I need to spend less time responding here and more time working on lua stuff and the spreadsheet, so here's what would've been another novella condensed as best I can.
To be 100% clear on my stance,
I am not arguing for any sort of copyright scrubbing in A2XT Episode 2. Apologies if anyone got that impression, but that wasn't what I was getting at. All I meant to say is that it would be best to make all
new base assets copyright-safe and,
after Episode 2 is done, it would be worth revisiting the old base assets that look like these:
And changing them to not be palette swaps, obvious edits, a koopa, and the genie from Aladdin.
Now, as far as graphic replacements and music for levels go... I realize I'm far from the first person to push for a sort of "legitimization" of the ASMT series and I was being overzealous in that regard. I'd very much like it if we could start setting the stage for possibly going full indie at some point in the future, doing what we can to leave that option open and make the transition easier when/if everyone is ready to make that jump (provided raocow would be okay with it). But Leet is right, there's no need to give up entirely on stuff from other works in the meantime, especially not stuff from rao's LPs.
So, the TL;DR of what I'm suggesting:
Episode 2: Old base graphics stay, Kood remains part of the main 5, new base graphics are completely original, anything goes with levels
Episode 3: All base graphics are completely original, Kood
put on a bus and another character becomes the new Peach, anything
still goes with levels
After that: We'll just cross those bridges when we get to them
EDIT: I got so caught up in this discussion I forgot that the policy for Ep. 2 is still that any raocow references should still work on their own merits. So technically "anything goes as long as it's not confusing/unfunny without context"