It needs to be said, but I want to know how some of you view Mario games and where they started and ended at.
My take- I feel that Nintendo hasn't made a good Mario game since.. 3D world on the 3DS/wiiU and before that.. Mario Galexy and then.. since Paper Mario on the original Wii. those games were in my opinion the best of what Mario has to offer as it was originally intended. Fun, colorful cartoony, and exciteing.
If I had to tell you to play between Paper Mario Wii edition (not Wii U) or New Super Mario Bros Wii. I would suggest Paper Mario for the over all better experience for a Mario game. Granted it's considered a spinoff, it's more colorful and you could tell the devs actually cared about making a good game there.
Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Sunshine are games that make me wonder the following. They chose the water flood gimmick over a real sequal to Super Mario 64 with fixed physics camera, and everything. Then on the Wii, they chose to not make a good Mario 64 sequal there they kept everything small and simplified, and focused on the gimick of the console. Think of how we went from Super Mario bros 1 to 3, and from 3 to world. But that never happened going from the N64 to the Gamecube.
For the longest to time, it's been the spinoffs keeping Mario alive, super smash bros,, Mario Kart.. paper Mario if not for those all we would have right now would be dumped down Mario games like new super Mario bros u or the Mario 3d world (even tho its one of the best, it's not as good as it should be) with no real innovation for Mario or excitment.
If they don't make a real Mario game for next gen, as they did during the N64 erra, Mario will never be good again. Mario Wonder is not a next gen game, they held back all their best, and finally now they make a good looking 2d game. This is what we should had gotten on the Wii U launch.
Edit: the idea of a perfect next gen Mario game would be something that plays like like Super Mario 64 , but then the moving/running and jumping physics of what you get in the new super Mario bros including the wall jumping, and with character models looking more like something you'd see in Super Smash Bros Brawl for the best modern approach for what Mario is suppose to look like graphically. Odyessee, while the graphics are good, i'm not saying they are bad. For a Mario game they are out of place. Lastly as for the camera, the camea should control more freely with the right stick, kinda like how the camera in Rayman 3 would control as a comparison for 3d platformers. Of course my opinion isn't the absolute solution.
I added into the original post towards the end, my idea of what a real next gen Mario game should look like on the switch. and Nintendo isn't delivering anything close to that. facts. On the 2d side of things Mario Wonder is a good game, I never did say it was bad. My argument for that game is simply that it was released wayyy too late for me to care, should had been on the Wii U and the fact that it isn't worth $60 being a very basic 2d game. originally I thought it was $70 but I been corrected.
If Mario Wonder was 2.5 d then we would have a somewhat next gen Mario game because then it would be a real upgrade from the New Super Mario Bros franchise. but Mario Wonder really is just much of the same but with nicer looking colors. oh and new super Mario bros u is still 60 dollars. Why? beats me.
Mario Odeysee is the best Mario game on the switch, people keep thinking that i'm saying it's a bad game, that's not what i'm saying. however it isn't the best 3D Mario game Nintendo could had made for the switch. and they themselves know that more then me that that is true just look at Mario games like- super paper Mario for the Wii. Just look at gameplay of the first stage in the game and tell me that anything on the switch compares to the amount of care and quality, for a Mario game to that.
In your title you do mention "good games" were absent for a period, while you probably mean: "Mario games with the classic style", that's where a lot of miscommunication is coming from.
Nintendo pricing (especially further removed from launch) is pretty much space-magic.
I can relate tot odyssey graphics being more 'hollywood', but after I was a bit disappointed with sunshine (and have since come around to love it), I immediately fell in love with galaxy. Then galaxy 2 came around, wow. While it's style is more modern then SM64, it does not feel as out of place as odyssey graphics to me. It felt too easy, but all Mario games feel too easy, I'm just a better platform-player nowadays.