Tropical Freeze is amazing, I've made it to the final boss which I haven't beaten yet and there's still a lot of stuff to collect before I 100% it. It's easily one of the best 2D platformers to come out of a AAA studio in a very long time, it just nails absolutely everything.
The New Super Mario Bros games are good but they play it really safe, so many other games that have come out in the last decade prove just how great the 2D platforming genre can still be and the NSMB games despite being the ones that make the most bank just feel creatively stagnant compared to everything else coming out right now, they retread too much ground from previous Mario games and don't live up to the same standards of innovation as the 3D titles. Yeah being a nostalgia trip is part of the appeal but there's no reason why the new 2D Mario games shouldn't be on the same level of excellence as 3D titles like Galaxy and Odyssey and they're just not.
I think Nintendo should take a break from making 2D Mario games themselves and let a third party developer have a go at it, I've love to see Retro Studios take on Mario.
Or Nintendo could do what Sega did and let the fans do it. Mario Maker (and the hundreds of quality Super Mario World hacks out there) has proven that the fans can think more outside of the box with Mario's level design than Nintendo themselves.
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