The Koopalings are all their own characters, with their own personalities and designs. Not to mention that they're villains, and fun, unique ones at that.
Metal Mario is literally a retexture with a stupid effect put on his sound files. One that hasn't been relevant since the ****in' Nintendo 64 days. The game is already full of stupid Baby clones. We don't need one that doesn't even have his own model and voice clips.
You people are ****ing insane. How the hell are the Koopalings a letdown? They're unique, iconic characters with tons of history in the Mario franchise. If you want to be mad at characters, be mad at **** like Baby Daisy.
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I took the Koopalings as a sign that the roster slots were going to go to characters that mattered. Characters that actually had substance and history with the franchise. They gave me hope that the roster was going to be big enough to support characters from the Luigi's Mansion and WarioWare/Land spin-offs, too. Metal Mario's shown that they're just going the same-old "throw everything and the kitchen sink in, no matter how irrelevant or pointless it is".
Ugh.
Look, here's the deal. Mario Kart 7 had the worst roster in Mario Kart history, but I'm honestly not surprised to see those characters return because they're popular choices.
It's not that the Koopalings are a poor choice. They're certainly nostalgic and iconic in their own way. It's just that their designs have never interested me, and seeing them take up 7 slots for what essentially amounts to a variation on a "Bowser" character disappoints me.
Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely livid the baby characters (other than Mario/Luigi obviously) are back, but I've sort of numbed myself to it, because they just LOVE to shove them where they don't belong.
I'm also disappointed I haven't seen King Boo and Petey. If they wanted to include the Koopalings, it should come at the expense of wastes like Baby Daisy. Diddy and Dixie ought to show up, also. I mean really.
This won't be relevant to the Tuesday direct, but I wanted to clarify my feelings on it. I'm not convinced its "insane"