Well, for a game to be “disappointing”, it had to look good before release ^^;

Super Mario [insert creative word here]

• Sequel to Odyssey
• Have 16 to 20 self-contained worlds
• Have a new mechanic that blends both Odyssey’s possession and 3D World’s character abilities
  • Mario gets to bring with him THREE companions.
  • These companions are other Mario characters.
    • Luigi, Peach, Toad, Toadette, Daisy, Yoshi, Rosalina, Wario, Waluigi, Nabbit and Pauline
  • Each character has their own unique ability for platforming.
  • Each world, or at least half on them, allows you to recruit and use a new character.
• Each world has 10 hidden Stars.
  • 3 of them are accessible by Mario alone.
  • 3 of them are accessible by whoever is initially recruited in the world.
  • 3 of them are accessible by a combination of characters, like how for that one Star, you need Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach specifically.
  • 1 last is to collect 100 coins.
• A few worlds are based on other Mario games, like Luigi’s Mansion, Beanbean Castle from Mario & Luigi, Delfino Isle from Sunshine, etc.
• Gameplay is fairly simple, with a mix of 64, Galaxy and Odyssey.
• This is essentially Odyssey 2 with mechanics from DK64… and Balan’s Wonderworld ^^;

What if there aren’t enough games to nominate in this category?

People have been mocking TGA for putting Sifu as a fighting game for Best Fighting Game in 2022, but that’s actually because there weren’t other fighting games worth adding. That’s also why Jump Force was nominated, as well as special editions of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, despite Keightly that ports wouldn’t be nominated.

Keightly’s latest interview also noted how there isn’t a Best Remaster/Remake category, because the definition is too vague. What’s odd is that TGA used to have such a category in 2014 and it encapsulated both remasters like TLOU1 and remakes like Pokémon Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire. On top of that, here are 2023’s “potential nominees”

• Resident Evil 4 Remake
• Metroid Prime Remaster
• Advance Wars 1+2
• Dead Space Remake
• Star Ocean 2 R
• Super Mario RPG

Another topic that was discussed is splitting the Best Performance category by genders and adding Best Supporting Performance like the Academy Awards, but Keightly perfers to keep it gender-neutral and not bloating it. This is a bit strange considering that we have 5 eSports categories and the general audience for TGA aren’t the same as eSport competitions.

Finally, there used to be Best XBOX / Playstation / Nintendo Game, until only Nintendo can fill its own category. In the past, several 3rd-party multiplatform games were nominated, raising a few eyebrows.

All in all, it comes down to the numbers of available games. On that note, I wished this year they add 10 GOTY nominees, like how the Academy Awards have 10 nominees for Best Picture.