For me, the ideal method is to take the foundation of the first game (or the one that worked best) and build upon it with new ideas.
Look at the Sandbox Mario games vs the NSMB games. 64, Sunshine, and Odyssey use the same general idea, as far as the groundwork is concerned, but the top layer is changed up with new major gimmicks (FLUDD/Cappy), plus smaller ones sprinkled in here and there.
Then you have the NSMB series where, theres no change to the top layer, they just add in a couple new enemies in a few random levels, a new spin on the flying power up (that usually is under utilized anyways), and then they call it a day.
For me, the ideal method is to take the foundation of the first game (or the one that worked best) and build upon it with new ideas.
Look at the Sandbox Mario games vs the NSMB games. 64, Sunshine, and Odyssey use the same general idea, as far as the groundwork is concerned, but the top layer is changed up with new major gimmicks (FLUDD/Cappy), plus smaller ones sprinkled in here and there.
Then you have the NSMB series where, theres no change to the top layer, they just add in a couple new enemies in a few random levels, a new spin on the flying power up (that usually is under utilized anyways), and then they call it a day.
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