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Mario vs Zelda vs Pokemon

Which of these franchises is the best?


  • Total voters
    158
I've never played pokemon, but I think I might try it if I see a good deal on a cartridge.

Marios controls seem too...soft? IDK the word I'm looking for be it's easier for the play the game is real physics applys to jumping and Mario Kart is so sloooow, I feel like I'm just puttering along.

I think Zelda's more of a story game than the other two, I played almost every zelda except for 5 and I'm working on getting them.
 
I love Pokemon, so that's my favourite out of the three. I also really like Zelda, but I've never finished any of the games because I get distracted by other games, and when I decide to pick them up again I forget where I am.
 
Well there's no Waluigi in Zelda or Pokemon soooo:p

But seriously, SM is my favorite video game series of all-time. Been a huge fan since around 2011, when I got my SNES and N64. It's a big part of my childhood and I still love all the games and characters to death :,D
 
oh pokemon for sure

i just like pokemon! it can be a bit hard to navigate sometimes but its fun to try and figure it out!
mario is kinda fun i guess i like super mario 3d world best because its not like moving wall stickers around \(-.-)/
i dont really like 3rd person battle games ( i dont mind 1st person like minecraft) so i dont like zelda
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Definitely Mario. I liked BotW but Mario Odyssey was just pure FUN. BotW was fun too but it didn't deliver the surprise and joy that Mario Odyssey brought to us.
 
Mario is on top right now. Hands-down better than the latest Zelda and Pok?mon game. They're good in their own rights, but next to Mario....
 
I voted for Zelda, although Pokemon is probably the franchise I'm most familiar with and played the most (don't own any other consoles besides the 3ds for the Zelda games). Pokemon has become frustratingly boring for me...
 
I voted for Pokemon out of the three. I've never finished a Zelda game and the only one I've played pretty consistently is Breath of the Wild. I can never finish a Mario game for some reason. ;3; Pokemon is adorable to me and I love training and breeding Pokemon!
 
Usually I would say Pokemon, but Generation VII (Sun/Moon, etc.) is super disappointing. Like I don't know what they were thinking. Meanwhile Zelda and Mario have really hit a high point in their series. Personally, I'll take Zelda over Mario.
 
Usually I would say Pokemon, but Generation VII (Sun/Moon, etc.) is super disappointing. Like I don't know what they were thinking. Meanwhile Zelda and Mario have really hit a high point in their series. Personally, I'll take Zelda over Mario.

I actually liked Pokemon Sun/Moon and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. But to be fair, I didn't play the earlier games. Some of the stuff older fans have been bothered by (i.e. handholding) don't necessarily bother me as much.

But I do believe that all three of them have greatly improved in the past year or two. Especially Mario.
 
I actually liked Pokemon Sun/Moon and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. But to be fair, I didn't play the earlier games. Some of the stuff older fans have been bothered by (i.e. handholding) don't necessarily bother me as much.

But I do believe that all three of them have greatly improved in the past year or two. Especially Mario.

It's not hand-holding that bothers me. I don't recall being bothered by that at all.

It's the SOS battle system which makes catching Pokemon so much more difficult since there doesn't seem to be a limit to how many times a Pokemon can call for help, making it impossible to catch the Pokemon. It also double teams Pokemon when you're wanting to train. Training Pokemon in S/M is so annoying and tedious that I actually went with the Exp Share on almost the whole game because I couldn't stand to actually train Pokemon individually with how bad it was.

It's how all over the place the difficulty felt. One minute I'd be battling a trainer with AI even worse than previous Pokemon games, the next I'm dealing with a trainer with actual good AI and Pokemon that's stats seem tampered with, making my Pokemon's attacks much weaker than they should be, and making my Pokemon KO'd much easier, as well. I find no fun in that. I'm not a competitive player, and I don't want to have to train and breed my Pokemon like a competitive player to be able to clear matches. People can play competitive if they want, but that should not bleed into the actual quest of the games.

I didn't like how limited the region felt. There were so few places to surf, fishing is now only allowed in certain spots, etc.

Also the removal of the National Pokedex. That just really did me in. Collecting Pokemon felt pointless. The AR feature where it shows you a number of Pokemon not in the Alola Dex was rendered completely pointless because those Pokemon seen don't register anywhere in the game.

I don't know what US/UM are like, but I'd wager they don't improve upon any of these issues. I'm not going to spend $40 to find out.
 
I've played a few Pokemon games, and they're okay; never really got that into them. With the exception of the Paper Mario games, the same is true of Mario. The Zelda games are the reason I got some of my consoles. I've played the franchise since the first game, cursed Navi, and shed a tear when they changed Link to a right-handed character. I've been known to waste game time just riding around the Hylian plains on Epona, simply because I can.

Without Zelda games, I don't know that I would have stuck with Nintendo as faithfully as I have over the years.
 
It's sort of difficult for me to pick between the three franchises, mainly just because LoZ, Mario, and Pokemon are three VERY different types of games. When I think of Mario, I tend to think of old-school platforming, whereas LoZ is an overview adventure game and Pokemon is sort of more like an RPG.

Either way, Pokemon is my favourite. I like making my own character, and being able to decide my own way. I feel like the bonds you make with your team, your friends/rivals, and the NPCs around you make my gaming experience a little more... I don't know the word. Profound? Deep? Something along those lines.

I do love Mario and Legend of Zelda, but with Pokemon, I've followed them closely since 1998. With the previous too, the fact that my favourite games from either franchise are SNES games kind of says a lot.
 
It's not hand-holding that bothers me. I don't recall being bothered by that at all.

It's the SOS battle system which makes catching Pokemon so much more difficult since there doesn't seem to be a limit to how many times a Pokemon can call for help, making it impossible to catch the Pokemon. It also double teams Pokemon when you're wanting to train. Training Pokemon in S/M is so annoying and tedious that I actually went with the Exp Share on almost the whole game because I couldn't stand to actually train Pokemon individually with how bad it was.

It's how all over the place the difficulty felt. One minute I'd be battling a trainer with AI even worse than previous Pokemon games, the next I'm dealing with a trainer with actual good AI and Pokemon that's stats seem tampered with, making my Pokemon's attacks much weaker than they should be, and making my Pokemon KO'd much easier, as well. I find no fun in that. I'm not a competitive player, and I don't want to have to train and breed my Pokemon like a competitive player to be able to clear matches. People can play competitive if they want, but that should not bleed into the actual quest of the games.

I didn't like how limited the region felt. There were so few places to surf, fishing is now only allowed in certain spots, etc.

Also the removal of the National Pokedex. That just really did me in. Collecting Pokemon felt pointless. The AR feature where it shows you a number of Pokemon not in the Alola Dex was rendered completely pointless because those Pokemon seen don't register anywhere in the game.

I don't know what US/UM are like, but I'd wager they don't improve upon any of these issues. I'm not going to spend $40 to find out.

I suggest not buying US/UM. They still don't have the national pokedex. And I hate to say, but that's the new normal. I wouldn't care too much, but the minute I quit Pokemon is the minute they drop the Ice Type. But I doubt they'll do that.

I know someone who opted out of buying Pokemon Sun and Moon because of the handholding.
 
Zelda all the way. I love the worlds, the lore, and the characters.
Also, each game mixes it up so everything stays fresh. And the fantasy setting allows endless creativity and it's simply timeless.
Oh yeah, and the music! My top ten favorite VG OSTs would probably be mostly Zelda games.
Also, playing them gives me this "oh yeah" feeling. Man, I freakin' love Zelda.
 
I'm new to the Zelda series, and I really dislike the Mario main games, with the exception of Oddessey, my favorite is the Pok?mon series all the way.
 
Pokemon is my favorite, because there is just so much to collect. Mario is a close second though, because Mario Kart is so good!
Although Super Smash Bros. has a mix of all three it has made me like all of them even more so.
 
No matter what, I always feel like I can easily pick up a mario game and play it. Pokemon and zelda are fantastic, but the mario franchise has really mastered replayable simplicity in their main games. also, super mario galaxy 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, so it influenced my decision quite a bit.
 
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