User:AgentMuffin

Hi! I'm Agent. I stumbled across this wiki around 2010, and have since consulted it frequently. I have Super Mario Wiki to thank for the depth of my love of the Mario franchise, and for introducing me to fan wikis. Having used such wikis extensively, I now feel equipped to give back to this one and its contributors, but don't hesitate to message me if I make a mistake.

My favorite subseries are Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Paper Mario, and Mario & Luigi. Though I'm generally gameplay-minded, I often appreciate when games put effort into other areas that the franchise typically doesn't focus on.

Mario games owned

This section shows what games I'm most familiar with, for credibility (and judgment of taste). Comments include completion progress, observations, and opinions; feel free to disagree.

Game	Comments
Super Mario 64 DS	Completed any% Development limitations make Super Mario 64 a loose translation of Mario gameplay into 3D space. New content rarely adds to the game. D-pad and Touch Screen controls both feel inaccurate. Minigames are a smart addition.
Mario Kart DS	Grand Prix completed Missions are a great component of singleplayer content and should return.
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time	Not completed Time travel theme has wasted potential. All locations but the hub world are in one time period. Aside from one time paradox with E. Gadd, story feels like a present-day war against the Shroobs, with the Baby Bros. tagging along (which Mario Kart has numbed me to). Though I usually enjoy Mario RPG stories, this one is so bleak that I felt deterred from playing.
New Super Mario Bros.	First game for a gaming console Mario Game completed 100% Solid Mario sidescroller, making good use of hardware capabilities introduced since the SNES. Featuring original music and bosses, it beats later New Super Mario Bros. games in many areas. That said, most idiosyncrasies stem from Super Mario 64 DS. New power-ups scream "This isn't your father's Super Mario Bros.!" but are rarely useful beyond secret exit artifice. Music is good, but use of "bah" samples is inexplicable.
Super Paper Mario	Completed any% Story and characters are memorable and multifaceted. Despite genre shift, Super Paper Mario preserves Paper Mario charm and many staples. However, most humor falls flat. Level design is questionable, especially with scenarios designed to try the player's patience. Graphics are controversial; I personally like them. Music is fantastic and emotionally varied.
Super Mario Galaxy	Completed 100% Story, characters, innovation, creativity, and orchestra elevate Super Mario Galaxy beyond other Mario platformers. Among the best atmosphere, cinematics, and grandeur in the franchise. Gravity mechanics are brilliant, still brimming with potential after games' worth of exploration. Level design feels more primitive than that of successors, but rapid-fire variety between planetoids makes up for it.
Mario Kart Wii	Grand Prix completed
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story	Not completed Perhaps the best Mario & Luigi game, with memorable story, characters, and locations as expected. Played until just before final battle. Bowser gameplay is well-executed. Sidescrolling levels and Giant Battles are fun additions, but didn't need to return in future games. Though music obviously climaxes with "In The Final", the rest is also top-tier.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii	Completed 100% Returning core mechanics are stunted from prior depth. Whereas 1990's Super Mario World is fully designed around the Spin Jump and Yoshi, 2009's New Super Mario Bros. Wii includes them in shallow, ineffectual forms, relegating them to level gimmicks. Motion control mostly feels natural. Air Twirl is a good crutch. Multiplayer becomes chaotic easily. Players frequently get in each other's way, and it's easier to enter a Bubble than to gain practice by attempting a difficult platforming challenge. Bubbles also home in poorly on other players, leading to inefficient waggle. Free-for-All and Coin Battle are smart inclusions.
Super Mario Galaxy 2	Completed any% Tradeoff of the Super Mario Galaxy identity for more consistent level design, theming more galaxies after gameplay mechanics. Space backgrounds and symphonic music are less common, and the game is bursting with tutorial features. Starship Mario is less obtuse than Comet Observatory, and makes up for weaker ambiance by providing an official 3D model of Paper Mario's head. At its blandest, Super Mario Galaxy 2 feels like a New Super Mario Bros. game made in a Super Mario Galaxy level editor. At its best, it surpasses the original. Which game one will prefer comes down to what aspects they value most in a Mario game.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem	Completed any% Oft-overlooked micromanagement puzzle game, with good amount of content and goal variety. Difficulty spikes in Cosmic Adventure. Music peaks with arrangements and marches.
Super Mario 3D Land	Completed 100% Fun, faithful translation of Mario gameplay into 3D space, with some Super Mario Galaxy flair and creativity. Feels like a natural evolution of Super Mario Galaxy 2. Excellent New Super Mario Bros. alternative. Feels designed around the Nintendo 3DS's capabilities and limitations. Optical illusion bonus rooms are among the best uses of stereoscopic 3D on the system. Abstracting world themes in favor of level theme variety is a good carryover. 100% completion is brought down by requirement of completing all levels with both Mario and Luigi.
Mario Kart 7	Grand Prix completed with 3 stars Streamlined and plentiful Tricks, and the addition of underwater driving and gliding, make Mario Kart 7 feel more like a Mario racing game. Vehicle customization is also a great addition.
New Super Mario Bros. 2	Solo Play completed any% Coin theme has wasted potential. Rather than accommodating Wario or a Coin shop system, it just lowers the difficulty excessively. DLC costs real money in a game based on collecting in-game currency. Music suffers from recycled tracks and overuse of "bah" samples.
Paper Mario: Sticker Star	Not completed Worst Paper Mario game, completely missing the point. Bare-minimum story, generic character design, and recycled location theming are sticking points. Lack of unique battle rewards such as Experience Points make battles worthless. Overabundant Coins and Battle Stickers worsen this and destroy in-game economy. Better stealth game than RPG. Thing puzzles are often obtuse and require backtracking. Graphics are good, if overly literal.
New Super Mario Bros. U	Story Mode completed 100% Story Mode is more of the same, although Peach's Castle is a cool final world. Boost Mode makes GamePad nearly useless in multiplayer. Reaction times rarely allow Boost Mode player's actions to help. It'd be better if TV players could see where stylus is hovering, were this possible. Challenge Mode is a great addition, but name doesn't lie. Boost Rush is a fun idea.
Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon	Not played
Super Mario 3D World	Completed any% Conflicted between liking Super Mario 3D Land gameplay style, believing it fits best on Nintendo 3DS, and expecting more grandiose 3D Mario games on home console. Level design philosophy has finally found its niche. 3D gives multiplayer space to breathe, compared to New Super Mario Bros. games'. Crown mechanic is genius, giving points purpose and encouraging players to grab collectibles that would otherwise be ignored.
Mario Kart 8	Grand Prix completed with 3 stars Several strange decisions hinder Mario Kart 8 from being a shoo-in for best Mario Kart. Coins in the item roulette, dragged items filling the slot, and Battle Mode reusing Grand Prix tracks are inexplicable. Antigravity, realtime Lakitu respawns, and 200cc engine class are fantastic additions. Course design and music are phenomenal, especially in original DLC courses.
Super Mario Maker	Received 200+ stars Course Maker makes fantastic, intuitive use of GamePad. For a game I've always wanted, I find it surprisingly easy to get Maker's block. Some easter eggs, such as Flies that start Gnat Attack and rare lose-a-life sound clips, quickly become annoyances. Incentive to play others' levels should be stronger. Online features would also benefit from other level discovery modes.
Super Mario Odyssey	Least favorite platformer Completed any% Power Moons are overabundant, bombastic, repetitive, and tedious to collect, and Super Mario Odyssey offers little other content. This alone ruins the game for me; I felt fatigued trying to reach 100% completion. Enjoyed completing boss kingdoms, as amounts of collectibles were much more reasonable. Movement is trivial to optimize with singular Throw-Dive-Bounce combo. This encourages skipping through structured platforming challenges, which are the entire point of the series, yet are largely boxed into instanced side areas. Changes to kingdoms arise on event flags tangentially related to player actions, weakening sense of impact on the world; as do gated sets of Power Moons that require re-exploring trodden ground. Defeating Topper in Cap Kingdom spawns transcontinental power lines, despite Bonneton being a shipping center replete with airships. Hariet's defeat cues Inverted Pyramid to rise. Moon Rocks become usable for no story reason. Time investment is often demanded over skill. Multiple Sand Kingdom objectives require waddling across the flat, empty desert with no challenges along the way. One Wooded Kingdom objective requires shooting 500 Coins at a plant one-by-one. Each such objective wastes several minutes. Cutscenes for collecting and depositing every Power Moon waste over a cumulative hour. Gameplay loop isn't designed for long TV Mode play sessions, but motion control necessitates using this or Tabletop Mode to avoid shaking the whole Nintendo Switch. Motion control is mostly waggle to make various moves waste less time. Fastest way across ground is to waggle constantly while Rolling, making optimal movement feel strenuous. Many Capture targets have no fast movement options, but must still be moved great distances for various objectives. Music is unmemorable with exceptions.
Super Mario Maker 2	Story Mode completed any% N/A Maker points Course Maker suffers from Nintendo Switch's lack of stylus. Stick-and-button controls are as serviceable as possible. Schism between returning Game Styles and Super Mario 3D World is disappointing. Course parts like Ant Troopers, Fire Bros., Porcupuffers, Track Blocks, and Mushroom Trampolines shouldn't be exclusive to the new Game Style, whether due to appearing in earlier represented games, not being notable or existent aspects of Super Mario 3D World, or seeming trivial to implement into other Game Styles. Story Mode's use of Coins puts New Super Mario Bros. 2 to shame, but seems derivative of Super Mario Run. Overworld gameplay feels railroaded, with most areas locked behind arbitrary event flags. Some Story Mode jobs have questionable level design quality. New music is great. Love having Course Maker arrangements of Super Mario 3D World tracks.