollout, especially the mandate against edits of minions and generics, was huge and hasnt really recovered since.

Hotel Mario
Mario: The Lost Levels
Super Mario Run
Mario Party 10

I put Hotel Mario over the Edutainment because I feel like only one non-nintendo published mario game should be on the Mt. Rushmore, and the Edutainment games are less video games and more edutainment. And even if they fail at that, it's still edutainment more than a Mario Game. Lost levels is probably most people's least favorite mainline Mario Game. Mario Run is just awful and was actually made by Nintendo.

Nominate Edutainment Games

Hotel Mario
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash
Mario Party 10
Paper Mario: Sticker Star

re: Super Mario Bros. Special, it is a damn wonder that game plays faithfully on Sharp X1 at all. Hudson Soft magic at work.

Snake5555555555 posted...

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing!
Marios Time Machine
Mario Party 9

Change Mario Party 9 to Mario Party 10 since that's the one people are going with

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Marios Time Machine
Paper Mario: Sticker Star

LightningStrikes posted...

I would make the argument that to fans of the Mario Sports games Ultra Smash is even more disappointing than Sticker Star is to Paper Mario fans.

I'm not sure about general opinion you may be right but as someone who considers myself in both categories, I don't agree!

Also both 9 and 10 are fine games imo.

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Marios Time Machine
Super Mario Bros Special

Mario is Missing
Hotel Mario
Mario Party 10
Super Mario Sunshine

New Super Mario Bros. 2
Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Mario Party 10
Yoshi's New Island

Hotel Mario
Mario is Missing
Mario's Time Machine
Paper Mario: Sticker Star