discussion Generic human characters in Mario sport games?

For basic changes in Tennis Open compared with the old titles, I'd refresh this topic to talk about it.

Golf and Tennis series are mainly developed by Camelot, a subteam of Nintendo. A feature of these gams different from other Mario games is that, the main characters are not Mario or his close friend---but strangers.
Well, more clearly, the aim of staff is clearly that we should consider them as ourselves (much like Pokemon games), who strive to win a trophy in the world of sports. But the idea is not so flexible, since the characters are not so generic in face of Pokemon series and other Mario characters are so remarkable.

The outline of the main story usually goes like this: first of all "we" have to win the championship in "the world we live", then we can get the chance to "another world" where Mario and his friends exist and play with them. (uh, Mario should be from "our world" Italy actually, but that's not important.)
This makes a blind spot : although the young athletes are far away from Mushroom Kingdom, but in reality we players are already familiar with Mario. IF we just play for Mario, why don't we just buy other spinoffs but this game almost without Mario?

However, we shouldn't be biased to the Tennis/Golf athletes. We might be emotional in them, since we already pay lot of time with them. But the problem is that they aren't promised to be recurring in all future sport games (regardless of that the series itself changes different human players by game)

In the premise that the series shouldn't have added the "club story", there should be more better ways besides traditional Mario spinoffs where we just have to play as Mario characters. Rather than generic human, some human characters in Wario series (Mona, Syrup) are much more distinctive, and some one-game-only characters(eg, RPG partners) do fit more in Mario world than these athletes.
And because the series was born in GBC era, now some games are made for Mii where players can be "themselves" (eg, Fortune Street).


And according to the history, Tennis 64 was a notable point . The staff (Camelot) stuffed many human athlete characters along with Baby Mario in Golf 64, but suddenly in Tennis 64 they changed their mind and put other Mario characters/species (Birdo, Daisy, Waluigi) and make them recrurring. It's unkown why the two similar games have such two opposing rosters. If the athletes still appeared in Tennis 64 and be more recurring, we can see them in Olympics now.



Now the newest Mario Tennis Open shows that Nintendo have the interest to make more games, but this time they obviously decide to remove the club story settings. There is the problem that whether they shouldn't abandon the tranditions they made, and how to deal with the athlete characters since they won't appear in the next sequel?

I think we don't have to be left or right wing. There are still some neutral ways. For example, they can preserve the environment of "clubhouse" where Mario and friends pay visits, and the atheletes teach them how to play. Or the staff can make a recurring representive of athletes (eg, Gene, Plum) playable in all future Mario sport spinoff.

quote Charizard_2

But enough wih my stereotypes, I actually prefer the human athletes. It might just be because of the fact I play Pokemon as well. But honestly I agree with Nintendo making Mario the main character, the first time I played Mario Tennis GBA I was confused like crap.

The thing fans care more is the already-built Mario world and the money they cost.
It does feel like Pokemon. Or I bet it's more successful to make Pokemon(trainers)-Mario crossover sports if making new human characters is a bad idea.

I really like the Mii's in Mario Tennis Open. The outfits for them are really cool.

quote Kokoro

I don't really mind the generic human characters. I just don't play as them much.

That's another topic for the staff. They're officially classified to be with Mario (as they can't have own games), but their designs and appearances can't convince fans.

I think it brings about an interest element when you have one or two in a game. I would much rather a default, Nintendo character than Mii's however. Then again, I've never been a fan of them since day one.

Sonny was excellent in Mario Golf btw. One of my favorite characters too.

I liked the fact that there was human characters in Tennis, it breaks up the favorites and gives you a chance to use the human characters, should you choose to.

quote Aevers

Just keep them out of the main games and all will be good.

What's wrong Penn, don't you want Super Mario Adventure??