On a similar but mostly unrelated note to my last post, I wanna bring your attention to this particular moment in SMO:

This game gets a lot of praise for how expressive Mario is compared to prior games, and I think this is one of my favorite examples. He's got this badass determined game face on when he's about to face off against Bowser for the final time... and then Bowser decides to kick it up a notch and taunt him. Enter Peach, who is panicking and crying out for Mario, and she's practically within arm's reach, which makes the fact that he's powerless to save her while Bowser's still standing that much more hideously cruel.

Just! Look at his face! How it goes from determined to horrified to pure, seething anger. This fight was already personal, and now it just got a whole lot worse, and all of that is conveyed brilliantly within the span of five seconds using nothing more than Mario's facial expressions.

That heightened expressiveness carries over into Bowser's Fury and SMBW, and maybe it's small in the grand scheme of things, but I think it adds so much to each games' experience, and I'm so excited to see more in future titles!