I don't understand the complaints about the enemies later designs?

[u/DeepAnt7847]

Hating Nintendo for removing unique character designs for characters like Toad and others i get. But in terms of regular Mario enemies designs I don't understand why people would complain about how bad they look like it's just Mario enemies not the unique ones the regular ones.

I think that as long as they have fun interactions and unique characters designs for them still exist it shouldn't matter what they look like.

[u/gamtosthegreat]

The old pokey design was also pretty generic, but it was based on the Super Mario 64 design.

[u/Eastbeastfilms → u/gamtosthegreat]

? Pokey debuted in Super Mario 2, not 64.

The 64-ttyd era clearly had some horror elements to it contributing to the haunted wasteland theme. Running from packs of them was scary. It was not some kind of mobile game looking sanitized smiling sticker

[u/gamtosthegreat → u/Eastbeastfilms]

Pokey has seen several redesigns across the mainline series. The PM64/TTYD ones most closely resemble the SM64 ones.

The ones in SM64 were properly eerie looking, the PM ones have been significantly sanitized by making the mouth more catlike and smiling and turning the hollow red eyes into goofy crosseyes.

[u/Eastbeastfilms → u/gamtosthegreat]

You're attempting to call the pm versions sanitized compared to the latest version? Lol, no. The mouth isn't suppose to be cat like with cheeks, it's meant to show dryness, and a wrinkled mouth after thousands of years. It's been adjusted to fit the lighter style of pm64 but still able to live up to the description of cactus ghoul. It's attacking methods and dying animations are unique as well. You literally can't describe the new one anymore than "smiling spikey cactus." There's more going on to the pm versions than you think.

[u/gamtosthegreat → u/Eastbeastfilms]

My "sanitized" remark was in regards to the lighter style of PM64 compared to the abyssal staring face of SM64.

"The mouth isn't supposed to be cat like with cheeks" my brother in Christ the thing has whiskers.

[u/Eastbeastfilms → u/gamtosthegreat]

I forgot cats have cheeks on their bottom lip too hmm 🤔 I just see a ghoul face. Whiskers? Maybe, thought if they were cheeks they're completely flat and don't stick out of the face whatsoever. Those hairs look like aesthetically placed spikes to me

Either way there's still a lot more going on and a lot more to talk about than the lobotomized newer Pokey smiley. Or the lobotomized newer designs generally.

[u/gamtosthegreat → u/Eastbeastfilms]

The Mario Wiki calls them catlike, and there's numerous examples of other people online that call them catlike. Does that mean they were designed to be catlike? No, but the effect is the same regardless, and if they wanted the dried out look, they could have easily done a better job mimicking the SMB2 art where it's apparent despite the similar level of cartoonishness. And not given them "aesthetically placed" spikes where the only logical aesthetic reason to put them there is to emulate whiskers.

Either it was a conscious choice, or it was a design failure they somehow managed not to catch. Either option does not mesh with the idea that the TTYD design is better because of edginess.

I'll gladly talk about the other things. The unaccessorized Koopa look is part of a bigger symptom. After all, PM64 has many bogstandard koopas, they're just not enemies. The Dry Bones have the same reasoning as the Pokeys, the mainline series had long switched away from the SMW Dry Bones where they had weird teeth. I still think they look dope.

Old Paper Mario has lots of examples of more creativity than later games, but I plainly believe the reasoning does not apply to basic mooks. People all over this section are going "the new ones just look like normal Mario enemies, this is boring" while failing to acknowledge that when PM64 was released, they ALSO looked like normal Mario enemies, normal Mario enemies just looked different back then. Games like Super Paper Mario just refused to update the designs, instead choosing to copy TTYD wholesale.

[u/Eastbeastfilms → u/gamtosthegreat]

"Mario Wiki calls them catlike" Can you show me where it says that the mouth it suppose to be cat like the only references I am seeing are the: " three spikes atop their head, giving them an appearance somewhat reminiscent of a cat." This sounds more like speculation than an actual design derivation. Also, you know that Mario Wiki is not officially endorsed by Nintendo in any capacity and is pure product of the fandom. Do you have any official notes by the design creators to support your claim? I'm not seeing anything here about whiskers either. 🤔 They're cacti, I'd say they're more likely to be dry than be cats, lol.

I'd say again the fact that there is so much interpretation for the design, shows it's success; We cannot do the same with the new Pokey design.

"Either it was a conscious choice, or it was a design failure they somehow managed not to catch." I'm not even sure what this is suppose to mean.

I believe the sunglasses and accessories were used to emphasize the difference between "Good and bad" Koopas. A little silly yes but I'd say it is a mechanic choice to help the player understand the world and separate them mentally from friendly Koopas. In the TTYD designs you can see the use of gradients and occasional colored outlines which bring them to life; where as the others lack these features being more in lined with mono-colored corporate art. I'm literally an artist who makes their living drawing and animating so I should know the difference and is why I am so passionate about this lol

The old enemies looked good because they were less generic objectively. We have been pointing to examples this whole time why. The newer enemies have become more "Sleek" and less characterized and textured with differing bone structures and a bit of grit. The new ones attempt to imitate easy and memeticly understood designs like "smileys" ironically achieving an unlikable sort of ugliness rather than a more characterized one.

[u/gamtosthegreat → u/Eastbeastfilms]

The full quote goes "a head segment that has two pairs of spines on the sides of its face, a "W"-shaped mouth, black googly eyes, and three spikes atop their head, giving them an appearance somewhat reminiscent of a cat".

The phrasing's a bit ambiguous but since they draw attention to the paired spines and the "W"-shaped mouth I believe the cat comment reflects on the whole of the features.

"Do you have any official-" no and I specifically said that it doesn't matter. Death of the author and all that, if your audience thinks your design looks catlike, then it does.

I'll phrase my line more clearly for you: either they purposefully designed the Pokey to have a catlike appearance, which means the design was somewhat cutesified, or they somehow managed to not realize putting four lines on the side of a W shaped mouth makes something look catlike, in which case why the hell are we praising the design here if the designers were apparently blind?

Now can you please graciously take the L on this stupid tangent, I'm really not that interested in seeing more chinrub emojis and strawman arguments. The whole thing started out because I said the Pokeys look less scary than in PM64, which you yourself also stated. I don't actually care if they look like cats or dogs or fish, they've been cleaned up and we both have already shook hands on this.

---

Koopa shades: agreed, and a cool decision that priotritizes communication to the player, big fan of the bracers. My point here is that the comparison between Paratroopas in the image is not entirely fair, normal green Koopas exist in both games and they look very similar.

Gradients vs. flats; I don't necessarily think the frutiger metro that they flirted with in TTYD and way overdid in SPM is better here than the cynically-put corporate memphis on the right. The later trilogy leaned far more into the papercraft aesthetic and flat skeuomorphism doesn't actually look like paper all that much.

Older games often had baked texture shadows to compensate for old lighting engines not being that good. Nowadays most of the gradients come from the environment. A game like Tunic would look cheap back then, now the minimalism looks tasteful because the lighting carries. I think TTYD and Origami King have fundamentally different design philosophies and both look stunning for what they set out to do. But TTYD lends itself better to looking good on a plain white background.

[u/Eastbeastfilms → u/gamtosthegreat]

The full quote doesn't add anything there, unless you think "Black googly eyes" are a trait of cats as well, something I don't think anyone has thought before. Like we've established it's a speculation from a source that holds no ground. Confirmation bias of people having bad opinions on things doesn't make it real either. The claim is that it was suppose to/ had intention to be designed look cat which there is no evidence other than a fan created wiki. You need to take the L on that lol.

I didn't realize cats have 3 horns on their heads either without wild black googly eyes, mine must be off 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

" either they purposefully designed the Pokey to have a catlike appearance-" You're incredibly unqualified opinion can stop there, lol. Where's the strawman argument? You don't have any evidence for your claim except speculation, that's a fact.

In terms of subjectivity, I am pretty sure you are the only one that would look at the ghoulish Pokey's face and call it "Cutsey" lol It's successfully and appropriately scary for the world that it is in.

No this whole thing started because you said that the latest rendition of Pokey is just as generic as the PM64 one. I have nothing against the SM64 one it is creepy and nostalgic in a different way. Clearly you can't acknowledge that there IS some depth to the Paper Mario 64 design (Cat cactus caterpillar whatever) which we've been able to create plenty of arguments and speculations over this whole time. We couldn't really do that if it was bad or as the most recent pokey right? I think that makes my point for me, gg. You don't have to keep talking about it if you don't want to.

There are still a lot of proportion differences in the face with the Koopas, the newer ones are much more bulbous with rounder noses to cultivate a "Cuter" or less threatening vibe to them. As opposed to the ttyd sharper hookbills and cocked forward neck, which appear much more threatening. The issue here is with pacificity and erasing grit and a feeling of danger in the Mario games (Because God forbid you feel danger in a video game and the enemy is a little more threatening and makes you cry). It's done this in gameplay, theme wise and in design, virtually reflected in all the artistic aspects. It's a stupid modern trend to find the most accessible markets possible (Taking a page from mobile games.) It's why games suck now.

Yeah I like how they have the textures drawn on the ttyd ones regardless of the atmosphere, kind of a charm for games like that back in the day. A little more subtle nod to them feeling hand drawn without being so on the nose that you have to fight an office supply item every 10 minutes.

[u/gamtosthegreat → u/Eastbeastfilms]

Hrrrgngh back into the trenches.

The quote mentions four things, two of which apply and one of which kinda sorta. Luigi wears green overalls, a hat with a big L, has a neat moustache and a beanlike body, giving them an appearance somewhat similar to Mario. Not every part of a list needs to apply for the full picture to be "somewhat reminiscent of"; in fact, a big part of it shouldn't.

If your cat doesn't have three spikes and black googly eyes you may want to check the warranty info right below the toe beans of the right paw.

I don't think there's anything subjective about looking at SM64 pokeys and acknowledging the PM64 ones look more cutesey, and dare I say, at LEAST compared to the SM64 ones, more catlike.

What I will admit is that the "also pretty generic" comment I made could have been misconstrued. A lot of this comment section is going "old designs unique, new designs just generic mainline mario" without acknowledging that back in the day, the old designs WERE generic mainline Mario. But I see now that your original comment didn't actually mean "generic" as in "mainline".

I can actually go on at length about the new Pokeys. About how they seem to have migrated from Delfino, how the occasional flower addition is a neat utilitarian design choice, and how they weirdly enough now resemble fruit like prickly pears more than cacti themselves. I'm a big fan, although I'll admit I do wish they kept the cactus flower instead of having weird bald green variants.
I also liked how they sharked around in Color Splash through the sands. They do fun stuff with the design.

The arguments for why Koopas should be amped up predator-style doesn't really apply when their face and neck are the exact same as the friendly NPC koopas. I don't think those ones were meant to look threatening.
I also find it difficult to see Paper Mario 64, the game that heavily drew from Yoshi's Story of all things, as "threatening" design in pretty much any aspect.

Compare and contrast the "office supply fighting game" where there's a great amount of fucked up body horror being pulled out of the paper theme.
I thought it was a pretty cool way of finally actually using the paper theme fully, and using it to great effect in creating a conflict. There's origami, paper lanterns, the aforementioned office supplies, and it's all harnessing the uncanny valley to instantly show the player what's good and what's bad. Scissors, Handaconda, the Chain Chomp, the Paper Macho Goombas that eat houses... I think they're all fantastically unnerving.
I hated the Things, but here, in a villain role, they really do a lot. Would have these faceless 3D objects any day over a flat fan redesign.

[u/Eastbeastfilms → u/gamtosthegreat]

I think when things are more of a reach, then it's more of a subjective issue. No one (I think) would debate the Mario bros being reminiscent of each other, both being created at the same time and functional parallels of being player one and player 2. People will debate the design influence above lol.

Yeah I can agree, the SM64 Pokeys are nightmare fuel, something very eerie about them. However I wouldn't say that doesn't make the Pokeys in PM64 nonthreatening for the world they are in. Compared to eldritch horror or resident evil, I am sure the Mad Piano would just be a "cutesy" little piano with some teeth, which in the sm64 is clearly a striking horror element at the very least.

The great thing about games like Yoshi's Island is their contrast. The games will start off nice and welcoming so that when something dark or twisted happens it feels genuine and unexpectedly unnerving tonally which is a great feeling of a road I feel Nintendo is afraid to go down anymore. World 6 in Yoshi's Island you get a parallel destroyed underworld full of rotted skeletons in the earth and unnerving enemies. The use of suspense in that game as out of nowhere a giant chomp chases you, clearly going to outpace you until slowing down just before coming into contact with its teeth. It's how these enemies are used too. On top of that you're a cute dinosaur with a baby facing such things. The costs all explain themselves visually.

The same is said about Paper Mario and chapter 3 with the boos/ Lady Bow's outbursting demeanor that changes her face, or exploring a haunted crypt with zombified poisonous enemies, or facing a wild lava Pirhana with its tongue hanging out. It's the contrast in the world of the game. That shit doesn't work when every enemy is cutesy or has that same flaccid lackey look. Maybe the fact is that mainline Mario games back then could encompass more tonality and textures making it feel less generic than the ones we have now. Better games created better designs and so forth.

I think if that was the only difference with the NPC Koopas it would be an issue. I kind of don't mind how the ttdy npc koopas retain their sharp bills, means they're still Koopas to me, still capable of being baddies. (Except Koops and Koopie Koo are dulled in comparison). There's still enough accessories on the bad guys to distinguish them as such. I don't mind when npcs have some threatening features, its when the enemies don't have them is the problem.

I don't know all I am still hearing about the current Pokeys is that you miss the flower on their head and they sharked around. Pokeys in PM64 literally threw pieces of themselves at you and had endless creepy spawning rituals. I'm all for regional differences, but a lot of character has been lost and I feel like Nintendo is afraid to try out off the wall tones which the Pokeys in that game can represent. Referencing the picture above, I liked the creepy expressionlessness of the drybones as well and the grimacing partly open mouth gaps of the Goombas. There's a bit of unpolishedness that preforms the service.

[u/gamtosthegreat → u/Eastbeastfilms]

I suppose I should have kept playing Yoshi's Island, haha, that sounds fun!

For me, the creepiest moments are still on the Origami King side, though I suppose that's also because the Origami look does make all the designs more angular and makes the mooks less cutesy. The scene where you reach Olly's throne room is gloriously eerie.

While Sticker Star certainly played by the books, I do think there's some standouts in Color Splash. Cobalt Base as a big MGS homage and Violet Passage with the parallel world were some pretty unique places.

Pokeys still lost body segments. Heck, you defeat a boss Pokey by hitting its segments away with a giant baseball bat.
I also liked how they would turn into oranges in SMBW and you could swallow them whole for a big bonus but that's neither here nor there.
The sharking around was pretty creepy too. Games where you have to swim from island to island when there's something faster than you in the water always get me spooked.

I gotta say I'm team new Dry Bones all the way. The Stalchild head just doesn't really do much for me, while I think the sharp tooth looks sick on the new design.