I think Mario's lack of specialty really hurts him, sometimes.
He's not
good against
, he's okay.
He's not
good against
, he's
okay.
He's not
good against
, he's
okay.
IMO he isn't even that good against , arguably, he's just OK.
Mario is that, okay against everything but not exactly good against anyone. Funny how he has no good matchups, but arguably a few bad ones. Even after the ridiculous undeserved nerfs,
is
still an iffy matchup.
is another iffy one and one you'll run into far more often: Mario can neutralize Cloud's
very easily with Cape, Limit version or not, and he can combo Cloud very easily, as Down Throw>Up Tilt is an option that works from the get go and he can get 2-4 Up tilts very easily, and then you have all of the usual followups after the Up Tilts after Down Throw. But then, there's the fact that Cloud outranges Mario with absolutely every single move in his arsenal, making approaches difficult, and Cloud can force approaches with Limit. Cloud also has no difficulty killing very early, and Rage Stage 2 Cloud kills Mario easily in 40% at worst with Finishing Touch. He can also do Combos on Mario very easily, and even though everybody gimps Cloud easily, he also gimps everybody pretty easily as well, and Mario suffers a lot from that consdiering his recovery actually doesn't go as far as you convince yourself it does, and since Cape isn't a recovery option anymore and FLUDD is unreliable as a recovery, Mario's SOL to mix up his recovery if he's low.
That's just an opinion of a long-time Mario main, though. This is how I feel but it's not like this is the end all-be all opinion on Mario.