>>12623057
>idk what to think about Mario's Time Machine
I remember buying that game as a kid and thinking it would be some cool Mario action platforming game which involves time travel. How could you possibly go wrong with a recipe like that? I had no idea I was buying an "Edutainment game". Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed with it.

Weegee

>>12623057
Imagine the kids who rented this thinking it was a new mario game and getting an educational game instead

>>12623076
>>12623062
I mean it says "learning adventure" on the cover and Luigi is looking right at those words.

>>12623082
You think dumbass kids can read? They see the cover art as a selling point, not the words explicitly stating what the game is.

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>>12623082
>I mean it says "learning adventure" on the cover and Luigi is looking right at those words.
The image OP posted is of a different game. Luigi isn't on the cover of this (I can't remember if he is even in this game, except maybe as a cameo or something) but yes it does say "learning", but so what? You can have a fun action platformer game and learn things from it whilst not having it be "edutainment" as this is. When I saw this game at the store as a kid I mainly went by the cover art. It looks like a cool Mario game, right? I probably read that "Learning" part but didn't think much of it until I had already bought and played it. You have to admit that whoever designed this boxart could have done a far better job of making it clear it was "edutainment".

i picked Mario is Missing because i enjoyed it more, and it was less tedious to play than Mario's Time Machine.

>>12623057
Yeah, its gameplay wasn't as properly interactive and fitting as the Missing game. Apart from an okay surfing mini-game to simulate time travel, you were really just wandering through a singular picture, going to locations, reading key dialogues, and filling out a fucking history sheet in order to complete the level.

And the playability gets worse when you realize you can just fucking cheese the history sheet BEFORE going through time and you're just in and out in a flash.

These games suck overall but I have a soft spot for the nes version of Time Machine as it was the first rom I beat when my friend put nesticle on my computer back in 1999 or 2000

Obligatory acknowledgement: Mario Is Missing! mostly sucks but still deserves appreciation if only for its soundtrack

I thought I was a smart kid.
Mom said I could rent a "Mario game" because she didn't know any other games besides Tetris.
I knew my alphabet.
I went to 'M' to get a Mario get and there was Mario is Missing.

but I wasn't smart... the smart kids went to the 'S' section for Super to find the best games.

NES version of Time Machine is even worse, because you have to go through minigames reminiscent of Mario Bros. just to get an artifact.

>>12623057
Fortunately Nintendo is more protective of their Mario IP these days, but back in the early 90s they were really lax when it came to it. That's why these shitty edutainment shovelware games were allowed to be made by some literal who game developer operating out of his garage. I don't know what Nintendo was thinking at the time because even then they were a big company and Mario was their biggest franchise and their mascot even. They didn't need to whore him out like this so I don't understand why they did it. The amount of money made from these crappy games couldn't have been very great, but the damage it did to the integrity of the Mario IP was definitely a lot greater. Good thing Nintendo is smarter now, but it puzzles me why they greenlit this back then.

Aside from the two that OP mentioned, there was also "Mario Teaches Typing". Maybe some others. I dunno. Also around that period of time is when that live action Super Mario Bros. film came out which bore little resemblance to the video game and to be fair it does have a cult following, but I think in general most people disliked that film.

Oh yeah, another thing was that crappy Hotel Mario game which Nintendo allowed Phillips to make on their CD-I. As well as some crappy Zelda games. This was part of an agreement they struck with Phillips for the creation of the SNES CD addon thing which never was released. Those games were real stinkers by all accounts. Probably even worse than this edutainment slop. But at least with those CD-I games barely anyone ever owned a CD-I or experienced that trash on it so the damage those games did to Nintendo's IPs was negligible. Mostly that crap only serves as a source for memes nowadays.

Two thirds of Mario's Early Years (especially Fun with Letters, and Fun with Numbers) feels more like Sesame Street tier along the lines of Elmo's Letter Adventure and Elmo's Number Journey.

I rented this game so much and never had idea idea what the fuck was going on. It utterly fascinated me, though as a kid.

>>12624493
Pretty sure one of those crappy PC games was where Charles Martinet first voiced Mario, and then he moved on to be the character's official VA for decades.

>>12624559
>Pretty sure one of those crappy PC games was where Charles Martinet first voiced Mario, and then he moved on to be the character's official VA for decades.
I don't know where or how that started, but I never liked that change. I always associated Mario and his voice with Captain Lou Albano who portrayed him on that TV show. Or alternatively Bob Hoskins who played him in the film. But either way, he sounded like an adult man should sound. That's what I thought Mario was as a kid. Then Nintendo did a 180 when they brought in this Martinet guy as the official voice of Mario, and Mario has become a Mickey Mouse-tier Cartoon character ever since. I didn't like that change or feel it was right, but whatever.

>>12624636
And when they decide to finally give him a proper adult voice again, they choose Chris fucking Pratt for the role.

>>12624636
>Lou Albano
nobody outside of the US would have liked this voice, as good as it was