Talk:Special Shot

Split by game?

Granted, I haven't played any of these games aside from Mario Tennis Aces, but these different Special Shots seem to have different mechanics behind them, with the only major similarity being that they're special moves unique to each character in sports games, a trait they share with Power Shots from Mario Power Tennis, Star Skills from the baseball games, Super Strikes and Mega Strikes from the Strikers games, etc. With Mario Golf: Super Rush coming out in a month and it having its own version of Special Shots, I think it's best we decide this now. 18:41, May 26, 2021 (EDT)

I'm on the edge about this. Between Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and Mario Sports Mix, the Special Shot mechanic was simply carried over with minimal changes to accommodate the different controls and modes. Mario Tennis Aces adopts the volleyball and dodgeball iterations of the Special Shot from Mario Sports Mix, using a reticle to aim the ball to the other side of the field. Mario Golf: Super Rush has an inherent reticle-based aiming which allows Special Shots to be performed roughly like in the previous game. I think this is a case where a mechanic slowly evolved between games as opposed to seeing drastic changes that would normally warrant splitting this article. To address the subjects you brought up, Power Shots and Star Skills operate on different bases, as they can't be used to set a predetermined trajectory for the ball like with Special Shots, while Mega Strikes are named and countered differently. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 18:58, June 8, 2021 (EDT)

Split the Special Shot article by game

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit any of the sections in the proposal. If you wish to discuss the article, do so in a new header below the proposal.

Split the Special Shot article by game 7-1

Split the article into a Mario Tennis Aces page, a Mario Golf: Super Rush page, and a combined Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and Mario Sports Mix page. Yes, their Special Shots may share gameplay similarities (as is discussed above), but they are still from different games.

Proposer: Technetium (talk)
Deadline: Saturday, September 23, 2023, 23:59 GMT Extended to September 30, 2023, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. Technetium (talk) Following a split, we could list the Special Shots in Mario Hoops 3-on-3 in a table, matching those currently in the Mario Tennis Aces and Mario Golf: Super Rush sections. Doing this now may be too much for a single article to have.
2. PrincessPeachFan (talk): Per proposal. Mario's Special Shot in Aces still involves fire but it focuses on his Wall Jump while his Special shot in Super Rush uses a Super Star instead.
3. LadySophie17 (talk) Per proposal
4. Mario (talk) Go for it
5. MegaBowser64 (talk) okay
6. Killer Moth (talk) Per all. They are massively different gameplay-wise.
7. DrippingYellow (talk) After much consideration, I would say that unless something comes out to confirm that the Mario Tennis Ace developers took inspiration from the Square Enix games, I agree that the Special Shots should be split. Preferably by separating them by game developer (since Mario Sports Mix is clearly trying to follow up on Hoops 3-on-3, and the Special Shots from Mario Golf: Super Rush are likely a callback to Mario Tennis Aces, given the games' other similarities).

Oppose

1. Koopa con Carne (talk) The proposal doesn't make a strong case for splitting the article. It acknowledges a valid argument against that idea, then swiftly flicks it away it with a banal "they are from different games" line of thought. Even if you disregard that it never saw drastic changes in-between games and that it rather evolved gradually, the concept of a Special Shot, much like Rocket Start, is quite generic--it merely describes a special action performed in sports games through a character's unique abilities.

Comments

What should the title be for the Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and Mario Sports Mix article? They are sort of in their own little series, but there is not an official name for it. Technetium (talk) 12:03, September 9, 2023 (EDT)

I agree that the special shots from different sports should be split into different articles, but this proposal would also split the basketball special shot in Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and the basketball special shot in Mario Sports Mix into different articles, which seems a little strange to me. ToxicOJ (talk) 12:36, September 9, 2023 (EDT)

Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and Mario Sports Mix would be together in one article, apologies if I didn't make that clear enough. That's why I'm unsure of what to title the article for them - it would be for two different games without a clear series title. Technetium (talk) 12:45, September 9, 2023 (EDT)

Probably Square Enix for the Hoops and Sports Mix and Camelot for Super Rush and Aces. PrincessPeachFan (talk) 11:30, September 10, 2023 (EDT)

@Koopa con Carne: Yeah, and like I mentioned, the Special Shots tend to be drastically different and we gave the M&L Bros. Attacks their own articles despite ever since BiS, the Mario Bros have been collecting them via attack pieces in BiS and DT. PrincessPeachFan (talk) 13:07, September 11, 2023 (EDT)

Sorry? I look up "Bros. Attack" and see one article for all appearances of this concept across the Mario & Luigi games, not multiple articles for individual appearances, like what this proposal is motioning to do with Special Shot. And, once again, Special Shots are not at all drastically different between games: it's just about the same concept of employing a character's unique abilities to get an edge over opponents, only the player's execution is different due to each game having separate rulesets and controls--like with Rocket Start and Ground Pound. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 10:11, September 29, 2023 (EDT)

The concept of "employing a character's unique abilities to get an edge over opponents" that differs only "due to each game having separate rulesets and controls" applies almost universally to any type of special move across all the numerous sports games in the franchise. That description encompasses Power Shots, Star Skills, Super, Mega and Hyper Strikes, Final Smashes, and maybe more that I can't remember at the moment. The two coincidentally sharing a generic name (like the two Power Shots do) isn't enough to warrant treating them as if they were the same mechanic. — Lady Sophie ^(T|C) 10:56, September 29, 2023 (EDT)

These are all specific "brands" of this concept that are game-dependent and better off treated separately for organisation's sake--but, sure, let's assume the Special Shots from the Camelot sports titles are their own such brand as well, and were not conceived as a carryover from the Square Enix basketball titles. I still oppose splitting the page between the subject's Mario Tennis Aces and Mario Golf: Super Rush instances because both games are sports games, they were developed by the same studio, and were released on the same console, all in all already a strong indicator that these instances are meant to have the same identity; nevermind the fact that, in both games, they require filling a gauge of some kind, are triggered with the press of a single button, and whatever differences occur between characters' special shots are purely aesthetic, which invalidates the rationale upheld by the opposition of them being so drastically different as to necessitate a split. Why are the special shots across the Square Enix titles not being split as well, even though, by the page's own admission, they have even more differences than their Camelot iterations do? Should "Bowser (Super Mario Galaxy)" be split from the Bowser page for being a practically different boss from Bowser in Super Mario Bros.? The proposal is simply poorly thought out.
For a similar reason, I would oppose splitting the Power Shots of previous Camelot titles as well. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 15:37, September 29, 2023 (EDT)

Is there precedent for mechanics with the same name that behave similarly between games being lumped into a single article? Because if so that might influence my vote. DrippingYellow (talk) 13:58, September 29, 2023 (EDT)

Jump, Swim, Roll, Slide, Ground Pound, Spin Jump, Wall Jump, Rocket Start, Bros. Attack etc. etc. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 15:37, September 29, 2023 (EDT)