I don't think they need to push the main games into the hands of more adopters in order to market the critters, either. I was inundated with art of the stoner cat when the games it's in came out, and I never played them. It's such a large and multifaceted IP that the most marketable creatures will always find a way into the cultural consciousness, even if the games don't sell super well. If the games do sell exceptionally well thanks to, say, record-high Switch sales and a global pandemic, that's just icing.
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Post your searing hot takes
- Thread starter Yung Dramps
- Start date
Pokemon is already the most redituable franchise in the world and the main games are a minimal fraction of that wealth. Pokemon doesn't see the main games as the main source of money but just an extra, and Nintendo fanboys are willing to buy everything from Pokemon no matter how expensive it is, so why pokemon would change that strategy?
"Nintendo Fanboys" as you call them aren't just an endless supply of money for them. For one, they have to actually buy them, which they may be hesitant to if they aren't too well off. $90 or even $60 is a lot to just spend on a game, but 9 $10 purchases over the course of four years seems a lot more reasonable, especially if those purchases aren't being done by the same person but that person and their family. But the main thing is that this assumes that either the amount of "Nintendo Fanboys" is static, or that TPC is fine with it being static. Even assuming the claim that "Nintendo Fanboys" are absolute loyalists able and willing to pay anything, this assumes that TPC wouldn't want more unlimited sources of money. TPC absolutely wants more of these "Nintendo Fanboys" as you call them. And it's pretty hard to get someone hooked on this franchise if they haven't interacted with its main form of media. Not impossible, as there are other ways to consume Pokemon media, and someone could potentially become a fan through pop culture osmosis, but making the games absurdly accessible is a super easy way to create more fans. This is a super easy way to make more "Nintendo Fanboys", and if they're half as simple and gullible as you say, this would be the objectively correct decision for business.
While i do understand your point, i also think that even if a lot of people start buying the game at 10 dollars, the wealth being better it's not necessarily true.
First of all, your potential clients on these main games are limited to the people who have buyed the Switch or the Switch 2, instead of the cellphone marketplace which is potentially much bigger because almost everyone has a decent phone in 2026. Second, to have the same profit selling your game to 60$ rather than 10$ you need 6 times more buyers, which is unrealistic considering the already astonishing numbers that pokemon sells on the Switch, being the most selled one Pokemon SV with 28 millions of units in a console that has sell 155 millions of copies already. Third, this model of business of easy access with microtransactions is already used on the smartphone games of pokemon, so it's not like they aren't doing it anyway
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The majority of OU tiers are either unfun or too radically different for most modern competitive Pokemon players. Almost every lower tier I've played is better than Adv, SV OU, or whatever the hell is going on in DPP. They are cool to watch though and relatively accessible so I understand why they're popular.
hot take: gen 1 is bad
Smash is a fun game but it's absolutely not worth getting into competitively
1) The community is bar none the worst gaming community out there. From them protecting sex pests, Leffen and making excuses for every kind of predator whilst punishing the victims in basically every situation, it's not only an extremely toxic environment, it's also genuinely unsafe. It's no wonder that it's the only competitive environment where there is maybe, at absolute best, one woman for every 200-300 men. Like these environments always have a surplus of men, but absolutely not to this degree. It makes sense however when you look at the community and their treatment of women, children and vulnerable people of any kind
2) It's not worth getting carpal tunnel and completely unfixable tendon issues for tournaments where you can get maybe a half eaten burger and some napkins for being the best player out of thousands of attendants for. Art, office work, most competitive games are detrimental for the wrists, but getting sick Fox combos is basically just a wrist destruction speedrun
Getting some friends together, playing some Slippy and taking it easy is fun. Getting competitive is awful. If you really need the fix, play Rivals of Aether competitive, the community is significantly less toxic and the game is much less taxing on the wrists. Or just go with any other fighting game, most of them have questionable communities too but not to the degree of Smash
1) The community is bar none the worst gaming community out there. From them protecting sex pests, Leffen and making excuses for every kind of predator whilst punishing the victims in basically every situation, it's not only an extremely toxic environment, it's also genuinely unsafe. It's no wonder that it's the only competitive environment where there is maybe, at absolute best, one woman for every 200-300 men. Like these environments always have a surplus of men, but absolutely not to this degree. It makes sense however when you look at the community and their treatment of women, children and vulnerable people of any kind
2) It's not worth getting carpal tunnel and completely unfixable tendon issues for tournaments where you can get maybe a half eaten burger and some napkins for being the best player out of thousands of attendants for. Art, office work, most competitive games are detrimental for the wrists, but getting sick Fox combos is basically just a wrist destruction speedrun
Getting some friends together, playing some Slippy and taking it easy is fun. Getting competitive is awful. If you really need the fix, play Rivals of Aether competitive, the community is significantly less toxic and the game is much less taxing on the wrists. Or just go with any other fighting game, most of them have questionable communities too but not to the degree of Smash
Nostalgia (if that's even the right word to talk about a game from 2013) might be clouding my judgment here, but I absolutely disagree.
I kinda see your point for some of the older tracks, but I still think that the majority of the soundtrack is at least solid. There are some songs I'd even consider great in their own right (Deadlocked, Hexagon Force, Theory of Everything just to name those). On top of that, Meltdown had Airborne Robots which I think rocks, and all three Subzero tracks are good imo.
And about your second point, I've played and replayed through the main game levels + Meltdown + Subzero so much I genuinely believe I could hum the majority of their songs, with okayish accuracy, because I like most of them.
I don't play Smash competitively but I feel like this take is like, almost a decade out of date. Smash TOs have worked really hard to ban sex pests, and afaik there have not been many major incidents since then. Certainly it has been a big problem over the years, but I think that's almost inevitable for a game that is explicitly designed for children. Like... we play competitive Pokemon, let's not throw too many stones from this very fragile house.
Melee has a handful of women in the Top 100 at least; I think it's like 5-10%? Kind of depressing in absolute terms, but it beats any fighting game I'm aware of. If you have examples I'd be really interested to hear actually, I really don't know. Maybe it's different at lower levels, but I dunno how you'd find data on that either. If I think of all the women I've personally met in the FGC, it's pretty even between Smash and not-Smash... although come to think of it, they all love anime fighters, so maybe the real winner here is ArcSys lol.
I found myself spending almost a full hour writing about my experience working with "get more women into STEM" type events, but at a certain point I just had to take a step back and be like "why am I writing a book in response to this Smash thing lol." Suffice is to say, I think there's a lot of good to be done in that space, and I also think we should expect really modest outcomes from them, even if they're done really well. If you're curious I can go into much more detail. This is a place where I actually think Pokemon/Smogon specifically has done a really great job, by the way! In some ways it's easier for us, but it also reflects a lot of very hard work from community leaders. I think it's fair to say that Smogon used to be a "one woman for every 300 men" type place, and it clearly is not now.
The controller thing sucks, but Smash players have gone way out of their way to create arcade-style controllers for this purpose. Kind of an unfortunate reality of sports. AFAIK this is only really an issue with Melee? Maybe Melee is just like, the football of esports.
My bigger problem with the competitive Smash community, particularly the Melee scene, is its bottom-up approach to enforcing its favored playstyles. Because the games weren't designed for super competitive play and are only occasionally balanced toward that end, the competitive scene relies much more on proprietary rules than balance patches to dictate how the game is and isn't played, and people can't really whinge at Sakurai about things they think are lame. The problem is that competitive gaming also has a culture of adapting over changing the rules, even when the thing being adapted to makes the game boring to watch and play, and the Smash scene is really hesitant to ban anything that isn't obviously game-breaking (plus a lot of things that are!) as a result. Consequently, when people in the scene are mad about a particular character, technique, or playstyle being "lame," their first response is to publicly shame and harass the people doing the thing until they either change or quit the scene. The most high-profile example of this in the Melee scene that I'm familiar with was Mango, Leffen, and others drumming up hatred for Hungrybox for years by constantly disrespecting him and complaining about his character/approach, and they've never been held accountable for this because they always stopped just short of outright telling people to harass him, even though the abuse he suffered was the direct result of the attitudes they normalized in the scene. It was also open season on anybody who played the Ice Climbers while tournament organizers were taking forever to ban wobbling, which resulted in almost all of them quietly quitting. This is a broader problem with competitive gaming, but it's especially prominent in Smash and was the main thing that drained my interest in the community.
If you want people to play a certain way, you change the rules to incentivize them to play that way. It's not the players' fault if the rules enable them to win in a way that is boring to watch and play. Until the Smash scene realizes this, it's always going to have glaring cultural problems that you have to ignore or deal with in order to be a fan.
If you want people to play a certain way, you change the rules to incentivize them to play that way. It's not the players' fault if the rules enable them to win in a way that is boring to watch and play. Until the Smash scene realizes this, it's always going to have glaring cultural problems that you have to ignore or deal with in order to be a fan.
papyrus is not the knight and dess isn't either. mew is.
Hippity Hoppity, these takes are on my property
- If your D&D characters keep dying every time you play in similar campaigns to one another, maybe it’s not your class’s fault after all
- There’s nothing wrong with getting on your phone if a movie really is just that boring to you (unless you’re in a theater obviously)
- People with different political beliefs can and often agree on a lot more than the media would have you think
- The Star Wars sequels were going to suck even without Disney’s involvement with the I.P.
- The golf courses are a far bigger issue in the push for accessible water supply than anything else I can think of
- Two people complementing each other well > “Opposites Attract” when it comes to relationships
- Over-saturation of the market is doing just as much, if not more damage to modern gaming than corporate greed has over time
- Your food preferences aren’t changing; several popular foods just aren’t as good as they used to be
Prep and matchup are overrated in pokemon. Obviously they are extremely important to consider, specially on the tournament scene, but people act all the time like a bad matchup is completely unwinnable and you can lose in team preview when thats almost never completely the case. Your preparation could be superior, but if your play isn't superior you will probably lose anyways
I can respect this take even as someone that puts a ton of weight into matchup variability. That may even explain why I can never get out low ladder. Jokes aside, I think it’s less that matchups aren’t important, and more than good play is demonstrated by players who are able to make the most of unfavorable situations. The game we play has a lot of 50/50 scenarios on top of just the inherent RNG present in the game but what sets a good player apart from a great player is that the great players either succeed in spite of bad luck or bad matchups, or are able to navigate the game state in such a way to where random elements are effectively eliminated as a factor.
iirc it's gotten a good bit better since melee was the game "in rotation" so to speak
like you'll find a good few women that are regarded highly, and the competitive community is. getting better? I don't remember how long it's been since Elegant and like. that fuckass predator CaptainZack got banned, but I think it's been a good while
the average pizza in nyc is better than the average pizza in philadelphia but philly's best pizza places are better than nyc's best
This one is interesting, it's been too long since I've had Philly pizza so idk whether you're right. I do think though that you really have to evaluate pizza by how available different stuff is. Like, in NYC you have 7-8/10 pizza available 24/7. For most of the US that's only available at like, one or two restaurants within 45 minutes. OTOH, NYC is so unimaginably huge that I'm not even sure how you would determine what its best pizza places are. Obviously this has been studied a lot, but food reviews in general are much more of a broad strokes thing.
I do have to rep New Haven apizza while I'm here btw. It's the perfect midpoint between NYC style and more of a straight up neapolitan pie. Despite what you read online I can attest that basically everyone orders it with mozzarella, but personally the "classic" pie with just red sauce and pecorino romano is still delicious. It's perfect for when your sinuses are already gunked up and you don't want to eat cheese.
He was right you guys......
I've just recently been made aware of people being upset at Rosalina's inclusion in Smash, and while I've seen some people claim this is misogyny, I think it is somewhat rational. The Mario franchise is the face of the gaming industry and she did play a big role in two beloved games, but besides that she isn't especially relevant to the series as a whole. While she isn't by any means a bad pick, I can understand wanting many other characters over her (If you want real misogyny related to her, don't worry. You have some in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie discourse over her "being too similar to Peach" as if a female character being "badass" (translation: powerful in any capacity) is the only character trait they can have).
There is however a huge stipulation to this, and I do believe that there are some people saying this because of misogyny, whether they realize it or not. I am confident in this because of the massive support for Waluigi in Smash that statistically probably overlaps with this. I think Waluigi does not deserve to be in Smash at all, and certainly not more than any other Mario character currently in Smash with the only exception maybe being Dr. Mario. You might say Piranha Plant and are probably right, but to be honest because of the context of Waluigi's incredible demand to be in Smash, Piranha Plant's inclusion was the funniest thing Smash has done with perhaps the exception of the implication that in Subspace Emissary, Dedede took one look at Master Hand and because of his experience in the subject instantly clocked him as being puppeteered. And even if you want another Mario character, even ignoring how uninteresting Waluigi is and how characters from the Mario RPG's such as Fawful, Geno, and Dimentio would be far more interesting, Kamek is an objectively better choice.
Let me ask you this. What has Waluigi done to deserve being in Smash? He has never made an appearance in a mainline game. I'd even go so far as to say the most notable thing about him is the push for him to be in Smash. He's a counterpart character to a counterpart character who was made solely because Wario didn't have a partner in Mario Tennis. This is who you want for Smash? What does he even have to turn into a moveset? Oh boy, I'm so exited to see what references they put to Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, the most important Waluigi has ever been to a game. But let's for a second say you want a representation for that type of stuff, an ambassador to the Mario sport games. We already have that. Daisy is as synonymous with those games as Waluigi is, and she at least made it into a mainline game, taking the place of Peach in Super Mario Land. How many people wanted her in Smash, huh? Daisy is a superior choice to Waluigi in every way, and the fact she didn't get a fraction of the hype that Waluigi did tells me all I need to know.
There is however a huge stipulation to this, and I do believe that there are some people saying this because of misogyny, whether they realize it or not. I am confident in this because of the massive support for Waluigi in Smash that statistically probably overlaps with this. I think Waluigi does not deserve to be in Smash at all, and certainly not more than any other Mario character currently in Smash with the only exception maybe being Dr. Mario. You might say Piranha Plant and are probably right, but to be honest because of the context of Waluigi's incredible demand to be in Smash, Piranha Plant's inclusion was the funniest thing Smash has done with perhaps the exception of the implication that in Subspace Emissary, Dedede took one look at Master Hand and because of his experience in the subject instantly clocked him as being puppeteered. And even if you want another Mario character, even ignoring how uninteresting Waluigi is and how characters from the Mario RPG's such as Fawful, Geno, and Dimentio would be far more interesting, Kamek is an objectively better choice.
Let me ask you this. What has Waluigi done to deserve being in Smash? He has never made an appearance in a mainline game. I'd even go so far as to say the most notable thing about him is the push for him to be in Smash. He's a counterpart character to a counterpart character who was made solely because Wario didn't have a partner in Mario Tennis. This is who you want for Smash? What does he even have to turn into a moveset? Oh boy, I'm so exited to see what references they put to Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, the most important Waluigi has ever been to a game. But let's for a second say you want a representation for that type of stuff, an ambassador to the Mario sport games. We already have that. Daisy is as synonymous with those games as Waluigi is, and she at least made it into a mainline game, taking the place of Peach in Super Mario Land. How many people wanted her in Smash, huh? Daisy is a superior choice to Waluigi in every way, and the fact she didn't get a fraction of the hype that Waluigi did tells me all I need to know.
I think it is reasonable to consider Waluigi to be the more intuitive choice for representing the Mario Sports subseries. Off the top of my head, his and Wario's antics are much of the intro cutscenes for Power Tennis and Aces, and there's an argument that Daisy originating in a platformer is a point against her for this role. While I wouldn't be opposed to having Daisy be the Mario Sports rep, I also wouldn't say that her current appearance as a moveset clone of SMB2-heavy Peach provides that. Give the Sports character some of their Strikers Charged nonsense or something.
There's a very real chance I'm projecting here (my top 2 wants are Isaac Golden Sun and Ray Mk.III), but I get the impression that people want to see assist trophies promoted to fully playable in later games. These are characters that the devs paid enough attention to to figure out a model and a couple attacks, but you'd really rather not be the full extent of a favourite character/game. Being an assist previously felt like it was the main reason Little Mac was exciting at the time. So in terms of putting Waluigi there as his own thing before Daisy, that decision was deferred to the Brawl devs.
Rosalina being in Smash is similar to something like a starter Pokémon being added in the sense that, while the so-called importance of a certain starter Pokémon might not be as high when the generation stops being current, their inclusion is meant to represent the era just as much as the character itself. I’ve personally never had an issues with Rosalina’s inclusion other than how busted Luma was in Smash 4.
I agree that Waluigi doesn't particularly deserve to be in, but neither did Daisy. I'm fine with her in, but she's not like a feature add. Like most Mario characters, they have ~2 meaningful personality traits and ~0 meaningful development or narrative relevance. They can both be spinoff representatives if you want them to be that, but Mario spinoffs aren't so important to need a Smash rep.
Mario spinoffs are generally middling, and the exceptions people point to (like Power Tennis) are generally at least 15 years old already. If a new Smash game comes out in 3 years, Mario Strikers Charged and Mario Sluggers will be about 20 years old, and Mario Power Tennis will be about 25 years. I have a lot of love for these excellent games and still play them today, but they're not some gaming cornerstone to need representation 20 years later.
Rosalina was very exciting as an exception to the middlingness of Mario characters. She is in a Mario game with genuine artistic value and thoroughly intertwined with that value. She has a complex, unique personality with a mix of obvious traits and more nebulous possibilities, and character development alongside future possibility for development.
Unfortunately, Nintendo has squandered that potential. Mario Galaxy 2 and Mario Kart Wii are faithful to her character, and it's cool to have her there, but Rosalina isn't really doing anything new here. After these games, though, her personality tends to be heavily diluted or gone. Smash making her fight with her own children is a lowlight. Rosalina is one of my favorite characters in fiction, but after these games, I just don't have as much point in seeing her around.
What specifically is there to be faithful on, or not? I'll give a primer on some of what makes Rosalina stand out, which future Rosalina versions often lack, for the audience at home. Because, yeah, she is too similar to Peach now. The problem is not that she was powerful - she always was. She's just different now, in a way I think is weaker. It's hard to not shout out Jacob Geller's great piece on Galaxy, but I'll add my own analysis too.
Do I think a future game (or movie) can ever integrate her well?
Yes. I think Mario Kart Wii does well.
In Mario Kart Wii, Rosalina eases off her seriousness a bit. She's as stiff as ever up there, and still an imposing physical presence, especially with her sweeping dress and heavyweight category. But she's excited to turn some of that focus into competing, with fewer stakes. She'll do a spin and giggle, echoing her relationship to childhood and emotional vulnerability, or give you a confident and subtly eager "Let's go." or "OK." She's very hard to unlock, requiring completing the Mirror Mode Grand Prix cups with star ratings, unless you have Super Mario Galaxy, which makes her feel like a 3rd party character doing her own thing, it's very sweet.
Out on the track, she looses up some more, giving your normal cheers when boosting or doing tricks, a tiny bit muted compared to other characters but clearly still having fun. Which is great! Even more serious self-contained people can have fun with others. And she even has Luma with her, which is not only just extremely cute, but reinforces their bond and making her just a bit different than the rest of the cast, which fits.
Compare the trailer.
First introduced by worriedly peeking out of a doorway. Is she scared, like Peach would be with Bowser near?
Framed as physically small and svelte, a princess that the monster tries to kidnap, like Peach would be?
Summons her wand (and ends the scene) with musical cues from Gusty Garden Galaxy, which is the brand-associated Mario Galaxy leitmotif but not one of her own themes, and not carrying the thematics of her own music? Instantly resorts to violence, more like movie Peach than her original (still powerful!) self?
Smirks to the camera as an explosion happens behind her, like a Marvel hero?
There's positives here too. In her physical movements, she's sudden and jerky, which I think is great. And I love how they handle the environment of the Comet Observatory. But my expectations are very tempered.
Mario spinoffs are generally middling, and the exceptions people point to (like Power Tennis) are generally at least 15 years old already. If a new Smash game comes out in 3 years, Mario Strikers Charged and Mario Sluggers will be about 20 years old, and Mario Power Tennis will be about 25 years. I have a lot of love for these excellent games and still play them today, but they're not some gaming cornerstone to need representation 20 years later.
Rosalina was very exciting as an exception to the middlingness of Mario characters. She is in a Mario game with genuine artistic value and thoroughly intertwined with that value. She has a complex, unique personality with a mix of obvious traits and more nebulous possibilities, and character development alongside future possibility for development.
Unfortunately, Nintendo has squandered that potential. Mario Galaxy 2 and Mario Kart Wii are faithful to her character, and it's cool to have her there, but Rosalina isn't really doing anything new here. After these games, though, her personality tends to be heavily diluted or gone. Smash making her fight with her own children is a lowlight. Rosalina is one of my favorite characters in fiction, but after these games, I just don't have as much point in seeing her around.
What specifically is there to be faithful on, or not? I'll give a primer on some of what makes Rosalina stand out, which future Rosalina versions often lack, for the audience at home. Because, yeah, she is too similar to Peach now. The problem is not that she was powerful - she always was. She's just different now, in a way I think is weaker. It's hard to not shout out Jacob Geller's great piece on Galaxy, but I'll add my own analysis too.
- Rosalina is reserved and focused. She is not shy, she's not timid or afraid, but she is restrained and controlled in gesturing, moving, and emoting. Her expression rarely changes. She's helpful, but not particularly social or effusive. Her speech is informative and gets to the point. She has Polari train you on using Star Bits instead of doing it herself. She often sends subtle signals, like her giggle. Her first reaction to meeting you is to only, uh, stop closing her eyes. Under pressure, attacked by Bowser or going to attack him, she is steady and cool-headed while focusing on her goal.
- Her physical traits support this. Her dress is a cold, electric blue like the glass often beneath her fleet. It's plain, single color, bar very small accents at the joints and her small brooch. Her crown's color is metallic and subtle. She's very tall, looming over you, which makes her restraint more obvious. Her hair hides part of her face. She hovers.
- That restraint makes her opposite explosive side shine. When she does express herself, or even move around, she makes a giant castle appear out of nowhere and refuses to elaborate, or jerks her arm upward to restore the Observatory to its sweeping, blazing comet form. The music, such an important part of Galaxy setting the scene, stops entirely to give her and her sound effects or short pieces full focus. She's a showstopper, she literally stops the show, the flow of the game. She's not reserved from a lack of passion, or lack of strength, or lack of anything else, she just keeps her cards close to her chest, which creates mystery and suspense. Her steady demeanor and willingness to go all out, both together, make her come across as very self-assured and self-confident without a hint of arrogance.
- Rosalina does her own thing. She's not a member of your squad, she's your ally. If anything, you're staying as her guest in her home. She's the protagonist of her own quest to recover the Grand Stars and repair the Comet Observatory, which gives her common interests with you, after which she amicably leaves you. She'd like to be nice and help Mario, but that is Mario's quest and less important to her than her focus, on being a mother to her Lumas.
- She has artistic grace with thematic sensibilities. Her Comet Observatory theme is an elegant, gentle, steady waltz. Her (many) other musical pieces, including the Gate, Luma, Sad Girl, and Family, are also slow and evocative, evoking home, childhood and the melancholy of losing it, or its hopeful, wonder-filled eye to the starry sky. She dedicates one room on her home to a library, and she expresses herself through a child's storybook. The most advanced observatory dome is the quiet, contemplative space of the Garden.
- All the above is splashed in emotional depth and humanized from her life of growing up and facing loss. She crossed two irrevocable thresholds - from a girl in a little home on Earth to a goddess traveling the distant stars, and, with her mother's passing, from her mother's daughter to a mother herself. Rosalina is drenched in duality. She is reserved and explosive. She's a human and a goddess. Her power is literally astronomical, but she can be tremendously emotionally vulnerable. She pours her heart out to you in her Storybook exactly the way she would - detached on the surface, yet utterly evocative in the sincerity of her devastation and, with the help of the Lumas, regrowth into new hope and happiness. She hasn't let go of her home on Earth or in the stars. She's complex and dynamic. She hasn't fully moved on from that loss - she still returns to her home every 100 years, and the Garden brings some of her old home on Earth with her. But she has found herself and found a good life with her Lumas.
Do I think a future game (or movie) can ever integrate her well?
Yes. I think Mario Kart Wii does well.
In Mario Kart Wii, Rosalina eases off her seriousness a bit. She's as stiff as ever up there, and still an imposing physical presence, especially with her sweeping dress and heavyweight category. But she's excited to turn some of that focus into competing, with fewer stakes. She'll do a spin and giggle, echoing her relationship to childhood and emotional vulnerability, or give you a confident and subtly eager "Let's go." or "OK." She's very hard to unlock, requiring completing the Mirror Mode Grand Prix cups with star ratings, unless you have Super Mario Galaxy, which makes her feel like a 3rd party character doing her own thing, it's very sweet.
Out on the track, she looses up some more, giving your normal cheers when boosting or doing tricks, a tiny bit muted compared to other characters but clearly still having fun. Which is great! Even more serious self-contained people can have fun with others. And she even has Luma with her, which is not only just extremely cute, but reinforces their bond and making her just a bit different than the rest of the cast, which fits.
Compare the trailer.
First introduced by worriedly peeking out of a doorway. Is she scared, like Peach would be with Bowser near?
Framed as physically small and svelte, a princess that the monster tries to kidnap, like Peach would be?
Summons her wand (and ends the scene) with musical cues from Gusty Garden Galaxy, which is the brand-associated Mario Galaxy leitmotif but not one of her own themes, and not carrying the thematics of her own music? Instantly resorts to violence, more like movie Peach than her original (still powerful!) self?
Smirks to the camera as an explosion happens behind her, like a Marvel hero?
There's positives here too. In her physical movements, she's sudden and jerky, which I think is great. And I love how they handle the environment of the Comet Observatory. But my expectations are very tempered.
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