Ankos

To me the big thing other Mario games have over SML2 is physics, which makes them better for long term play, like speedrunning or other player created challenges. Level design could be better, but it's still pretty good in SML2. I'd say that if I were new to the Mario series and played through each game once, and never played them again, I'd say SML2 is better than SMB1 and a lot better than SMB the Lost Levels. If you plan to replay the games a lot, then I don't think it is as good as SMB1

If you are just into general Retro gaming videos, not specifically collecting, then check out Stop Skeletons from Fighting and St1ka. They seem pretty passionate about the games they review, and they seem to pick out some pretty interesting ones. Oh, and Basement Brothers if you like old Japanese computer games. I'd also give a soft recommendation to Mike TheGamerGuy. He is still improving in quality, but he has quite a few videos I really like, like his video on the FDS. He also covers some unlicensed/bootleg games, which are the sort of thing I like to collect. Not all of his videos are amazing, but some of them I find pretty captivating. As for channels that specialize in collecting games, I can't think of any. That sounds like a pretty hard topic to make a quality YouTube channel around

My local flea market used to sell Dancing Pikachus. The packaging looked different though

In my head I was thinking of sidescrollers, but yeah you are correct in that those are platformers. I'd still say that they play differently enough from the Super Mario games that I'd call them a different genre though

Probably speedrunners. Just because it has lots of cool movement tricks to learn, and has both beginner and advanced categories categorizes for speedrunning, so it overall is very well set up for that sort of thing

The mainline Mario platformers are a subset of the Mario series called the "Super Mario" games. The first Mario games were not platformers, they were Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. I'm not saying any game that has Mario in it is a Mario game, but when its clear that it was branded around him I think it should count. Keep in mind, the title of this thread is "Franchises with the Lowest Percentage of Bad Entries", so the franchise should be judged as a whole. Throwing out half a franchise's games just because those aren't the games that represented your experience with it is in my opinion giving that franchise too much slack. Also, I would argue that Super Mario Bros Special is worse than NSMB DS. NSMB DS was the first 2D Mario game to have wall jumping (unless you count clipping into the wall in older entries as wall jumping) and triple jumping, it introduced fun new movement mechanics, and had some pretty cool power-ups. I don't think that it is an alltime classic of the series, but it really isn't a bad game

They star Mario and have his name in their titles. That's more than enough for me to count them. They're spinoffs, but I think that spinoffs should count. If I was kid growing up on Mario titles and was handed one of those, I'd call it a Mario game. I could use my hindsight as an adult to find some way to justify not counting them, but that is not how I would've experienced them if I was the target audience when the games first came out, so I feel like it'd make more sense to count them than to not

For how many things the Mario series has tried, it is amazing it does not have more bad games. What would be the obvious ones? Some educational stuff and Hotel Mario are the ones that jump out at me the most

It seems like a series with no bad entries generally isn't a super ambitious series. F-Zero and Kirby were not exactly known for having games super outside the box for them. Would Tetris count for this? There are lots of Tetris games, and I don't think many are "bad" just not innovative. It seems like the greatest series that has been around for a while will have a few bad entries because their games tried new things, sometimes finding stuff that worked, and sometimes creating something that would be bad in an interesting way

Something else about Smash is that it is one of those series where some of the charm comes from the player instead of just playing it default. A few of its entries have strong modding scenes, players usually look for their own way to play the game instead of just rolling with default settings and single player, and it gives the player the ability to have their own artistic creations starting in Brawl through stage creators. I think that a series that got better due to enthusiasts of the series should be judged by its form after fans got involved. Just to level the playing field a bit between older and newer games

Smash is a weird case. On the one hand, I think that I can enjoy every entry in the series to some extent, on the other hand I view some changes from title to title to be downgrades. Me personally, I wouldn't count Smash as a series that has enough entries to make it established enough for the topic. To me a series should have at least ten entries total, and should have spinoffs to be considered established. Otherwise there is just not enough room for things to go catastrophically wrong. F-Zero might be a contender for this list as well, but I have not played the series so I can't say for certain

Kirby is the water with no ice of Nintendo. It isn't going to ever be terrible, but it can be uninteresting. Sometimes it is pleasant. If you trim the Mario series down to just "Super Mario" games, then it similarly isn't going to have many bad entries (maybe Super Mario Bros Special) though I personally think it is sort of cheating to just give Mario a free pass on almost every single spinoff the series had. If you do that, then you may as well just say Metroid and only count the 2D platformers

If we are talking just overall quality, and not a for it's time viewpoint then I'd say it is better than some Mario games on NES. I'd rather play it than the educational games. I'd even say it is better than some Super Mario games, I think it is is definitely better than Super Mario Bros the Lost Levels and maybe SMB1. What do they have over it? Color and better physics? SML2 has themed worlds, multiple bosses, and more power ups. It isn't exactly the hardest Mario game ever, but I don't think it needs to be. The levels are a bit short but they are pretty interesting. When I say better I am purely talking about how much interest I had in playing it when I played it for the first time. If we are talking about the game's overall legacy, then I don't think I'd put it above SMB the Lost Levels. I would call that greatness, not betterness though. I also think that SMB and SMB the Lost Levels are more captivating on repeat playings

Some consoles are really hard to full set even though they have a small library. The Super A'Can comes to mind

I'm more into newer Megaman stuff but the game is still pretty fun, and something I'd recommend more people try out. 8/10

Unreleased stuff, or stuff that was never supposed to have a widespread release can be an interesting story, but it does not fit in with stuff like Little Samson. Earthbound being on a bunch of rarest games ever lists seems weird to me. It's rare, but there is definitely a lot of rarer stuff, even when limiting it to attempts at mainstream releases

A lot of really rare Atari stuff is rare, but not due to sales figures. Just because of how many obscure games got shadow released for it, because licensing wasn't much of a thing for the console. I still think that some Atari games absolutely fall into the same category as Little Samson or Earthbound. Swordquest Waterworld is rare and was straight up made by Atari. I would say it fits the category that a lot of more mainstream rare stuff falls into better than games like Red Sea Crossing, which had barely any copies made. Rarity due to production numbers and rarity due to sales I think is an important distinction, though if we are just talking rare in general, then I do agree that Atari has plenty of things that fit the bill

I go by Ankos. I picked out the name by taking the first letters of each word from the title of a book that I never read. As for my profile picture, I use the mascot for a company that published some unlicensed Gameboy games. The company is called Gowin, and their mascot's name is Guā guā lóng. A lot of their stuff is pretty solid, though it didn't really sell well outside of Asia. Some of their older works were developed by people who later on worked for a different unlicensed game company called Vast Fame, who is a little more popular on the internet

Unlicensed games, and platformer games with RPG elements? Have you tried Sintax's Lord of the Rings game for the Gameboy Color? It is one of the few quality works they ever put out. Unfortunately it sometimes lags and skips, but other than that it is quite good. It is sort of a ripoff of Zelda 2

I've never attempted to get a full set of anything, except the libraries of some unlicensed game companies. For an entire system I would guess that something like the Mega Duck would not be too difficult to complete one for. Some regions have a decent enough supply for its games, and it has a fairly small library. The games are also not that expensive for it. I would also say it isn't the most worthwhile set to go for either, considering that almost all the games for it got released on the gameboy as well

If after that point Mario games introduce a bunch of stuff from said Megaman-Mario game, yes. Because at that point stuff that was undeniably Mario would have been a sequel of sorts to the Megaman-Mario hybrid. If SMB2 USA had zero impact on the series after it's initial release, then I'd agree with you that there is little reason to view it as a Mario game. That is not the case though. There are shy guys in Mario 64 and Yoshi's Island, there is Birdo in a bunch of sports games, you can pull turnips in Super Mario Advance 4, etc. It's also been remade on multiple occasions as a Mario game, and has been included in Mario game compilations I'll give an extreme example of something like this, where a game got rebranded and essentially changed series. Adventure Island was originally a Wonder Boy game. After getting rebranded it got sequels and those were not rebrandings of Wonder Boy games. Would you say the original Adventure Island is not an Adventure Island game? If not, then the logic that a game getting rebranded disqualifies it from being a "true" part of the series it was rebranded to must include some exceptions. My criteria for something being an exception is if it treated as a legitimate part of the adopted series by future entries. SMB2 USA fits that

Considering how many times SMB 2 characters have appeared in other Mario titles, both main series and spinoffs, and how it got re-released as Super Mario Advance 1, I'd say it counts. They even took some mechanics from it and stuffed them in the e-Reader levels for the Super Mario Advance version of SMB3. It's definitely the odd one out for Mario platformers, but being different does not disqualify it from being Mario. Zelda 2 is super different from all the other Zelda games, but I don't think anyone would say it isn't a "real" Zelda game

I wish more Switch Pokemon games used something similar to the Rescue Team DX graphics. The art style feels more reminiscent of old Pokemon Cards. Anyways I'd say that Pokemon BDSP is the most conventional of the Switch stuff on your list, but it isn't very ambitious. Sword and Shield is really poorly priced when you take into account DLC. If you're dead set on the list you made, then I'd go with waiting, though it is definitely a gamble. Legends would be good, but since it isn't on your list, I'm going to assume you've played it

When I typed that up I was thinking of Dragon Coins, but it turns out that is just the GBA version. Fall is also pretty cool, but I don't think you need 100% for that. Still though, SMW seems more like a game where the goal is to get 100%, whereas SMB3 is a game that the player is just trying to beat. Having a save feature and counter for what levels you've beaten makes collecting all the exits feel more important, but in SMB3 there is no save, so the focus is just on how the player wants to reach the end. I don't think either way is better than the other, but having a different end goal does change the dynamics of a game a lot. I'll go ahead and nab SMB3 on virtual console (or maybe the GBA version for the extra levels and power-ups)

I have not played much Super Mario Bros 3 so I can't say which is better, but I will say that I prefer the overall look to Super Mario World. That may not be fair considering that one is on the NES and one is on the SNES, but considering how often people brought up batteries, something less common on the NES, I don't think fairness is what people are going for here. Passwords would've been a more fair thing to ask for. I've sampled a little bit of SMB3 and it seems good, but I'm not really a fan of the power-ups. Tanooki suit is just stone Kirby with a moon jump code if you run fast, Hammer Suit is too similar to Fire Mario, and Frog suit...that one seems cool enough I guess. The shoe is alright too, but it got expanded upon in SMW in the form of Yoshi. The overworld item menu from SMB3 seems nice to me, it makes it feel a bit more like an RPG. SMW has more collectibles which I think adds replay value and a bit more challenge for players who want to go back and get 100%. I also like the extra movement stuff they added in SMW, like the spin jump. The Super Mario series is known for good controls, and I think adding new ways to control Mario is something Nintendo has done well over the years. I don't think difficulty would make a huge difference to me in how much I like a Mario game. The series is in general pretty easy, not much harder than Kirby. Maybe SMB3 is an exception, I wouldn't know, I've just sampled the game here and there. Anyways I just figured I'd say some stuff I like about the games