I think a more accurate name would be ": The Anime" because what does this actually have to do with Super Mario anymore? Characters like Peach, Bowser and Toad are basically background characters now. They changed Princess Peach's Castle to something else, so that iconic piece of Mario imagery is gone. The only real pieces of the Super Mario series that are still a major part of the series are Mario & Luigi. But you can effectively erase Mario from that, since he acts nothing like his canon self. SMG4 Mario has as much in common with the actual Mario as Grand Dad does. Luigi is also diminishing in appearances from what I know. Basically the only thing that is "Super Mario" about the series is Mario, who might as well just be an OC.
Would say so as well. Of course that’s a pretty low bar considering 98% of modern SMG4 rants are “modern SMG4 isnt supposed to be serious, Kevin and Meggy ruined everything, GMod randomness era is perfect”. But the matter of fact is, there are so many other criticisms that could be brought to attention that affect things more in the grander scale of things. Arcs creating continuation holes, non-arc episodes having glaringly non-serious quality to them in comparison to arc episodes, editing being rather inconsistent. So many talking points that can be elaborated on in comparison.
@@Machievalianhi I also think that some of the modern episodes are great like 1.Mario scratches his Ass 2.Mario waits for Pizza 3.If Mario was is Baldi’s Basics 4.Mario goes to the fridge to get a glass of milk 5.Mario’s Lemonade Stand 6.Mario works at Mcdonalds 7.Mario waits in line for some spaghetti 8.Mario gets his PINGAS stuck in the door And if Mario was in Fnf Parts 1 & 2
@@guidemissile1494 smg4 got possessed by a demonic keyboard and the castle got destroyed while leaving peach in there to turn into a lovecraft monster im being serious
Smg4 just takes itself way too seriously now. They stopped doing all the comedy and tried to do arcs that nobody really wanted and these new OCs that I dont care about. The new designs of them (and especially boopkins) are so offputting to me. The past straw for me (besides the redesigns) was the voice acting, it just kinda ruined the whole comedy factor for me. It tries to hard at world building when it doesn't need to, and forgets its supposed to be funny
I agree with your point on voice acting. For me, the whole charm of SMG4 is low quality shitposts and part of that charm is how the characters used stock clips with subtitles (Bob, Swag, and Chris were fine since they used TTS). Also I find Tari’s voice incredibly annoying so I wasn’t happy with her also getting full voice acting
I wish it was character building. It's more like character jenga, where every few episodes they have to wipe the slate clean so they have an excuse to do it all over again
I used to watch SMG4 religiously from 2014-2019 (although I started watching him before that) and I have always considered the 1 million sub special as the series finale of "classic SMG4." It just seems like after that is when the channel started to drift in the wrong direction for me until I inevitability stopped watching completely with the introduction of the anime arc in 2019.
@@tetraxis3011 It could've worked if done right, but it didn't. It was just done to avoid a toxic fandom, even though EVERY fandom has at least that one toxic fan who hates anything & anyone for ridiculous reasons.
Honestly, I think Mario and the later use became a more flanderized version of himself. almost reminds me of SpongeBob compared from season one to three to the new movie ,how he has changed
The thing is, arcs have been done before in old smg4: mushroom wars and the fairytale one, which had tons of comedy in them. Not all arcs have to be serious
Although you had a few takes that I disagreed with, This was a pretty good video overall and easily the best Modern SMG4 criticism video that I've seen period. I can tell that you watched one of my videos before making this one, But I'm glad to see someone else bring up the editing since that is where the vast majority of the current issues are coming from. Most Modern SMG4 rant videos tend to focus too heavily on the surface level issues and end up missing the bigger picture overall. But this one is an exception. I guess if there were any takes that I had to give in response, They would be: 1. While I can understand how difficult the 2011-Early 2013 episodes are to watch for newcomers, They still play a crucial role in why SMG4 became the way that it did in the 2015-2019 era. As back then a large chunk of original fans and critics didn't like how random and less SM64 Machinima centric SMG4's content was becoming in Late 2013-2014, Which lead to Luke switching his original direction in order to make the balance between randomness and storytelling less egregious. The series never fully went back to its SM64 Machinima roots, But it did make enough compromises in order to keep the classic era fans satisfied enough (I.E Introducing Meggy as a replacement for the X/Starman3 character type, Reverting characters like Bowser and Toad back to their original personalities, Or Expanding upon the SM64 Bloopers format with the Waluigi Arc). And from a purely objective standpoint I will agree that 2015-Early 2019 is the definitive peak of SMG4, Even if I think 2012 and 2013 are individually better years than 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019 overall. (The pacing isn't as good admittedly, But the storytelling, Character dynamics, And creativity is top notch) 2. I never cared for the Stupid Mario series, In hindsight I recognize that it did have more merit than I thought initially but overall it was still vastly inferior to the SM64 Bloopers and R64 episodes it was aspiring to be like. I could've been more lenient if they only came out every so often but we had 11 of these videos in 2017 and some were even released back to back. You mentioned the Stupid Mario Galaxy episode and that one is easily one of my least favorites, The humor is ok enough but the premise and world building is so ungodly lazy that it distracts from everything else. Other episodes thankfully aren't as weak but overall Stupid Mario is just SMG4 for people that aren't familiar with SMG4. My favorite episodes are the ones that involve the entire cast in group activities. (I.E Stupid Mario Party, Stupid Mario Kart, Stupid Mario Sports Mix) If Mario Was In... is another series that I don't really like these days, Its initial run from 2015-2017 was incredibly solid. But after the Deltarune episode it's been a plague on the channel and rarely ever produces something worthwhile. The whole appeal was of Mario going into these other video game related universes and once it stopped being about that the charm was lost. 3. We clearly just have a different idea of what SMG4 should be like, But all of the best Modern episodes you brought up (Aside from What If? that one is great) are ones that I either don't care for or intensely dislike. I don't have anything against Mario Games Be Like for instance but it's predictably average. I like the the first half of the 10 Year Anniversary but find the overall product to be disjointed. Stupid Mario 3D World I don't have anything positive to say about, That episode is incredibly unfunny and has some pretty bad editing on top of it. When I think of good modern SMG4 episodes (Discounting obvious picks like Meggy's Destiny, Deleted, Wario Tries To Stop Himself, Revelations, The Meme Games 2022, and WESTERN SPAGHETTI) I'm more so thinking of ones like The Weegee Uprising, The Floor Is Lava, Every Luigi Is Personalized, and The Game Cube. But again I'm the classic era guy, I like episodes that focus on story and character dynamics more than humor. SMG4's humor for me hasn't really been all that funny since 2016, Part of what made those older videos work from a comedic standpoint was the fact that they were so over the top in their edginess. Once you strip that away it just becomes a tired and stale formula that isn't necessarily bad but not very funny either. For as bad as SML's humor tends to get I can confidently say that I've laughed at his recent videos more than SMG4's, Even though I think SMG4's are vastly superior in every other aspect. But all of this is subjective. I've been watching SMG4 since 2012 so my vision of what the series should be is more in line with what the classic era represented. We're at the point now where the fanbase has been segmented into four different categories and the ability to please even the majority is no longer possible. 3/4ths of us agree that the series went downhill from 2019 onwards but none have a concrete solution on how to fix it. For me I just want Luke or some other SM64 Machinimist in charge of the editing so that the SM64 elements can become prominent again, Some people want the recolors back, Others want the edgy comedy, And of course there's the extremely vocal minority that demand for Inkling Meggy to be brought back permanently. (Which would be pointless) So there's really no right or wrong answer.
Thank you for reaching out! I am honestly flattered and very happy at how well this video was received by you and others. You are actually one of the SMG4 commentators I respect the most. I was actually wondering if the two of us could maybe have a more in depth conversation about the continued state of SMG4, whether or not it becomes a video on someone's channel.
I just found that a lot of the cast members(and this was an issue that started cropping ever since they introduced Axel) are just really superfluous? In the sense that I feel that hardly any of them can keep up with Mario's energy(which has also become very mellow as the years went on). Axel is dead now, so there's that, but for a while he was literally doing nothing for most episodes until they gave him a new motivation of being a Melonie simp/guardian/boyfriend once she turned human. As for Meggy, I can't help but feel she lost a lot of the competitive and ambitious edge she had, where her passion for winning and sports led to Mario occasionally playing the straight man every now and then, but following her human transition and Desti's death, she doesn't have much of that anymore and now mostly serve to kind of serve as Mario's guardian every now and again or just be another voice of relative reason alongside Smg4 or be the vessel of portraying the melodrama of college kids/young adults.
17:33 This moment of Desti’s death really hammered home: THEY CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF THEM DO PERMANENT DEATHS! Hell, even the subtitles in Desti’s funeral made a “shouldn’t she be able to come back via respawn pad?” Joke.
@@vtubermissingno They didn’t, but this is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” kinda scenario. Bring her back and the emotional impact of the scene becomes pointless, don’t and it makes all times characters have DIED in the past seem incongruent (the toilet killer incident comes to mind).
I watched SMG4 since... maybe 2012? The channel evolved as the trends changed, going from poorly edited text videos to full on skits and silly episodes. I liked them at the time but the original videos are hard to look back on now. I think the point where SMG4 began to have "seasonal rot" was the introduction of Meggy, a Mary Sue character who succeeds at everything effortlessly. Fishy Boopkins was an addition I didn't care for either, being one of the first instances of a fully voice acted character on the channel. Bob was funny occasionally because text to speech saying dumb stuff is a classic meme. So late 2016/2017 was when it all went down the tubes imo. Around that time was when I think the original fans quit watching, including me. My most missed "series" is BattleToads. Underrated completely.
It would've sucked less if a different character became the center of the world but for them to SPECIFICALLY make the self insert the center of the world is just cringe
I think you and the other guy here are forgetting that smg4 and also technically smg3 as well aren't the ones who are the center of the world MARIO is the center of the world as the avatar though i personally don't really mind or care about the super meme guardian thing my only complaint about it is its given massive importance is the central focus for both smg4 and smg3s characters AND is partly what leads smg3 to hanging out with the crew more and eventually fully becoming a friend and yet nowadays absolutely fucking NOTHING is done with it anymore not even any acknowledgement of smg3 leaving the internet graveyard and how that affects the dead memes down there just NOTHING
@@georgiepig5726 Mario is the “center” on a world building level while SMG4 and SMG3 play “second hand” to his importance all while being the focus. Hell, Mario is more of a pawn that arc. I just kinda disagree.
I think WOTFI’s being turned into arc finales is the strongest thing that made me stop watching, genuinely sucks. Great video btw, felt a lot of that nostalgia and i agree with a ton of your points.
Like wotfi 2023 wasn’t the finale of an arc but just had one episode to set it up and it was a part of a bigger saga that still hasn’t ended yet the puzzle vision saga is still going and we just had a small mini arc with Mr puzzles and leggy with the meme factory and Mr puzzles is still doing parodies with the smg4 cast and it doesn’t look like it’s ending soon also for western spaghetti it did have two episodes to set up the puzzle vision movie had just five episodes before it also the remastered 64 series started after wotfi 2023 which were just old videos in hd and some slight changes like in “ Who let the chomp out?” With Mario’s boom a mask being from the Mario movie(2023) and of course the song “ Who let the toads out?” which was there because the original song was copyrighted.
thank you for this. nobody ever takes people like us seriously. there are so many Modern SMG4 Stans who think we're nostalgia-blinded haters who can't accept change. when we're not. we're just disappointed in what the show has become.
@@Machievalian we needed a nuanced review to show them that we're not toxic haters. most reviews of this are full of people getting angry and even yelling. it's hard not to, but hopefully, people will listen to this one.
@@cherrybombwaffles518 The reason why no one listens to SMG4 critisism video is not because the guys that speak in these vids get angry and/or yell, no, the problem comes from the fact that their videos have next to no constructive critisism whatsoever, they just whine and complain about the problems of the series whithout giving any solutions on how to fix them, so of course people are gonna think that these dudes are nostalgia-blinded haters that can't accept change. Hell, even Machievelian thinks that MetalBlade5's video on SMG4 has problems, and its because the video is just not very constructive at all, and because it gets way too conspiratorial at the end (He talks about the Luke and Kevin part in case you don't know, just read his reply on one of my comments if you don't believe me).
I remember being a massive fan of SMG4 during 2016-2018, I started noticing a decline during the Waluigi arc where there were some episodes where I didn't laugh but I didn't really think about it. Then Tari was introduced and I found her extremely boring, her style of humor was just not for me, but then the teasers for something new with Tari started showing up, I was hyped! Wondering what they could be, I waited and waited until finally, it was revealed what the teasers were for. It was for Meta Runners... they were telling me that the whole reason Tari was around, the whole point of her existence was to be an add for a different show, I was disappointed, all that waiting, all that anticipation, all for naught, this caused me to stop watching. Looking back on it I don't think that the Meta Runners announcement was the sole reason I stopped watching, episodes of SMG4 were just not that funny anymore but I wanted to still stick with the show, but the Meta Runners announcement was just the straw that broke the camels back
It's weird because I like meta runner a lot, but tari in SMG4 is just insufferable. I think these days they focus way too much on the characters, in which literally every time they try to do a serious moment, I just cringe. None of these characters live in a universe where I can genuinely believe they get depressed, nor do I find any of the resolutions compelling - usually just boiling down to "friendship fixes all :DDDD"
Tbh, I… like the seriousness of the arcs. I think they could’ve served as a nice change of pace. A bit of seriousness in an otherwise comedic series. But nowadays, it’s incredibly overdone and the series isn’t really comedic anymore, so the seriousness simply does not have the same effect anymore. Because I like the concept of my favourite characters to go trough serious situations, but often the result of that is complete character assassination (Meggy), weird redesigns (Meggy), and overall making the show worse (also Meggy. Can you tell I hate modern Meggy yet?). Like seriously, I loved the avatar arc, it was amazing! But I loved it because it was different, it was new, an actual nice contrast to the humour (or, whatever was left of it at the time).
Correction, the "avatar arc" you're talking about is probably either the Genesis or Revelation arc, or the Cosmology Lore Saga as a whole. If you're curious about my opinion on these arcs, I really like them, they're my favorite arcs in the SMG4 series.
25:25 Meggy's old voice actor actually confirmed this to be true in an interview with Saberspark with her and the rest of the TADC cast that was uploaded not too long after you uploaded this video. She said she originally auditioned for Sunset Paradise and not SMG4, and they simply asked her to reprise her role for SMG4.
i think lizzie was just too busy so they replaced her with elsie since she's much more free, and i'm ngl i actually prefer elsie's meggy voice over lizzie's
If you really think about it, being that this "show" started at around 2011-2012 (depending on if you count the bloopers), that would make it around 13 years old as of today. This would actually put smg4 in the top 15 longest running shows. Running as long as Fat Albert and King of The Hill, and lasting longer than TMNT Ed Edd n Eddy and Rugrats.
It is not even close to being one of the longest lasting shows. Cartoons? I guess it’d be up there, but there are shows that go on for over 30 seasons.
The whole "DO NOT USE NINTENDO MODELS" could easily be looked over for me, it's just that SMG4 has just become way too serious when it's always been "SMG4 lives in Peach's castle, having extremely stupid adventures with his dumbass friend, Mario"
Ahaha let's just turn that into "random side character meggy becomes the central focus of 80% of videos, where she will learn valuable lessons about friendship through hardship and trauma, in which you are meant to take 100% seriously - until next week where we forget we ever did anything, and do it all over again"
I used to watch SMG4 back then, around 2016-2017 (I think, hard to remember), but have fallen out of watching it since around after "It's Gotta Be Perfect" came out. Just not what I enjoy anymore.
The more serious episodes, especially permanent character deaths, feel fundamentally incongruous with SMG4's identity. Like you have Mario getting gunned down, having his head blown off, burning and turning into a skeleton, etc and then he comes back 5 seconds later. And this is in the same show as for example Desti getting stabbed and permanently dying. You can't take it seriously so it just doesn't work.
My main problem is the recent inconsistency with the writing. I actually don’t mind the new characters, it taking itself to seriously, heck, I don’t even mind the writing in general. The problem is when the writers forgot something they established with a character, and change it to not fit with what was written. For example, Tari went from growing out of her scardey cat phase in Western Spaghetti, yet in the later videos, she went back to being a wimp. And Mr. Puzzles, the latest antagonist, became a joke. I don’t mind his Saturday morning cartoon personality a lot, it’s just I hate that he went from this intimidating Bill Cipher like threat, to a joke villain. Like, anyone else feel like they changed his personality? Like, he wasn’t always a bumbling idiot who gets outsmarted constantly. Anyways, I still like SMG4, but I hate the inconsistency.
@@fernandoj774it’s not?? Nintendo sent them a cease and desist letter about using Nintendo plushies for the channel. That’s why they rarely use the name “SuperMarioLogan” and just say “SML”
Gotta agree, this selfmade charme is kinda gone. Back then you could tell that the videos were made by just one or two guys in their basement. Now the videos have a scope way bigger than what they could do on their own given the time frame. It takes away this crappy, selfmade magic. A lot of characters used to use Mario's 64 model and animations, it was so bad that it was good again. The new models are quite well made and all, but they don't have that crappy charme that i fell in love with. This and all the new characters that got added kinda killed it for me.
When I heard about this video, I actually was very reluctant to watch it, mainly because the MetalBlade5's SMG4 rant really pissed me off. But after watching it today, I can say you geniunelly wanted SMG4 to improve, and that you had good intentions in your mind. I especially liked the part at 22:32 because you actually give a solution to improve the SMG4 series, which is very much appreciated from the usual modern SMG4 rants that just trash modern SMG4 without actually giving a solution to fix their problems. If there is one take that I would disagree with, it would be the Gmod usage over the SM64 usage : I actually don't get bothered by whether Gmod or SM64 is used, so if SMG4 right now was favorising SM64 over Gmod, I would'nt get bothered by it and vice-versa. In conclusion, I geniunelly think this video is great and it really should pick up in relevance. And one question, what are your tought on MetalBlade's rant video on modern SMG4 ?
First of all, thank you! And as for your question, I thought Metalblade's video was decent enough on first viewing, but its problems soon became more and more apparent to me. It's just not very constructive and gets way too conspiratorial at the end with basically no proof for its points. It was actually the faults with that video specifically that motivated me to make this one.
@@Machievalian I agree with you on MetalBlade's vid, not only it just regurgigate a lot of popular talking points for bajillionth time, which is a bad sign of him not being able to actually make his own critissism, but the part about Kevin was easilly the worst, as its nothing but conspiraties that felt like they were included only to shame the more naive fans of SMG4 for liking his modern content, which is really hyppocritical when you notice that he pretends that Kevin shamed Luke about his older videos, yet he tries to shame others for liking modern SMG4. Really I can understand why you made this video : Not only to express your issues with modern SMG4 and how to fix them, but also because you wanted critisism like yours to be mainstream. Speaking of, i really wonder why your video didn't pick up in relevance as it is really good. Any idea ?
@@DarkH-gv3hcIt's just a simple case of this being a brand new channel, and I never planned this to be more than a one off thing. I think based off that, this video did quite well, far better than I ever expected it to. But if you want more people to see the video feel free to share it online.
@@Machievalian I shared the vid on Twitter. Edit : I must say, you suggesting me to share your vid is actually what inspired me to begin posting SMG4 reviews on my Twitter account. So I must say, thank you for finnally giving me the motivation I needed, even if you did it without knowing it.
I still remember making a long-ass essay of a comment in metalblade5's video, it was under a different account, one with a plush zekrom as a pfp I don't remember everything of that comment and it's couple of follow ups, but I'm somewhat afraid of looking back at it and cringing
Smg4 was the channel where you never took it seriously and just loved it because they kept doing crazy stupid stuff for the sake of entertainment. I miss those good old days.
Some people would call his content "2010s brainrot", but their jokes back then weren't brainless, there was genuine story telling going on, and the humor was a great reflection of the internet culture back then, edgy and dark. But my interest fell off, once he was turning the inkling into an anime character that NOBODY ASKED, but I guess it's just natural progression? Or idk.
The new character designs is grabbing a known character, redesign it to the point that it's a completely new character and give it the personality of a supportive shonen character (like grab Captain Olimar from Pikmin, change it massively design and personality-wise and now he's Captain Courtley, with "good guy" being his only personality trait.)
i also think that the biggest issue with the arcs as an idea is that you need to start watching SMG4 in order to actually understand what's happening, even when SMG4 was always just meant to be a "drop in whenever you want" show methinks
I know this video is almost a year old, but i still wanna put my feelings out in the void. For context, i started watching SMG4 in 2015 id say. I found it after my friend showed me a video of mario 64 models doing Gangnum style and wanted to find that video instead. This was when i finally started to get into internet culture, as before 2015, i wasn't allowed to watch RUclips. The first 3 channels i really remember liking were SMG4, Game Grumps, and Pyrocynical. I have vivid memories of turning on my Wii in the middle of the night to watch SMG4 on the youtube app. I'm not entirely sure what my first episode was, but I'm pretty sure it was the casino one. So I've been watching essentially since the golden age began. Even as i grew up and my tastes in youtubers changed, i still enjoyed SMG4. But then, things just changed. Personally, i pegged the Anime Ark as the true point of no return. The point where my interest slowly waned. Because it was the first of the more serious arcs. Sure, Walugi's arc was technically serious too, but i never really saw it as a big deal and wish they had done something like it again. Because it was able to tell a story and be serious, but not to the point where it felt out of character. Juxtaposition is a tightrope walk. Not many works are able to do it very well. SMG4 is one of them. It fails to really seperate the moments of comedy and tragedy. And overall, i don't think a serious story works. How am i supposed to take characher deaths and lore seriously when a few episodes ago, mario was getting his dick slammed in a door? Desti's death is ironically the one moment that changed a lot. Despite it just not working, because Desti was just an annoying character so who cares that shes dead? And all character deaths following that have just not worked either. Axol's death made me laugh. And not just a little giggle, but a full on mad cackle as the utter farce of the situation just hit me. They want me to take the death of Axol seriously. And it doesnt work at all. They want to have their cake and eat it too. But it just doesn't work. And honestly, why make SMG4 a serious drama? I feel like if they did that sort of thing with a new series and universe, it could work. The fact they continue to make animated works shows that it could succeed. And then, i could take the story more seriously. I dont hate modern SMG4, but its just not a same. The fact it isnt made by luke and instead ateam just kinda made it lose its soul. I know nothing will change, but i hope they realize how this whole serious story think doesnt work.
The whole character of Axol I feel was just wasted. While the other modern ones really only have a few jokes to them and that's it, they at least have SOMETHING, while Axol is just... nothing. A bland, friendly guy. They didn't even use his gimmick much after the Anime Arc. The others I could tolerate, but Axol felt like such a waste of space that I didn't even care when he died. Not even cynically happy, like you probably felt when Desti died ("yeah, that annoying shithead's dead, woohoo" or sth). When Axol died, I just felt "wait, so what was his point then exactly? He barely did anything".
I feel like smg4 nowadays is focusing too much on the kids that enjoy the videos, like, it's obvious some videos were made thinking about the young fanbase.
I honestly had the same experience, was introduced to the channel during WOFTI 2015 and started to lose interest around 2018 with the show containing less 64, less og characters, and the jokes weren't as funny. I'm not against Luke and Kevin for pursuing their dreams (especially Luke's since he always wanted to be part of the animation industry), but I wish they would've just ended the show on a high note and instead leaving it to live in a zombified state. It just hurts to watch this happen, in my eyes at least.
I feel like the anime arc ruined everything. Ever since, it felt like every video had some "oh look we are sad and serious" part which ruins the whole purpose of SMG4. Another issue that might sound strange is the "Quality" they put in. And what I mean by that is that the characters are animated, which I feel like is a huge problem for SMG4 since it was a comedy channel which perfectly utilized the SM64 models to tell a funny story. But now with animations, it feels strange and unfitting. Please leave the animations at Glitch Productions. I don't know in which order new characters appeared, but I can say that after Axol or Melony or whatever, I've disliked every character which came new (including Axol and Melony). I can understand that they'd want to prevent things from becoming stale, but the new characters are just awful imo. And lastly, I feel like the anime arc ended really poorly. Meggy's rival who barely anyone knew made everyone sad beyond reason. The two only became somewhat friends in the last two episodes or something. I know I said "lastly", but I wanted to share my own plotline which I suggested after the Anime Arc, because I didn't like Meggy being a human. I remember saying something like "She meets an inkling which she falls in love with (or something) and the inkling agrees to share his ink or something like that to revert her into an inkling again". I wish this video would have more views. Although I really doubt that that company would revert their decisions, they are too far deep in shit for any change to happen
I feel the Waluigi & Rapper Bob Arcs did that before the Anime Arc made things worse. I'm gonna say it: I don't like ANY of the arcs ever since 2018. It be one thing if the Waluigi Arc was the finale of SMG4 so Glitch could focus more on their Indie animations, or if the arcs were more like STBlackST's arcs where the dark story doesn't change the identity of the videos, but rather are just the standard videos with an ongoing storyline in the background, but no. Instead, it's just now a PG-13 content farm.
Yeah, in my opinion, they didnt really handle anything that well, especially for a comedy series. My own take is this, I feel like this is just.. “ diet SMG4. ” the arcs for me are handled well, but when they transition out of it, they do it ATROCIOUSLY! They didn't need to handle it as “ okay!! Mass genocide of main characters family! Lets go back and barely touch on it, as they immediately move on from it! who cares about proper transitions! ” Second point, most of the cast's characters barely even show up half of the time! And even worse, they don't have any proper change to them! Tari? nah lets just keep her comically shy EVEN WHEN WE HAVE DISPLAYED HER AS A BETTER CHARACTER 4 MONTHS BACK!
Yeah that makes me think of the classic sitcom problem of giving characters development, just to undo it all for the next episode. They keep trying to do serious moments, but can't keep any of the changes or development past a given episode/arc because they would run out of things to do. The problem comes from the fact that they end up just retreading the same ground over and over again, and if it was hard to take seriously the first time, there's absolutely no caring the 3rd time
Yeah it is kinda sad tbh, I never was a huge smg4 fan but I still liked some of his videos back then, and I don’t know if smg4 got a cease and desist but regardless the models are ugly and yeah I think they sell merch of the characters. It’s sad to see something you once liked so desiccated.
Thoughts before watching: I was kid while SMG4 was in the classic era, and I LOVED his content. I even liked the first arc. However, the end of the Anime Arc just changed things for me, and I haven't quite viwed the series as the same sense. After the video: I honestly think you're spot on, and while my opinion on some of the characters are different (I rather liked Meggy), I definitely agree with your main points. The video is also VERY well made. You've earned yourself a sub.
I love waking up and coming across a 20+ minute video on a topic I never gave much thought. Very well said and done, providing a much clear-er idea of just *WHY* new SMG4 is how it is. Love the vid man!
I remember in 2014, 2015, 2016, having the tradition of of tucking myself in my covers and watching the new Christmas special every year which would inevitably come out.
Most of us do lol, most of us don’t be watching RUclips poops really and those of us that do more than likely don’t pay attention to the name of the uploader. I forgot about the “RUclips poop” series Eliot goes to school until a year ago and I recommend watching that if your looking for some nostalgia or old content
@@fricklinkfate360 off the top of my head, the best poop channels I remember are hurricoaster, awful fawful, and durhamrockerz. However, there were early ones from like 2008 I remember, but they’ve likely been struck down and faded into obscurity.
I had a very similar experience that you had regarding SMG4: like you, I also had instances where I would just not watch the channel after a particular episode I didn’t enjoy, and this happened for years. I remember watching for a while, and one particular change that I absolutely abhorred was the main cast character models change. About a year and a half ago, I picked it back up and enjoyed a few of the things, but another thing that just did not settle right for me was the removal of the castle and the introduction of the new one. That is really where I decided I was done with SMG4. Similarly to you, though, I don’t particularly dislike SMG4, but there are other things I would rather watch in their stead
Honestly SMG4's character change was enough to put me off from watching the series anymore... It just feels... wrong somehow, him not being a recolor of Mario. I get they're trying to become more original and make their own characters but ironically enough, their attempt to make their own "identity" is giving up the one they already have 😭
I remember the content he made back in 2011, the main reason I subbed to him instead of other mario 64 skit creators is because while everyone did serious anime like skits, he would just focus 100 percent on random humor. Then (I wanna say it was around the time Meggy was introduced) is when it suddenly flipped. Even though I don’t really watch him these days I was proud to see him go from very small to a million subs over the years.
i know its been like a year since you released this but yknow you're right why'd they even make a whole backstory arc when the grand mario hotel established that smg4's mario is from a more stupid universe anyway?
I stopped watching not long after Maggie was introduced. By that point, GMod was being used a lot, and it felt like it was trying to be higher quality, when part of the charm was how low quality it was. It barely took itself seriously in ANY way! And that's what made it funny! Now, it feels like it takes itself too seriously, its trying to be a show now, instead of just funny YT videos.
I think if the modern SMG4 and SMG3’s designs were in the 64 style, things would be so much better. It’s just something about the modern 3D models that make everything seem very… clean, for lack of a better word.
SMG4 really made my childhood. I started with who let the chomps out and was still to naive to really understand the channel and stuff but i remembered that one video. I later came back to the channel for the "stupid mario..." series and "if mario was in...", loving both of them. I kept watching from then on. The anime arc, yourube arc, both of the zero arcs and enjoyed all of them almost the same. It was after the dmca arc that i noticed the channels decline, only tuning in to a Nintendo memes episode every once in a while. I sometimes return to the classics like the spaghettiria trilogy, stupid mario, of mario was in and maybe snips of the yt arc but other than that, its been a sad fall from grace.
Real. I literally cannot watch the newer Smg4 episodes. Everything is so serious, the jokes they do have suck (seriously he made a skibidi toilet video), the voice acting throws me waaay off (no offense to the voice actors), the new designs are pretty meh, and overall it just hurts to watch. The arcs, moody stuff, and the storytelling stuff isn't the problem, its the overuse of them that's the problem. Look at the anime arc and the waluigi arc. These arcs felt PERFECT because its was a good mix between comedy and seriousness. Especially The walugi arc. That was the peak of Smg4 imo. I miss how ragdolled everything was too. You barely see that anymore. same with the 64 models. All of those things added to the charm of smg4.
it always felt to me that SMG4 should have ended many years ago but it acts as funding for their other GLITCH series to some degree. after meta runner got off the ground it feels like the whole teams priorities shifted. by now i havent watched a modern (post 2018 or so) SMG4 video in years.
As someone who enjoys mostly anything, I only recently have started to fall off with smg4. I DEFINITELY feel like the humor was better all those years ago, but (particularly 2023) I did find myself enjoying episodes, though it was for a pretty short amount of time. (I did like 1 or 2 of the lawsuit arc episodes, though I couldn’t stand the redesigns at first) I mostly found the Mr. Puzzles stuff boring(until the end, because DANG) But then he just came back and ruined that whole vibe 😭
Multi-colored Marios, smg4 going on random adventures with Mario,Mario being naked with his spaghetti and other random 💩 is what made me fall in love with the classic smg4. Heading into 2017 I felt that smg4 was gradually phasing out everything I loved about the classics and when meggy was turned to human, winning the last splatfest, and getting a human voice I felt smg4 was crossing to the point of no return with more character building and being to serious.
I think a big thing to think about, at least now a year later, when discussing Glitch in tandem with SMG4 is that Glitch isnt 'The Side Project' anymore. Quality over Quantity makes more money for them, so while they may be able to pump out constant smg4 episodes they wither in comparison to episodes of their Glitch shows. Glitch started as making shows for characters in the SMG4 series, but as we can see now thats not the case anymore. Glitch is no longer the side project, SMG4 is.
I started watching SMG4 in 2013 or earlier, enjoying the channel on and off for different reasons until 2018. 3 and 4's redesigns in the Lawsuit Arc helped rekindle my interest in newer episodes, and over a few months I watched nearly every video I'd missed, then kept up with the series until the Puzzlevision movie. After watching so many episodes in that period of time, my biggest problem was a lack of consistency. Modern episodes can be funny, or develop stronger plot, or maintain more serious tones, or show better graphics, but it's very rare for a video to balance all of those. You can click on uploads from weeks apart and get almost completely different media, while being expected to watch most of them regardless if you want to understand the world's lore - which often gets abandoned or contradicted anyway. While this issue wasn't non-existent in the older days, the increased differences between episodes now means it always leaves someone unsatisfied.
Late to the party, but this just came up in my recs and thought i'd yap a little bit cuz I have nothing else to do rn To me, in a way, Desti's death is synonymous to the death of the "golden era" SMG4 imo. It maybe wasn't the start (since that has already begun at that point) of the "downfall", but it sure felt like the tipping point to me at least, at which I as the viewer realized it's just not going to be the same anymore. Been watching SMG4 since I was 10 years old in 2013 and barely even understood English (not a native speaker). Now I'm 21 and don't watch at all anymore, but once in a blue moon i still revisit some of the older vids and find myself enjoying them as much as I did back in the day. But the modern stuff just sucks (also I think this change was done after the video's release date but my god the new castle is so ass). It's still good to see that the channel is succeeding anyways, since it helps finance the other GLITCH projects I guess (I like Murder Drones more than I should), but man. Doubt ur reading this, but good video, many of the points you made summed it up pretty much perfectly.
I wouldn’t say modern smg4 is bad, it’s just seeming like they are trying to appeal to a different audience. I watched smg4 a lot between 2014-2018 and sort of drifted away as the team’s focus changed. The show is going to seem like it’s in a crisis until it cements itself a new identity that is what the audience wants. Just trial and error on the production’s behalf.
When I was young, I remember finding about smg4 with the "road trip" episode and it became one of my favorites from smg4. Sad that they stopped realeasing these peaks...
7:00 I mean SML didn't do this willingly they did it because Nintendo literally sued them so they were forced to switch to puppets 14:39 W Pikmin music in the background
While I do not agree with everything you say. But I have to say, great video dude! The way how you put your arguments were really fair and I can completely understand your reasonings. Such a shame we are littered with nostalgiatards who will scream over harmless changes.
I grew up watching SMG4 since like back in 2012. I stopped liking it when they started pumping out so, so much merch and advertising it in every. single. video. Then the new characters got introduced I was like ok, but melon chan and that mushroom guy were the last straw for me personally
The issue with SMG4 is that it tried to go: 'hey, look at these stupid idiots who don't know what a square is' and then they tried to go 'so the dark backstory to why [INSERT CHARACTER HERE] is like that is because [INSERT SHIT FROM ASS]
to be honest my main problem is that that new location they have with the showgrounds is really fucking boring. I need some more verticality in that map. They don't even have the second level of the castle done
At this point, the Smg4 channel is just used as a cash cow to keep funding glitch productions. I could see why since glitch productions are really high quality, however I wished that they would actually care more about what made smg4 the way they are
Bro when will they see that glitch is more profitable than smg4 When they upload on glitch its an instant banger whatever it is reaching over 1m views everytime after meta runner When they upload on smg4 it doesn't seem to pop off after hitting 1m views and only watched by ipad kids Last time i saw smg4 on the front page was on the landing page of my samsung tv with "we need to kill mario" which i didn't bat an eye to because i left after wotfi 2022 due to the redesigns
I think it all went downhill when Glitch Productions (if that's what it's called) became a thing. Because he started doing that new show, and then it ended up randomly bleeding into the SMG4 Videos.
I mean I watched smg4 when I was a child. I am still (17), just a lot less than when I was younger, for all it's worth I'm happy it gave me some fond memories.
I loved SMG4 when I was younger. It was so chaotically stupid and didn’t treat itself like a job to watch and keep up with what shouldn’t have been a story in my opinion. I’m not saying that the brothers weren’t allowed to make one, but with what their foundation was from the very beginning, trying to shoehorn in new characters for the sake of making a story later down the line didn’t really work for me, and the while the quality of the videos definitely dramatically improved, the interest for me to watch them because they no longer contained that initial spark of edgy internet humor died out. I wish these brothers the best, but their content is no longer for me, and I wish them the best for what they try and make out of their catalogue of hundreds of videos, but it’s not made with the initial thousands of us in mind anymore
Boy, this is really something, for a guy on the outside like me Bob? Boopkins? Here I thought this series was just GMod shenanigans featuring Blue Mario
I miss the "randomness" that older SMG4 videos had... Even though I don't watch his videos anymore, I'm really happy for Luke's success :) (Such as creating GlitchProductions videos, which I prefer watching instead)
I sorta kept watching after the arcs started, but i really stopped after youtube arc/menlony's introduction I just felt like it just wasnt as nice as it used to be. I will defend the Waluigi Arc with my life though
The moment he started overusing gmod was the worst part when gmod was used for backgrounds or other characters it was good (i know you said that at 5:00)
I mean, sure the old videos aged like milk sometimes, they were definitely just created by someone at a time where you could freely make dark jokes with a lot of creativity made to entertain others just to have fun with what he was doing. Nowadays, it seems so..Corporate, weirdly enough. Like seriously? Voice acting in my smg4 videos? Damn..And don't even get me started on Guards n Retards, my favorite series which I believe is discontinued just because of the name I'm sure. I'm surprised Nintendo hasn't really grasped in yet after all these years, but maybe that's just me.
i started watching smg4 during thanksgiving in 2015 (first video was who let the chomp out) and it immediately caught my attention with how funny it was, but i also had the same feeling with declining video quality a little after the baldis basics video came out. i stopped watching entirely after war of the fat italians 2019 (or maybe it was 2020) came out, it just didnt hold that charm it once had
When Melanie kissed Axel it was the hardest I've evere cringed, that was the point that broke me. I can't even find the words... SMG4 fell off hard. I also find it amusing that, just like SML they changed most of the characters just so they could sell merch, come on bro at least don't make em ugly as hell.
@@EWOODJ yeah him trying to make it an emotional moment with the awful animation didn't sit right with me. This is the same guy who used to make completely comedy videos and this style doesn't suit him.
The thing is if you're into gmod machinimas and animation, you're likely to realise that MSG4's gmod has always looked bottom of the barrel in terms of quality, either from low effort or lack of trying, which is why the switch to it is rather baffling and I've always thought it was just out of laziness.
My cousin introduced me to SMG4 around 2016-2018 and,after that, i got absolutely HOOKED I finally found the perfect series. Funny? Check. Mario related? Check. Uses naugthy words(im a big boi i can watch these videos, i tought) check. And from there, i if i had a bad day, i would pull up an smg4 video and pass out from laughing at that no-brain humor.(btw the yearly fat italian wars became a TRADITION to me) When they introduced newer characters like meggy, tari, sakura etc,(the pink haired one, i dont remember her actual name)i was fine with that! I still kept laughing at the videos, and dint see the humor decrease at all, until they turned meggy human. I think thats the flag of where smg4 just fell off. Because after that, Shi like meta runner started coming out, the humor on the main series decreased, and they started focusing on more lore lore lore lore... And thats when i couldn't laugh at most of the videos anymore. The only newer videos i remember having a lugh at were specifically the mario reacts to nintendo memes series, and that one episode where the castle's lightbulb gets broken. Im dont classify myself as an true OG, but i hope that someday, somehow, the true Super Mario Glitchy 4, returns...
![Kodak Black - Versatile 4 [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VcP_1Ua__vY/mqdefault.jpg)
Ah, the good old days when the only thing in SMG4's description was "I live in a world of multi-coloured Marios."
It should’ve stayed like that
Those were happy times
Remember his PFP was a 8 bit Old man in 2015
SMG4 has turned into “Super Mario: The Anime” while sacrificing its dark humour-based roots to the cause and that’s all I have to say.
Is that a bad thing?
@@chandelight59Yes, nobody cares about the world ending villain of the week or the next Arc about Mario having depression
@@chandelight59 100% yes
yeah, it was way funnier before. I guess they wanna be marketable
I think a more accurate name would be ": The Anime" because what does this actually have to do with Super Mario anymore? Characters like Peach, Bowser and Toad are basically background characters now. They changed Princess Peach's Castle to something else, so that iconic piece of Mario imagery is gone.
The only real pieces of the Super Mario series that are still a major part of the series are Mario & Luigi. But you can effectively erase Mario from that, since he acts nothing like his canon self. SMG4 Mario has as much in common with the actual Mario as Grand Dad does. Luigi is also diminishing in appearances from what I know. Basically the only thing that is "Super Mario" about the series is Mario, who might as well just be an OC.
when smg4 stopped being "haha mario like spaghett so much he has sex with it!!!" that was when shit got bad
things changed and it became strange
when meggy got introduced everything went downhill
@@Canyonizer and the worst thing is she could've fit into the dark-humor based series but a series of events basically killedthat potential
@@Canyonizernah, she was ok.
That was until they gave her model a refresh...
@@NAAAHHHHBROOO_GAB_0577 That's why it was funny
Maybe I'm praising this too hard, but this might actually be the best modern SMG4 critique video out there
Thank you, I truly appreciate it
@@Machievalian Honestly yeah, i agree with pretty much all of this video
@@Machievalian You might want to update that thumbnail. You know what happened to Peach’s castle right?
Would say so as well. Of course that’s a pretty low bar considering 98% of modern SMG4 rants are “modern SMG4 isnt supposed to be serious, Kevin and Meggy ruined everything, GMod randomness era is perfect”.
But the matter of fact is, there are so many other criticisms that could be brought to attention that affect things more in the grander scale of things. Arcs creating continuation holes, non-arc episodes having glaringly non-serious quality to them in comparison to arc episodes, editing being rather inconsistent. So many talking points that can be elaborated on in comparison.
@@Machievalianhi I also think that some of the modern episodes are great like
1.Mario scratches his Ass
2.Mario waits for Pizza
3.If Mario was is Baldi’s Basics
4.Mario goes to the fridge to get a glass of milk
5.Mario’s Lemonade Stand
6.Mario works at Mcdonalds
7.Mario waits in line for some spaghetti
8.Mario gets his PINGAS stuck in the door
And if Mario was in Fnf Parts 1 & 2
when smg4 and the castle got changed I started to drift away a lil
THEY CHANGED THE CASTLE????
Same, that's the last episode I watched
@@guidemissile1494 smg4 got possessed by a demonic keyboard and the castle got destroyed while leaving peach in there to turn into a lovecraft monster
im being serious
@@godsamongstmen4164 i have absolutely no words how was this plot approved
@@flakehats6221 wdym
Smg4 just takes itself way too seriously now.
They stopped doing all the comedy and tried to do arcs that nobody really wanted and these new OCs that I dont care about.
The new designs of them (and especially boopkins) are so offputting to me.
The past straw for me (besides the redesigns) was the voice acting, it just kinda ruined the whole comedy factor for me.
It tries to hard at world building when it doesn't need to, and forgets its supposed to be funny
I agree with your point on voice acting. For me, the whole charm of SMG4 is low quality shitposts and part of that charm is how the characters used stock clips with subtitles (Bob, Swag, and Chris were fine since they used TTS). Also I find Tari’s voice incredibly annoying so I wasn’t happy with her also getting full voice acting
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@coolguy4-ls2gl yeah ever since they added Tari I haven't liked it.
Meggy was cool at first but then they made her human just to sell merch
@@coolguy4-ls2gl The one thing I don't get is why they purposely made her more high-pitched compared to her counterpart
@@godsamongstmen4164 That may be why I find her even more annoying
smg4 isnt even smg4 anymore, its just character building with no humor which takes away what smg4 was known for.
I wish it was character building.
It's more like character jenga, where every few episodes they have to wipe the slate clean so they have an excuse to do it all over again
@@DodgeThatAttack”Character Jenga…” that phrase ought to be used more often.
@@insertobligatoryreferenceh489I am adding that to my dictionary.
I feel like they really should just drop SMG4 and put more focus into Glitch
@@insertobligatoryreferenceh489There has to be a TV Tropes page about this
I used to watch SMG4 religiously from 2014-2019 (although I started watching him before that) and I have always considered the 1 million sub special as the series finale of "classic SMG4." It just seems like after that is when the channel started to drift in the wrong direction for me until I inevitability stopped watching completely with the introduction of the anime arc in 2019.
I stopped watching in like 2015 or 2016 probably
The anime arc was goated until the finale. Why did they make Meggy into a human? Seriously?
@@tetraxis3011 It could've worked if done right, but it didn't. It was just done to avoid a toxic fandom, even though EVERY fandom has at least that one toxic fan who hates anything & anyone for ridiculous reasons.
@@splat-trainproductions Exactly.
Honestly, I think Mario and the later use became a more flanderized version of himself. almost reminds me of SpongeBob compared from season one to three to the new movie ,how he has changed
Mario was ALWAYS since 2011 been a catastrophe of a human being who just happens to be the hero, so I really can't agree.
The thing is, arcs have been done before in old smg4: mushroom wars and the fairytale one, which had tons of comedy in them. Not all arcs have to be serious
There was also the "Meet The" franchise, which had episodes, like Meet the Steve, or Meet the Luigi, if I'm correct.
Why does the new SMG4 character look like a knockoff mascot for a Mexican cereal company?
Don't be that rude!..for Mexican cereal companies.
Smg4 now looks like an ugly master Higgins knock off
Did you have to do him like that?
Hey don't do mexican cereal like that! Mexican cereal mascots were so good they had to make them illegal so children wouldn't buy them
Mexican cereal cracked me of laugher
Although you had a few takes that I disagreed with, This was a pretty good video overall and easily the best Modern SMG4 criticism video that I've seen period.
I can tell that you watched one of my videos before making this one, But I'm glad to see someone else bring up the editing since that is where the vast majority of the current issues are coming from. Most Modern SMG4 rant videos tend to focus too heavily on the surface level issues and end up missing the bigger picture overall. But this one is an exception.
I guess if there were any takes that I had to give in response, They would be:
1. While I can understand how difficult the 2011-Early 2013 episodes are to watch for newcomers, They still play a crucial role in why SMG4 became the way that it did in the 2015-2019 era. As back then a large chunk of original fans and critics didn't like how random and less SM64 Machinima centric SMG4's content was becoming in Late 2013-2014, Which lead to Luke switching his original direction in order to make the balance between randomness and storytelling less egregious.
The series never fully went back to its SM64 Machinima roots, But it did make enough compromises in order to keep the classic era fans satisfied enough (I.E Introducing Meggy as a replacement for the X/Starman3 character type, Reverting characters like Bowser and Toad back to their original personalities, Or Expanding upon the SM64 Bloopers format with the Waluigi Arc). And from a purely objective standpoint I will agree that 2015-Early 2019 is the definitive peak of SMG4, Even if I think 2012 and 2013 are individually better years than 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019 overall. (The pacing isn't as good admittedly, But the storytelling, Character dynamics, And creativity is top notch)
2. I never cared for the Stupid Mario series, In hindsight I recognize that it did have more merit than I thought initially but overall it was still vastly inferior to the SM64 Bloopers and R64 episodes it was aspiring to be like. I could've been more lenient if they only came out every so often but we had 11 of these videos in 2017 and some were even released back to back.
You mentioned the Stupid Mario Galaxy episode and that one is easily one of my least favorites, The humor is ok enough but the premise and world building is so ungodly lazy that it distracts from everything else. Other episodes thankfully aren't as weak but overall Stupid Mario is just SMG4 for people that aren't familiar with SMG4. My favorite episodes are the ones that involve the entire cast in group activities. (I.E Stupid Mario Party, Stupid Mario Kart, Stupid Mario Sports Mix)
If Mario Was In... is another series that I don't really like these days, Its initial run from 2015-2017 was incredibly solid. But after the Deltarune episode it's been a plague on the channel and rarely ever produces something worthwhile. The whole appeal was of Mario going into these other video game related universes and once it stopped being about that the charm was lost.
3. We clearly just have a different idea of what SMG4 should be like, But all of the best Modern episodes you brought up (Aside from What If? that one is great) are ones that I either don't care for or intensely dislike. I don't have anything against Mario Games Be Like for instance but it's predictably average. I like the the first half of the 10 Year Anniversary but find the overall product to be disjointed.
Stupid Mario 3D World I don't have anything positive to say about, That episode is incredibly unfunny and has some pretty bad editing on top of it. When I think of good modern SMG4 episodes (Discounting obvious picks like Meggy's Destiny, Deleted, Wario Tries To Stop Himself, Revelations, The Meme Games 2022, and WESTERN SPAGHETTI) I'm more so thinking of ones like The Weegee Uprising, The Floor Is Lava, Every Luigi Is Personalized, and The Game Cube. But again I'm the classic era guy, I like episodes that focus on story and character dynamics more than humor.
SMG4's humor for me hasn't really been all that funny since 2016, Part of what made those older videos work from a comedic standpoint was the fact that they were so over the top in their edginess. Once you strip that away it just becomes a tired and stale formula that isn't necessarily bad but not very funny either. For as bad as SML's humor tends to get I can confidently say that I've laughed at his recent videos more than SMG4's, Even though I think SMG4's are vastly superior in every other aspect.
But all of this is subjective. I've been watching SMG4 since 2012 so my vision of what the series should be is more in line with what the classic era represented. We're at the point now where the fanbase has been segmented into four different categories and the ability to please even the majority is no longer possible. 3/4ths of us agree that the series went downhill from 2019 onwards but none have a concrete solution on how to fix it. For me I just want Luke or some other SM64 Machinimist in charge of the editing so that the SM64 elements can become prominent again, Some people want the recolors back, Others want the edgy comedy, And of course there's the extremely vocal minority that demand for Inkling Meggy to be brought back permanently. (Which would be pointless)
So there's really no right or wrong answer.
Does that mean you're gonna review this vid on your instagram account ?
Thank you for reaching out! I am honestly flattered and very happy at how well this video was received by you and others. You are actually one of the SMG4 commentators I respect the most. I was actually wondering if the two of us could maybe have a more in depth conversation about the continued state of SMG4, whether or not it becomes a video on someone's channel.
Oh, how I remember the Human Meggy controversy, at first I thought it was just splatsource thing, but I found out that it's more than that.
Tts eggman channel showed up
Wrote a novel
Then dipped
Be like him everyone
I just found that a lot of the cast members(and this was an issue that started cropping ever since they introduced Axel) are just really superfluous? In the sense that I feel that hardly any of them can keep up with Mario's energy(which has also become very mellow as the years went on). Axel is dead now, so there's that, but for a while he was literally doing nothing for most episodes until they gave him a new motivation of being a Melonie simp/guardian/boyfriend once she turned human. As for Meggy, I can't help but feel she lost a lot of the competitive and ambitious edge she had, where her passion for winning and sports led to Mario occasionally playing the straight man every now and then, but following her human transition and Desti's death, she doesn't have much of that anymore and now mostly serve to kind of serve as Mario's guardian every now and again or just be another voice of relative reason alongside Smg4 or be the vessel of portraying the melodrama of college kids/young adults.
17:33 This moment of Desti’s death really hammered home: THEY CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF THEM DO PERMANENT DEATHS! Hell, even the subtitles in Desti’s funeral made a “shouldn’t she be able to come back via respawn pad?” Joke.
Did they actually bring back desti? Haven't watched regularly in a while so I thought her and axol stayed dead
@@vtubermissingno They didn’t, but this is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” kinda scenario. Bring her back and the emotional impact of the scene becomes pointless, don’t and it makes all times characters have DIED in the past seem incongruent (the toilet killer incident comes to mind).
Imagine having the whole universe rely on Mario being alive
They did it before the MCU
@@JM57-99 I'm pretty sure their universe DOES rely on Mario being alive.
@@midorithefestivegardevoir6727 yeah that's the joke
Tbh... SMG4 is kinda just a fanfiction now.
(Edit: YOOO THANKS FOR 600 LIKES!!!)
Eeyup.
Yep. A really shitty one. Even had a cringy self-insert(axol being kevin's shitty self-insert)
yeah it doesn't have that charm of a dude making a funny bit with mario characters anymore
I was gonna say self insert
@@AJTheSilence yeah like who the hell cares about tari or melony if thats her name I forgor
I watched SMG4 since... maybe 2012? The channel evolved as the trends changed, going from poorly edited text videos to full on skits and silly episodes. I liked them at the time but the original videos are hard to look back on now. I think the point where SMG4 began to have "seasonal rot" was the introduction of Meggy, a Mary Sue character who succeeds at everything effortlessly. Fishy Boopkins was an addition I didn't care for either, being one of the first instances of a fully voice acted character on the channel. Bob was funny occasionally because text to speech saying dumb stuff is a classic meme. So late 2016/2017 was when it all went down the tubes imo. Around that time was when I think the original fans quit watching, including me.
My most missed "series" is BattleToads. Underrated completely.
holy shit fellow battletoads fan
I completely forgot Battle Toads existed. Damn I miss it now.
I probably stopped around 2016 as well and have had no interest in revisiting
7:03 in their defense, they didn't have a choice
Really wish Luke and Kevin would confirm this though.
18:12 Yeah, that was THE tipping point for me. “Super meme guardian” last thing I wanted was for the self insert to be the center of the world.
It would've sucked less if a different character became the center of the world but for them to SPECIFICALLY make the self insert the center of the world is just cringe
I think you and the other guy here are forgetting that smg4 and also technically smg3 as well aren't the ones who are the center of the world MARIO is the center of the world as the avatar though i personally don't really mind or care about the super meme guardian thing my only complaint about it is its given massive importance is the central focus for both smg4 and smg3s characters AND is partly what leads smg3 to hanging out with the crew more and eventually fully becoming a friend and yet nowadays absolutely fucking NOTHING is done with it anymore not even any acknowledgement of smg3 leaving the internet graveyard and how that affects the dead memes down there just NOTHING
@@georgiepig5726 Mario is the “center” on a world building level while SMG4 and SMG3 play “second hand” to his importance all while being the focus. Hell, Mario is more of a pawn that arc.
I just kinda disagree.
@@littlebabyman8494 yeah it’s supposed to be super mario glitchy or something like that
I think WOTFI’s being turned into arc finales is the strongest thing that made me stop watching, genuinely sucks. Great video btw, felt a lot of that nostalgia and i agree with a ton of your points.
Come to think of it? I actually missed WOTFI not being a arc finale (I don’t mind it being a arc finale, I just wanted to be less often)
And also I agree with Nostalgia Egg’s points more than Machievalian’s.
Like wotfi 2023 wasn’t the finale of an arc but just had one episode to set it up and it was a part of a bigger saga that still hasn’t ended yet the puzzle vision saga is still going and we just had a small mini arc with Mr puzzles and leggy with the meme factory and Mr puzzles is still doing parodies with the smg4 cast and it doesn’t look like it’s ending soon also for western spaghetti it did have two episodes to set up the puzzle vision movie had just five episodes before it also the remastered 64 series started after wotfi 2023 which were just old videos in hd and some slight changes like in “ Who let the chomp out?” With Mario’s boom a mask being from the Mario movie(2023) and of course the song “ Who let the toads out?” which was there because the original song was copyrighted.
Yeah like wotfi 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023
@@snookerdooker471 hwæt? I only understand train station.
thank you for this. nobody ever takes people like us seriously. there are so many Modern SMG4 Stans who think we're nostalgia-blinded haters who can't accept change. when we're not. we're just disappointed in what the show has become.
Very glad to hear you enjoyed the video. I was motivated to make this video by the desire to shed the best possible light on us older fans.
@@Machievalian we needed a nuanced review to show them that we're not toxic haters. most reviews of this are full of people getting angry and even yelling. it's hard not to, but hopefully, people will listen to this one.
@@cherrybombwaffles518 The reason why no one listens to SMG4 critisism video is not because the guys that speak in these vids get angry and/or yell, no, the problem comes from the fact that their videos have next to no constructive critisism whatsoever, they just whine and complain about the problems of the series whithout giving any solutions on how to fix them, so of course people are gonna think that these dudes are nostalgia-blinded haters that can't accept change. Hell, even Machievelian thinks that MetalBlade5's video on SMG4 has problems, and its because the video is just not very constructive at all, and because it gets way too conspiratorial at the end (He talks about the Luke and Kevin part in case you don't know, just read his reply on one of my comments if you don't believe me).
ruclips.net/video/r1qEj0TeuVg/видео.html
@@Micktrap397 why are you trying to reach out to me? I saw your post on my video before it got deleted btw.
I remember being a massive fan of SMG4 during 2016-2018, I started noticing a decline during the Waluigi arc where there were some episodes where I didn't laugh but I didn't really think about it. Then Tari was introduced and I found her extremely boring, her style of humor was just not for me, but then the teasers for something new with Tari started showing up, I was hyped! Wondering what they could be, I waited and waited until finally, it was revealed what the teasers were for. It was for Meta Runners... they were telling me that the whole reason Tari was around, the whole point of her existence was to be an add for a different show, I was disappointed, all that waiting, all that anticipation, all for naught, this caused me to stop watching. Looking back on it I don't think that the Meta Runners announcement was the sole reason I stopped watching, episodes of SMG4 were just not that funny anymore but I wanted to still stick with the show, but the Meta Runners announcement was just the straw that broke the camels back
It's weird because I like meta runner a lot, but tari in SMG4 is just insufferable.
I think these days they focus way too much on the characters, in which literally every time they try to do a serious moment, I just cringe.
None of these characters live in a universe where I can genuinely believe they get depressed, nor do I find any of the resolutions compelling - usually just boiling down to "friendship fixes all :DDDD"
Tbh, I… like the seriousness of the arcs. I think they could’ve served as a nice change of pace. A bit of seriousness in an otherwise comedic series. But nowadays, it’s incredibly overdone and the series isn’t really comedic anymore, so the seriousness simply does not have the same effect anymore. Because I like the concept of my favourite characters to go trough serious situations, but often the result of that is complete character assassination (Meggy), weird redesigns (Meggy), and overall making the show worse (also Meggy. Can you tell I hate modern Meggy yet?). Like seriously, I loved the avatar arc, it was amazing! But I loved it because it was different, it was new, an actual nice contrast to the humour (or, whatever was left of it at the time).
Correction, the "avatar arc" you're talking about is probably either the Genesis or Revelation arc, or the Cosmology Lore Saga as a whole. If you're curious about my opinion on these arcs, I really like them, they're my favorite arcs in the SMG4 series.
@@DarkH-gv3hc yeah, those
way too much
@@nessdbest8708 what’s the problem?
@@exalpergames90 me
25:25 Meggy's old voice actor actually confirmed this to be true in an interview with Saberspark with her and the rest of the TADC cast that was uploaded not too long after you uploaded this video. She said she originally auditioned for Sunset Paradise and not SMG4, and they simply asked her to reprise her role for SMG4.
Her voice changed?
yeah, she was voiced by lizzie freeman until 2022; from 2022 and onward elsie lovelock has voiced her
@@TrademarkLover64 Was there any particular reason for that? (YT, stop removing my replies!)
i think lizzie was just too busy so they replaced her with elsie since she's much more free, and i'm ngl i actually prefer elsie's meggy voice over lizzie's
If you really think about it, being that this "show" started at around 2011-2012 (depending on if you count the bloopers), that would make it around 13 years old as of today. This would actually put smg4 in the top 15 longest running shows. Running as long as Fat Albert and King of The Hill, and lasting longer than TMNT Ed Edd n Eddy and Rugrats.
It is not even close to being one of the longest lasting shows. Cartoons? I guess it’d be up there, but there are shows that go on for over 30 seasons.
"smg4 has been running for pretty long" mfs when i show them snl:
I sincerely doubt that.
You are delulu
@@kiddsawesomechanel what is snl?
I hate that fact that they use too much memes and add more voice acting which completely ruins the videos making them cringe
They tried to add quality to something, that at its core, is (or was) a low quality shitpost series.
The whole "DO NOT USE NINTENDO MODELS" could easily be looked over for me, it's just that SMG4 has just become way too serious when it's always been "SMG4 lives in Peach's castle, having extremely stupid adventures with his dumbass friend, Mario"
Ahaha let's just turn that into "random side character meggy becomes the central focus of 80% of videos, where she will learn valuable lessons about friendship through hardship and trauma, in which you are meant to take 100% seriously - until next week where we forget we ever did anything, and do it all over again"
I used to watch SMG4 back then, around 2016-2017 (I think, hard to remember), but have fallen out of watching it since around after "It's Gotta Be Perfect" came out. Just not what I enjoy anymore.
Same. The videos kinda got boring and unfunny
Same aswell.
Yea, they killed the most iconic location to replace it with a frankly disgusting design.
I was raised on SMG4, but havent watched a new one in years, its nice to see a video about it lol
I havent watched since 2023, the fall off is real, this is why indie should never go mainstream
The more serious episodes, especially permanent character deaths, feel fundamentally incongruous with SMG4's identity. Like you have Mario getting gunned down, having his head blown off, burning and turning into a skeleton, etc and then he comes back 5 seconds later. And this is in the same show as for example Desti getting stabbed and permanently dying. You can't take it seriously so it just doesn't work.
hi lilac its me novaverse its nice seeing you here
@@MoreGunGunAnimations hi :3
the season-rotting effect… it happened to spongebob…
Or anything that goes on for more then 5-6 years
@@maxav1-exe Atleast it lasts longer than the confederacy that’s one thing
My main problem is the recent inconsistency with the writing. I actually don’t mind the new characters, it taking itself to seriously, heck, I don’t even mind the writing in general. The problem is when the writers forgot something they established with a character, and change it to not fit with what was written. For example, Tari went from growing out of her scardey cat phase in Western Spaghetti, yet in the later videos, she went back to being a wimp. And Mr. Puzzles, the latest antagonist, became a joke. I don’t mind his Saturday morning cartoon personality a lot, it’s just I hate that he went from this intimidating Bill Cipher like threat, to a joke villain. Like, anyone else feel like they changed his personality? Like, he wasn’t always a bumbling idiot who gets outsmarted constantly.
Anyways, I still like SMG4, but I hate the inconsistency.
7:00 SML did have to change to puppets because of Nintendo
thats a lie!
@@fernandoj774it’s not?? Nintendo sent them a cease and desist letter about using Nintendo plushies for the channel. That’s why they rarely use the name “SuperMarioLogan” and just say “SML”
The thing is that the jokes and characters seem forced, like the corporate kind of forced
Gotta agree, this selfmade charme is kinda gone.
Back then you could tell that the videos were made by just one or two guys in their basement. Now the videos have a scope way bigger than what they could do on their own given the time frame. It takes away this crappy, selfmade magic. A lot of characters used to use Mario's 64 model and animations, it was so bad that it was good again.
The new models are quite well made and all, but they don't have that crappy charme that i fell in love with. This and all the new characters that got added kinda killed it for me.
It isn’t JUST the charm it affects, it directly adds to the comedy. Which for a show that’s supposed to be funny, this supports it in every way.
Man. It's been years since I've seen smg4. And seeing him decline like this is so disappointing.
not only was the dark humor gradually removed, the old characters who made the channel so charming (Enzo, X, Starman 3, Fm, etc.) just... disappeared
Toast shy guy is just gone too.
@@ballorafuntime7567 I MISS THIS GOAT
@@JosephHess-wu9oi YEAAAH TOAAAAAST!!!
@@ballorafuntime7567 YEAH TOAST
DON'T FORGET SWAGMASTER AND CHRIS NOW
When I heard about this video, I actually was very reluctant to watch it, mainly because the MetalBlade5's SMG4 rant really pissed me off. But after watching it today, I can say you geniunelly wanted SMG4 to improve, and that you had good intentions in your mind. I especially liked the part at 22:32 because you actually give a solution to improve the SMG4 series, which is very much appreciated from the usual modern SMG4 rants that just trash modern SMG4 without actually giving a solution to fix their problems. If there is one take that I would disagree with, it would be the Gmod usage over the SM64 usage : I actually don't get bothered by whether Gmod or SM64 is used, so if SMG4 right now was favorising SM64 over Gmod, I would'nt get bothered by it and vice-versa.
In conclusion, I geniunelly think this video is great and it really should pick up in relevance. And one question, what are your tought on MetalBlade's rant video on modern SMG4 ?
First of all, thank you! And as for your question, I thought Metalblade's video was decent enough on first viewing, but its problems soon became more and more apparent to me. It's just not very constructive and gets way too conspiratorial at the end with basically no proof for its points.
It was actually the faults with that video specifically that motivated me to make this one.
@@Machievalian I agree with you on MetalBlade's vid, not only it just regurgigate a lot of popular talking points for bajillionth time, which is a bad sign of him not being able to actually make his own critissism, but the part about Kevin was easilly the worst, as its nothing but conspiraties that felt like they were included only to shame the more naive fans of SMG4 for liking his modern content, which is really hyppocritical when you notice that he pretends that Kevin shamed Luke about his older videos, yet he tries to shame others for liking modern SMG4. Really I can understand why you made this video : Not only to express your issues with modern SMG4 and how to fix them, but also because you wanted critisism like yours to be mainstream. Speaking of, i really wonder why your video didn't pick up in relevance as it is really good. Any idea ?
@@DarkH-gv3hcIt's just a simple case of this being a brand new channel, and I never planned this to be more than a one off thing. I think based off that, this video did quite well, far better than I ever expected it to. But if you want more people to see the video feel free to share it online.
@@Machievalian I shared the vid on Twitter.
Edit : I must say, you suggesting me to share your vid is actually what inspired me to begin posting SMG4 reviews on my Twitter account. So I must say, thank you for finnally giving me the motivation I needed, even if you did it without knowing it.
I still remember making a long-ass essay of a comment in metalblade5's video, it was under a different account, one with a plush zekrom as a pfp
I don't remember everything of that comment and it's couple of follow ups, but I'm somewhat afraid of looking back at it and cringing
meggys redesign was the end
7:31 : "ignoring that this video is pretty much Snowtraped from 2015 but worse" correction, Snowtraped came out in 2016, not 2015.
🤓
Smg4 was the channel where you never took it seriously and just loved it because they kept doing crazy stupid stuff for the sake of entertainment. I miss those good old days.
Some people would call his content "2010s brainrot", but their jokes back then weren't brainless, there was genuine story telling going on, and the humor was a great reflection of the internet culture back then, edgy and dark. But my interest fell off, once he was turning the inkling into an anime character that NOBODY ASKED, but I guess it's just natural progression? Or idk.
The new character designs is grabbing a known character, redesign it to the point that it's a completely new character and give it the personality of a supportive shonen character (like grab Captain Olimar from Pikmin, change it massively design and personality-wise and now he's Captain Courtley, with "good guy" being his only personality trait.)
i stopped watching when meggy, seiko, and those others joined, it kinda just ruined it, and then the remodeling made it worse
They look like bootleg mascots from an Action Replay box.
i also think that the biggest issue with the arcs as an idea is that you need to start watching SMG4 in order to actually understand what's happening, even when SMG4 was always just meant to be a "drop in whenever you want" show methinks
I know this video is almost a year old, but i still wanna put my feelings out in the void. For context, i started watching SMG4 in 2015 id say. I found it after my friend showed me a video of mario 64 models doing Gangnum style and wanted to find that video instead. This was when i finally started to get into internet culture, as before 2015, i wasn't allowed to watch RUclips. The first 3 channels i really remember liking were SMG4, Game Grumps, and Pyrocynical. I have vivid memories of turning on my Wii in the middle of the night to watch SMG4 on the youtube app. I'm not entirely sure what my first episode was, but I'm pretty sure it was the casino one. So I've been watching essentially since the golden age began. Even as i grew up and my tastes in youtubers changed, i still enjoyed SMG4. But then, things just changed. Personally, i pegged the Anime Ark as the true point of no return. The point where my interest slowly waned. Because it was the first of the more serious arcs. Sure, Walugi's arc was technically serious too, but i never really saw it as a big deal and wish they had done something like it again. Because it was able to tell a story and be serious, but not to the point where it felt out of character. Juxtaposition is a tightrope walk. Not many works are able to do it very well. SMG4 is one of them. It fails to really seperate the moments of comedy and tragedy. And overall, i don't think a serious story works. How am i supposed to take characher deaths and lore seriously when a few episodes ago, mario was getting his dick slammed in a door?
Desti's death is ironically the one moment that changed a lot. Despite it just not working, because Desti was just an annoying character so who cares that shes dead? And all character deaths following that have just not worked either. Axol's death made me laugh. And not just a little giggle, but a full on mad cackle as the utter farce of the situation just hit me. They want me to take the death of Axol seriously. And it doesnt work at all. They want to have their cake and eat it too. But it just doesn't work. And honestly, why make SMG4 a serious drama? I feel like if they did that sort of thing with a new series and universe, it could work. The fact they continue to make animated works shows that it could succeed. And then, i could take the story more seriously.
I dont hate modern SMG4, but its just not a same. The fact it isnt made by luke and instead ateam just kinda made it lose its soul. I know nothing will change, but i hope they realize how this whole serious story think doesnt work.
The whole character of Axol I feel was just wasted. While the other modern ones really only have a few jokes to them and that's it, they at least have SOMETHING, while Axol is just... nothing. A bland, friendly guy. They didn't even use his gimmick much after the Anime Arc. The others I could tolerate, but Axol felt like such a waste of space that I didn't even care when he died. Not even cynically happy, like you probably felt when Desti died ("yeah, that annoying shithead's dead, woohoo" or sth). When Axol died, I just felt "wait, so what was his point then exactly? He barely did anything".
I feel like smg4 nowadays is focusing too much on the kids that enjoy the videos, like, it's obvious some videos were made thinking about the young fanbase.
I honestly had the same experience, was introduced to the channel during WOFTI 2015 and started to lose interest around 2018 with the show containing less 64, less og characters, and the jokes weren't as funny. I'm not against Luke and Kevin for pursuing their dreams (especially Luke's since he always wanted to be part of the animation industry), but I wish they would've just ended the show on a high note and instead leaving it to live in a zombified state. It just hurts to watch this happen, in my eyes at least.
axols death was funny like when that one random teacher randomly died in the corpse party anime
I feel like the anime arc ruined everything. Ever since, it felt like every video had some "oh look we are sad and serious" part which ruins the whole purpose of SMG4.
Another issue that might sound strange is the "Quality" they put in. And what I mean by that is that the characters are animated, which I feel like is a huge problem for SMG4 since it was a comedy channel which perfectly utilized the SM64 models to tell a funny story. But now with animations, it feels strange and unfitting. Please leave the animations at Glitch Productions.
I don't know in which order new characters appeared, but I can say that after Axol or Melony or whatever, I've disliked every character which came new (including Axol and Melony). I can understand that they'd want to prevent things from becoming stale, but the new characters are just awful imo.
And lastly, I feel like the anime arc ended really poorly. Meggy's rival who barely anyone knew made everyone sad beyond reason. The two only became somewhat friends in the last two episodes or something.
I know I said "lastly", but I wanted to share my own plotline which I suggested after the Anime Arc, because I didn't like Meggy being a human. I remember saying something like "She meets an inkling which she falls in love with (or something) and the inkling agrees to share his ink or something like that to revert her into an inkling again".
I wish this video would have more views. Although I really doubt that that company would revert their decisions, they are too far deep in shit for any change to happen
I feel the Waluigi & Rapper Bob Arcs did that before the Anime Arc made things worse. I'm gonna say it: I don't like ANY of the arcs ever since 2018. It be one thing if the Waluigi Arc was the finale of SMG4 so Glitch could focus more on their Indie animations, or if the arcs were more like STBlackST's arcs where the dark story doesn't change the identity of the videos, but rather are just the standard videos with an ongoing storyline in the background, but no. Instead, it's just now a PG-13 content farm.
Yeah, in my opinion, they didnt really handle anything that well, especially for a comedy series.
My own take is this, I feel like this is just.. “ diet SMG4. ” the arcs for me are handled well, but when they transition out of it, they do it ATROCIOUSLY! They didn't need to handle it as “ okay!! Mass genocide of main characters family! Lets go back and barely touch on it, as they immediately move on from it! who cares about proper transitions! ”
Second point, most of the cast's characters barely even show up half of the time! And even worse, they don't have any proper change to them! Tari? nah lets just keep her comically shy EVEN WHEN WE HAVE DISPLAYED HER AS A BETTER CHARACTER 4 MONTHS BACK!
Yeah that makes me think of the classic sitcom problem of giving characters development, just to undo it all for the next episode.
They keep trying to do serious moments, but can't keep any of the changes or development past a given episode/arc because they would run out of things to do.
The problem comes from the fact that they end up just retreading the same ground over and over again, and if it was hard to take seriously the first time, there's absolutely no caring the 3rd time
7:26 The reason they swapped was likely for merchandise sales and to sell products.
Yeah it is kinda sad tbh, I never was a huge smg4 fan but I still liked some of his videos back then, and I don’t know if smg4 got a cease and desist but regardless the models are ugly and yeah I think they sell merch of the characters. It’s sad to see something you once liked so desiccated.
@@BrotatoChip1i doubt they got ceast and desist but they may have gotten DMCA'd and lost monetization to some of those older videos.
Thoughts before watching:
I was kid while SMG4 was in the classic era, and I LOVED his content. I even liked the first arc. However, the end of the Anime Arc just changed things for me, and I haven't quite viwed the series as the same sense.
After the video:
I honestly think you're spot on, and while my opinion on some of the characters are different (I rather liked Meggy), I definitely agree with your main points. The video is also VERY well made. You've earned yourself a sub.
I love waking up and coming across a 20+ minute video on a topic I never gave much thought.
Very well said and done, providing a much clear-er idea of just *WHY* new SMG4 is how it is. Love the vid man!
I remember in 2014, 2015, 2016, having the tradition of of tucking myself in my covers and watching the new Christmas special every year which would inevitably come out.
0:19 I thought SMG4 was a Mario 64 mod project for some reason.
Most of us do lol, most of us don’t be watching RUclips poops really and those of us that do more than likely don’t pay attention to the name of the uploader. I forgot about the “RUclips poop” series Eliot goes to school until a year ago and I recommend watching that if your looking for some nostalgia or old content
@@fricklinkfate360 off the top of my head, the best poop channels I remember are hurricoaster, awful fawful, and durhamrockerz. However, there were early ones from like 2008 I remember, but they’ve likely been struck down and faded into obscurity.
I had a very similar experience that you had regarding SMG4: like you, I also had instances where I would just not watch the channel after a particular episode I didn’t enjoy, and this happened for years. I remember watching for a while, and one particular change that I absolutely abhorred was the main cast character models change. About a year and a half ago, I picked it back up and enjoyed a few of the things, but another thing that just did not settle right for me was the removal of the castle and the introduction of the new one. That is really where I decided I was done with SMG4. Similarly to you, though, I don’t particularly dislike SMG4, but there are other things I would rather watch in their stead
This has to be the most frogiving rant I've ever heard, but it is true, SMG4 is nowadays a shell of its former self.
Honestly SMG4's character change was enough to put me off from watching the series anymore... It just feels... wrong somehow, him not being a recolor of Mario. I get they're trying to become more original and make their own characters but ironically enough, their attempt to make their own "identity" is giving up the one they already have 😭
I remember the content he made back in 2011, the main reason I subbed to him instead of other mario 64 skit creators is because while everyone did serious anime like skits, he would just focus 100 percent on random humor. Then (I wanna say it was around the time Meggy was introduced) is when it suddenly flipped. Even though I don’t really watch him these days I was proud to see him go from very small to a million subs over the years.
i know its been like a year since you released this but yknow
you're right
why'd they even make a whole backstory arc when the grand mario hotel established that smg4's mario is from a more stupid universe anyway?
I stopped watching not long after Maggie was introduced.
By that point, GMod was being used a lot, and it felt like it was trying to be higher quality, when part of the charm was how low quality it was.
It barely took itself seriously in ANY way! And that's what made it funny!
Now, it feels like it takes itself too seriously, its trying to be a show now, instead of just funny YT videos.
Oh my god, someone finally put it into words
I think if the modern SMG4 and SMG3’s designs were in the 64 style, things would be so much better. It’s just something about the modern 3D models that make everything seem very… clean, for lack of a better word.
Plastic?
like porcelain but skin and also has a texture like thick jello
SMG4 really made my childhood. I started with who let the chomps out and was still to naive to really understand the channel and stuff but i remembered that one video. I later came back to the channel for the "stupid mario..." series and "if mario was in...", loving both of them. I kept watching from then on. The anime arc, yourube arc, both of the zero arcs and enjoyed all of them almost the same. It was after the dmca arc that i noticed the channels decline, only tuning in to a Nintendo memes episode every once in a while. I sometimes return to the classics like the spaghettiria trilogy, stupid mario, of mario was in and maybe snips of the yt arc but other than that, its been a sad fall from grace.
Real. I literally cannot watch the newer Smg4 episodes. Everything is so serious, the jokes they do have suck (seriously he made a skibidi toilet video), the voice acting throws me waaay off (no offense to the voice actors), the new designs are pretty meh, and overall it just hurts to watch. The arcs, moody stuff, and the storytelling stuff isn't the problem, its the overuse of them that's the problem. Look at the anime arc and the waluigi arc. These arcs felt PERFECT because its was a good mix between comedy and seriousness. Especially The walugi arc. That was the peak of Smg4 imo. I miss how ragdolled everything was too. You barely see that anymore. same with the 64 models. All of those things added to the charm of smg4.
it always felt to me that SMG4 should have ended many years ago but it acts as funding for their other GLITCH series to some degree. after meta runner got off the ground it feels like the whole teams priorities shifted. by now i havent watched a modern (post 2018 or so) SMG4 video in years.
As someone who enjoys mostly anything, I only recently have started to fall off with smg4. I DEFINITELY feel like the humor was better all those years ago, but (particularly 2023) I did find myself enjoying episodes, though it was for a pretty short amount of time. (I did like 1 or 2 of the lawsuit arc episodes, though I couldn’t stand the redesigns at first)
I mostly found the Mr. Puzzles stuff boring(until the end, because DANG)
But then he just came back and ruined that whole vibe 😭
the day the one girl stopped being portrayed as an inkling is the day smg4 fell off
Multi-colored Marios, smg4 going on random adventures with Mario,Mario being naked with his spaghetti and other random 💩 is what made me fall in love with the classic smg4. Heading into 2017 I felt that smg4 was gradually phasing out everything I loved about the classics and when meggy was turned to human, winning the last splatfest, and getting a human voice I felt smg4 was crossing to the point of no return with more character building and being to serious.
I think a big thing to think about, at least now a year later, when discussing Glitch in tandem with SMG4 is that Glitch isnt 'The Side Project' anymore. Quality over Quantity makes more money for them, so while they may be able to pump out constant smg4 episodes they wither in comparison to episodes of their Glitch shows. Glitch started as making shows for characters in the SMG4 series, but as we can see now thats not the case anymore. Glitch is no longer the side project, SMG4 is.
I started watching SMG4 in 2013 or earlier, enjoying the channel on and off for different reasons until 2018. 3 and 4's redesigns in the Lawsuit Arc helped rekindle my interest in newer episodes, and over a few months I watched nearly every video I'd missed, then kept up with the series until the Puzzlevision movie.
After watching so many episodes in that period of time, my biggest problem was a lack of consistency. Modern episodes can be funny, or develop stronger plot, or maintain more serious tones, or show better graphics, but it's very rare for a video to balance all of those. You can click on uploads from weeks apart and get almost completely different media, while being expected to watch most of them regardless if you want to understand the world's lore - which often gets abandoned or contradicted anyway. While this issue wasn't non-existent in the older days, the increased differences between episodes now means it always leaves someone unsatisfied.
Late to the party, but this just came up in my recs and thought i'd yap a little bit cuz I have nothing else to do rn
To me, in a way, Desti's death is synonymous to the death of the "golden era" SMG4 imo. It maybe wasn't the start (since that has already begun at that point) of the "downfall", but it sure felt like the tipping point to me at least, at which I as the viewer realized it's just not going to be the same anymore.
Been watching SMG4 since I was 10 years old in 2013 and barely even understood English (not a native speaker). Now I'm 21 and don't watch at all anymore, but once in a blue moon i still revisit some of the older vids and find myself enjoying them as much as I did back in the day. But the modern stuff just sucks (also I think this change was done after the video's release date but my god the new castle is so ass). It's still good to see that the channel is succeeding anyways, since it helps finance the other GLITCH projects I guess (I like Murder Drones more than I should), but man.
Doubt ur reading this, but good video, many of the points you made summed it up pretty much perfectly.
I wouldn’t say modern smg4 is bad, it’s just seeming like they are trying to appeal to a different audience. I watched smg4 a lot between 2014-2018 and sort of drifted away as the team’s focus changed. The show is going to seem like it’s in a crisis until it cements itself a new identity that is what the audience wants. Just trial and error on the production’s behalf.
When I was young, I remember finding about smg4 with the "road trip" episode and it became one of my favorites from smg4. Sad that they stopped realeasing these peaks...
It’s sad he can’t do it anymore. I remember Smg4 said he would do his old videos again but modern RUclips wouldn’t allow him.
SMG4 became what it was making fun of:
Cringe.
7:00 I mean SML didn't do this willingly they did it because Nintendo literally sued them so they were forced to switch to puppets
14:39 W Pikmin music in the background
While I do not agree with everything you say. But I have to say, great video dude! The way how you put your arguments were really fair and I can completely understand your reasonings. Such a shame we are littered with nostalgiatards who will scream over harmless changes.
I grew up watching SMG4 since like back in 2012. I stopped liking it when they started pumping out so, so much merch and advertising it in every. single. video. Then the new characters got introduced I was like ok, but melon chan and that mushroom guy were the last straw for me personally
The issue with SMG4 is that it tried to go: 'hey, look at these stupid idiots who don't know what a square is' and then they tried to go 'so the dark backstory to why [INSERT CHARACTER HERE] is like that is because [INSERT SHIT FROM ASS]
to be honest my main problem is that that new location they have with the showgrounds is really fucking boring. I need some more verticality in that map. They don't even have the second level of the castle done
At this point, the Smg4 channel is just used as a cash cow to keep funding glitch productions. I could see why since glitch productions are really high quality, however I wished that they would actually care more about what made smg4 the way they are
Bro when will they see that glitch is more profitable than smg4
When they upload on glitch its an instant banger whatever it is reaching over 1m views everytime after meta runner
When they upload on smg4 it doesn't seem to pop off after hitting 1m views and only watched by ipad kids
Last time i saw smg4 on the front page was on the landing page of my samsung tv with "we need to kill mario" which i didn't bat an eye to because i left after wotfi 2022 due to the redesigns
That does not mean that SMG4 videos will improve.
I think it all went downhill when Glitch Productions (if that's what it's called) became a thing. Because he started doing that new show, and then it ended up randomly bleeding into the SMG4 Videos.
Peak for me was 2016-2017. I haven't been able to enjoy them at all anymore since I turned like 16 though
This might be an unpopular opinion but I feel SMG4 got bad when Kevin started getting heavily involved
I find myself agreeing yeah. He seems to have been the one to want to push to serialization and all that.
I mean I watched smg4 when I was a child. I am still (17), just a lot less than when I was younger, for all it's worth I'm happy it gave me some fond memories.
i never expected a nuanced critique of a channel i havent watched since i was a child
I loved SMG4 when I was younger. It was so chaotically stupid and didn’t treat itself like a job to watch and keep up with what shouldn’t have been a story in my opinion. I’m not saying that the brothers weren’t allowed to make one, but with what their foundation was from the very beginning, trying to shoehorn in new characters for the sake of making a story later down the line didn’t really work for me, and the while the quality of the videos definitely dramatically improved, the interest for me to watch them because they no longer contained that initial spark of edgy internet humor died out.
I wish these brothers the best, but their content is no longer for me, and I wish them the best for what they try and make out of their catalogue of hundreds of videos, but it’s not made with the initial thousands of us in mind anymore
Boy, this is really something, for a guy on the outside like me
Bob? Boopkins? Here I thought this series was just GMod shenanigans featuring Blue Mario
I miss the "randomness" that older SMG4 videos had...
Even though I don't watch his videos anymore, I'm really happy for Luke's success :)
(Such as creating GlitchProductions videos, which I prefer watching instead)
when they introduced saiko and tari and made meggy a human fsr is when SMG4 fell off
Those three characters are f tier. Being 'serious' characters they ruined the whole point of smg4.
They went from really funny meme humor to whatever the fuck the puzzle vision arc is
I sorta kept watching after the arcs started, but i really stopped after youtube arc/menlony's introduction
I just felt like it just wasnt as nice as it used to be.
I will defend the Waluigi Arc with my life though
The Waluigi arc is easily the best one. Anime arc was when things started going downhill, but It had some good elements.
@Junotrigger
I agree, it's kinda like they hit it off with a bang, but jt just kept getting worse since
The moment he started overusing gmod was the worst part
when gmod was used for backgrounds or other characters it was good
(i know you said that at 5:00)
I mean, sure the old videos aged like milk sometimes, they were definitely just created by someone at a time where you could freely make dark jokes with a lot of creativity made to entertain others just to have fun with what he was doing. Nowadays, it seems so..Corporate, weirdly enough. Like seriously? Voice acting in my smg4 videos? Damn..And don't even get me started on Guards n Retards, my favorite series which I believe is discontinued just because of the name I'm sure. I'm surprised Nintendo hasn't really grasped in yet after all these years, but maybe that's just me.
i started watching smg4 during thanksgiving in 2015 (first video was who let the chomp out) and it immediately caught my attention with how funny it was, but i also had the same feeling with declining video quality a little after the baldis basics video came out. i stopped watching entirely after war of the fat italians 2019 (or maybe it was 2020) came out, it just didnt hold that charm it once had
When Melanie kissed Axel it was the hardest I've evere cringed, that was the point that broke me. I can't even find the words...
SMG4 fell off hard.
I also find it amusing that, just like SML they changed most of the characters just so they could sell merch, come on bro at least don't make em ugly as hell.
You can’t be serious? *THAT’S* your reason?
@@EWOODJ yeah him trying to make it an emotional moment with the awful animation didn't sit right with me. This is the same guy who used to make completely comedy videos and this style doesn't suit him.
I’m going honest here. I think Luke should just Move on from SMG4 entirely (What I mean by that, I mean end the show for good)
The thing is if you're into gmod machinimas and animation, you're likely to realise that MSG4's gmod has always looked bottom of the barrel in terms of quality, either from low effort or lack of trying, which is why the switch to it is rather baffling and I've always thought it was just out of laziness.
My cousin introduced me to SMG4 around 2016-2018 and,after that, i got absolutely HOOKED
I finally found the perfect series. Funny? Check. Mario related? Check. Uses naugthy words(im a big boi i can watch these videos, i tought) check.
And from there, i if i had a bad day, i would pull up an smg4 video and pass out from laughing at that no-brain humor.(btw the yearly fat italian wars became a TRADITION to me)
When they introduced newer characters like meggy, tari, sakura etc,(the pink haired one, i dont remember her actual name)i was fine with that! I still kept laughing at the videos, and dint see the humor decrease at all, until they turned meggy human.
I think thats the flag of where smg4 just fell off. Because after that, Shi like meta runner started coming out, the humor on the main series decreased, and they started focusing on more lore lore lore lore...
And thats when i couldn't laugh at most of the videos anymore.
The only newer videos i remember having a lugh at were specifically the mario reacts to nintendo memes series, and that one episode where the castle's lightbulb gets broken.
Im dont classify myself as an true OG, but i hope that someday, somehow, the true Super Mario Glitchy 4, returns...
- Meta Runner premiered over 4 years ago
Oh that... that hurt.
(Its the only thing from this whole pile I was interested in and watched)
I loved it for the chaos. But slowly became a weird anime.