wfagamerants - Tumblr blog

wfagamerants · 3 months

Text

Out of curiosity I was looking through Nintendo's official Twitter accounts to see what they say about Toad and wouldn't you know: I found more stuff for here!

Let's start with this Puzzles & Dragons ad:

This isn't inherently tied to the Captain, thing, but I mentioned how it was the one example post-the Wii era where Toad was depicted with a red vest, showing there CAN be instances where that happens and thus it doesn't make Captain's red vest in Galaxy a sign he is someone else, especially with it being during the era where they still did that sometimes.

That game also had a series of tweets on Nintendo's german account, where Toad would give tips and this one is especially interesting:

''Wenn Toad isn't hunting treasure, he gives you valuable tips for Puzzles & Dragons: Super Mario Bros Edition''

Yeah, this is making very explicit reference to Toad being Captain.

Outside of that I found these two tweets with a Toad amiibo with a little headlamp, to promote Treasure Tracker:

One of those things that very explicitly invites seeing the two as the same character and even follows a trend of Captain being associated with blue vest Toads (the initial 3D World life icon and the Ultimate spirit situation) which happened conveniently at the time Toad stopped ever being depicted with a red vest, safe for that one single P&D exception.

This poll also lists Treasure Tracker as a game with Toad on it:

This ad for UK Store Treasure Tracker pre-order pins refers to Captain as just Toad:

On top of that, this checklist lists Treasure Tracker in a way that very explicibly advertises it as Toad's game:

And lastly, Mario Run had a promotional event for Treasure Tracker themed all around Toad, which would be strange if he isn't Captain, since he has no real relation to the game besides the Pixel Toads if that's the case:

So yeah. The list keeps growing.

I have made it very blatant that I am a fan of Toad.

If you followed me for a while, you also likely have heard me vent about the claim Toad and Captain Toad are different characters, citing multiple contradictions to this claim in the games themselves.

I’m not here to deny official word or push my preferences (though I do have them), rather I want to give my perspective on the whole thing in full and delve a little into how Nintendo handles main members of a Mario species in general.

First, it’s important to recognize that Nintendo is loose with a lot of stuff. Many different people work on these games and you can see different takes on how to present certain species quite frequently.

When we think of Toad, the main way we think of him distinguished from other members of his species is the red spots and blue vest combo. In a large number of games that is indeed the case.

Most spin-offs, Super Mario 3D Land and Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon, only to name some. Those make it simple, red spots and blue vest Toad is THE Toad. Other red Toads have a red vest.

However, not every game makes it so nice and simple. The pre-GameCube games had ALL the basic Toads rock the red spots and blue vest combo. THE Toad was distinguished more by role, being the only Toad in the game or as in Super Mario RPG, being the only Toad to have Toad: in his text box, even in the japanese version I might add, to indicate he is the main one you keep meeting.

The modern games aren’t without occasional screwyness themselves though. Odyssey reverts to the idea of all generic Toads using that look and then you have things like Sunshine or the Baseball games, where there is no red spots & blue vest Toad, but a red vest Toad is identified as THE Toad in things like the manual:

It’s weird, but it should be said the 2000s were still a bit of a transitional era for Mario. It took until 2004 for short sleeves Wario to be consistently used in spin-offs for instance and Peach still had her old dress in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door. You saw oddities like that around a fair bit.

The only time the Toad thing ever came up again in later years is Puzzles & Dragons SMB Edition and even that one has THE Toad on the cover, despite him having a red vest in the game,

Something that is even stranger given that by then they had stock Red Toad renders around and Nintendo is so overprotective of Mario as an IP, that them letting this slide is notable.

While this kinda stuff muddles things, it doesn’t take away from the fact a THE Toad exists. It’s seemingly more about the iconic visuals, than the detail. That visual of a single red Toad being with the rest of the main cast.

Something that still persists to this very day and will, with the distinctions we prefer to go for (only one blue vest, red spots Toad) even be present in the movie, which Nintendo is directly involved with.

It’s a thing that extends beyond Toad and has been present with other characters representing their species as well. Kamek being the most blatant example of it.

Even prior to Yoshi’s Island, singular important Magikoopas such as a particular Yoshi’s Safari boss, a right-hand man Magikoopa in Super Mario kun’s Super Mario World story or the eeeeeevil Koopa wizard Wizenheimer in the Super Mario World cartoon, had already appeared as important parts of Bowser’s troops.

It’s with Yoshi’s Island that one particular Magikoopa, who was the one who raised Bowser no less, was introduced. While this had no distinct name in Japan, where all Magikoopas are known as Kamek, the localization either consciously or by lucky accident, kept his name as Kamek, giving him a big distinguishing element from his species.

The idea of Kamek the main Magikoopa is one that persists to this day and it makes a lot of sense why. Given his shown connection to Bowser in his debut game, there is no reason to assume the most prominent Magikoopas aren’t this particular one and localization was happy to keep the concept around.

In Japan meanwhile, Kamek the character is not a foreign concept, but many materials do not make a formal distinction between the character and the species. It’s there, just more vague. You can sense that in localizations too, with how there are a couple notable oddities.

Mario Party 9 has a playable Magikoopa who is referred to as such in american localization, is called Kamek in other versions, like the german translation. Whether this is meant to be the character or a generic member of the species is genuinely not clear. Not helping matters is how european translations sometimes call generic Magikoopas like in the first couple Paper Mario games and as recent as Bowser’s Fury, Kameks.

A particularly noteworthy example is Giant Kamek in Super Princess Peach. His status as a boss, the one to guard Luigi no less, makes it easy to take him as Kamek transformed, but then you look at the Glossary:

A Kamek. It’s meant to be a generic member of the species, in a new form.

The truth is that Mario is a very, as I like to call it ‘’function over flavor’’ series. It’s more about the function, such as a main red Toad or a main Magikoopa and not so much the finer details like whether the vest color is correct, even if many games DO take that into account.

Because of this, I think the thing to look for is consistency, whatever fits the consistent image is the most likely answer. We will never know in some cases if the character in question is a generic member of the species or the main one, but that is because Nintendo themselves often don’t put that much stock into it.

On that note, while localizations, despite greater efforts to define things can fumble too, I don’t think that means they don’t ‘’count’’. I generally don’t agree with the idea that only japanese sources have any say with how to interpret Mario stuff, because the series does not have the lore consistency to give that idea weight.

On top of that, we have seen that western influences have affected the franchise at large more than once. The western Super Mario Bros 2 is the most obvious example of this, with how many elements of it have made it far into the franchise. Most notable though are the Koopalings, who didn’t even have names in the japanese version of SMB3 and adapted their localization given names.

This kind of stuff isn’t like say, Monsteropolis in the US Mega Man manual or the US Sonic CD manual clumsily trying to treat Amy as Sally. This stuff is still with the franchise today and as the movie shows, still matters.

THE Toad is a thing in the movie and as is Kamek. Both clearly defined as such and while the New York backstory is not a western invention, it was more emphasized in the west and that’s back too. It’s even Brooklyn again and I’m not even sure if that was ever specified in japanese material or direct confirmation from Miyamoto.

Mario is not a story centric series where only the original text matters. It’s a extremely loose canon, where what the west did, still matters to this very day and is of equal importance.

With all this in mind, let’s talk Captain Toad.

To understand my point on what I mean with contradictions regarding him and Toad being separate characters, we need to look at what Captain was like in the Galaxy games.

In these games, Captain Toad as a name did not exist, with him being only referred to as ‘’the captain of the Toad Brigade’’ and being specifically shown to be a self proclaimed captain at that. Even his inability to jump was invented later on and is contradicted by many level set pieces he shows up in, as well as this:

Even the headlamp, one of his defining visual features, wasn’t treated as anything that special, with BankToad being able to get it at a certain level of deposited Star Bits in Galaxy 2.

He wasn’t really talked about in any official materials and didn’t even get an official render of any sort, but you know who did and is on the cover of Galaxy 2 no less?

Toad. I have seen the argument that this could be an error, but for that to make it all the way to the cover, the first thing someone would see of the game when buying it, would make that a very massive one. Additionally, Toad also has a render for Galaxy 1, even though he wouldn’t have any presence in either game aside from a Save File icon and a cameo in the story book opening of Galaxy 1, if he’s not Captain. The only existing bios for Toad or Captain in these games, even identify them as the same character.

It does line up with what I said about consistency. Sunshine gave us a group of 5 Toads in different colors, with the red vest and red spots one being singled out to be the main Toad. Galaxy introducing a similar group and making the red Toad, in a franchise where a red Toad is one of the main characters, THE Toad, like in Sunshine or the Baseball games, makes sense because there is precedent.

Then many years later came 3D World, the game where Toad and Captain were supposedly clarified to be different characters, co-existing at the same time.

This is also the game where the main playable Toad is a Blue Toad. THE Toad, has never been portrayed that way before or since, to the point where every time Nintendo reuses one of the Blue Toad renders in this game

They are recolored to fit his proper appearance, because this has NEVER been how he has been portrayed. The game really emphasizes the playable Toad being a blue one too, with how the credits scene even shows Captain with a group of Toads, missing a blue one.

This flies heavily in the face of past established consistency, where between Sunshine, the many spin-offs or Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon, THE Toad has always been distinguished as the red one, because that’s the first one, who established himself as THE Toad.

One could point to his blue color palette in NES SMB2 and I have seen arguments that it’s an homage to that. We don’t have official word on this, but I find that very hard to buy, because he was never supposed to look like this. When he WAS depicted that way in art, everyone was portrayed with their in-game colors:

And in every other case, everyone had their proper colors:

3D World doesn’t do either. The idea of a homage rings hollow when Mario, Luigi and Peach are the same as usual and those couple spots needing to be recolored to not confuse him with Mario, also doesn’t really make sense, given how drastically different their body types are.

It goes so far the official Super Mario website even lists red spots specifically as one of Toad’s defining features, which would make him being Blue Toad in 3D World even stranger:

The game also lacks any kind of red spots and blue vest Toad, which 3D Land ensured there was only one of, to identify him as THE Toad. You know who had an icon like that in the reveal trailer though?

Captain Toad. Completely new art no less, that stuck around in the game to be in the reveal trailer, less than half a year away from release.

Also, yah know how you can find Captain Toad in levels and sometimes get a collectible out of it?

Toad did the same thing in 3D Land. Even in terms of gameplay function, the two are extremely similar. Similarities between the two are a running theme from here on out.

Prominent red Toads who throw turnips, give out stars, have Toadette as a partner, act as leaders to other Toads and have been depicted with fairy partners (though in Captain’s case only in concept art).

It is baffling how much they have in common and you can tell that even more by how much the two are linked.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker has an amiibo bundle, amiibo functionality and a pre-order bonus, centered around a character that, according to some sources, you don’t even play as.

All by Nintendo themselves btw. Same with say, this video title or german eShop description for the game, which refer to the main character as Captain and Toad interchangeably.

This even extends to in-game content:

And an Odyssey developer interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVNYfoFcrZY

Then you got Mario Maker call Toad Captain:

Smash let’s Toad’s spirit evolve into Captain, which is tied to gameplay AND in-line with stuff like Shadow becoming Super Shadow or Alm and Celica becoming their adult selves. The game even makes the distinction that THE Toad exists in the tips, where Peach’s Toad is THE Toad and Daisy’s (who is blue ala’ 3D World btw) is a Toad.

And then you get Mario Kart Tour, the only spin-off Captain Toad is in and the same one where someone like Peachette can be an independent playable character distant from Toadette OR Peach, so yeah. He even shares most of his animations with Toad:

A trait mainly seen with the simpler alts. Pit Stop Toad has more unique animations than Captain has.

VS Tour promos even group him with Toad, right next to him. Same happens with Peachette, who is correctly placed between Toadette and her alts.

Hillariously enough, even LEGO gets in on this, by giving Toad a treasure hunting themed expansion:

As I said, it’s not my intent to ignore official word. Officially, Captain is regarded as a different character, I’m just pointing out how much the games themselves don’t support that and how it requires a lot of justification and ignoring of past patterns to get there and explain away the mountains of counter evidence.

I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss every source that speaks against those claims either, these are just people trying to make sense of the mess Nintendo has left behind and I could just as easily point out that the original confirmation Captain is a separate character, also came with Toads not truly being mushrooms. A claim that contradicts a lot of past descriptions of the species, dialogue mentioning things like spores and Toad showing spore abilities at multiple points.

Not saying this invalidates the entire thing, just pointing out this is a nightmarish mess if you want to maintain consistency.

It’s why Movie Toad is exciting to me.

Giving him the backpack, Captain’s most defining feature these days and thus possibly silently merging them, is to me, the best and least complicated thing they could do.

Time will tell if this will affect anything, but Nintendo allowing for this at all does tell me they are fine with the characters being linked, which I hope translates to good things for him. Toad has a lot to gain from being Captain, while Captain really struggles to be his own thing, because he IS Toad in all but official word.

478 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 3 months

Note

What other characters you did smash movesets for?

I haven't really done anything as fleshed out as the Toad & Wanda one to be honest.

3 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 4 months

Text

Forgot a crucial detail:

They even play the same instrument.

That's very important.

I have made it very blatant that I am a fan of Toad.

When we think of Toad, the main way we think of him distinguished from other members of his species is the red spots and blue vest combo. In a large number of games that is indeed the case.

Most spin-offs, Super Mario 3D Land and Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon, only to name some. Those make it simple, red spots and blue vest Toad is THE Toad. Other red Toads have a red vest.

The only time the Toad thing ever came up again in later years is Puzzles & Dragons SMB Edition and even that one has THE Toad on the cover, despite him having a red vest in the game,

Something that is even stranger given that by then they had stock Red Toad renders around and Nintendo is so overprotective of Mario as an IP, that them letting this slide is notable.

It’s a thing that extends beyond Toad and has been present with other characters representing their species as well. Kamek being the most blatant example of it.

A Kamek. It’s meant to be a generic member of the species, in a new form.

Mario is not a story centric series where only the original text matters. It’s a extremely loose canon, where what the west did, still matters to this very day and is of equal importance.

With all this in mind, let’s talk Captain Toad.

To understand my point on what I mean with contradictions regarding him and Toad being separate characters, we need to look at what Captain was like in the Galaxy games.

Even the headlamp, one of his defining visual features, wasn’t treated as anything that special, with BankToad being able to get it at a certain level of deposited Star Bits in Galaxy 2.

He wasn’t really talked about in any official materials and didn’t even get an official render of any sort, but you know who did and is on the cover of Galaxy 2 no less?

Then many years later came 3D World, the game where Toad and Captain were supposedly clarified to be different characters, co-existing at the same time.

And in every other case, everyone had their proper colors:

It goes so far the official Super Mario website even lists red spots specifically as one of Toad’s defining features, which would make him being Blue Toad in 3D World even stranger:

Captain Toad. Completely new art no less, that stuck around in the game to be in the reveal trailer, less than half a year away from release.

Also, yah know how you can find Captain Toad in levels and sometimes get a collectible out of it?

Toad did the same thing in 3D Land. Even in terms of gameplay function, the two are extremely similar. Similarities between the two are a running theme from here on out.

It is baffling how much they have in common and you can tell that even more by how much the two are linked.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker has an amiibo bundle, amiibo functionality and a pre-order bonus, centered around a character that, according to some sources, you don’t even play as.

All by Nintendo themselves btw. Same with say, this video title or german eShop description for the game, which refer to the main character as Captain and Toad interchangeably.

This even extends to in-game content:

And an Odyssey developer interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVNYfoFcrZY

Then you got Mario Maker call Toad Captain:

A trait mainly seen with the simpler alts. Pit Stop Toad has more unique animations than Captain has.

VS Tour promos even group him with Toad, right next to him. Same happens with Peachette, who is correctly placed between Toadette and her alts.

Hillariously enough, even LEGO gets in on this, by giving Toad a treasure hunting themed expansion:

Not saying this invalidates the entire thing, just pointing out this is a nightmarish mess if you want to maintain consistency.

It’s why Movie Toad is exciting to me.

Giving him the backpack, Captain’s most defining feature these days and thus possibly silently merging them, is to me, the best and least complicated thing they could do.

478 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 4 months

Note

Just wondering but do u have any HD Scans of the entire Wario Woods/Mario and Wario manga storylines along with others that have Captain Syrup, wario woods characters, and Wanda appear in as well?

Here's one good source for nearly the full Comic BomBom Mario run. Most my sources are no longer up, but this one is still there.

3 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 4 months

Note

If Wanda and rest of Wario Woods/World/Land/Ware cast ever appeared in the Mario movie, how would they be portrayed, how would they be changed, how would they be part of that universe and what celebrities would voice them?

Also how would some of them that never spoken in the games(either in full sentences, words, or sounds) , especially Wanda, would sound like as well? (In games and everything else)

Not sure on VAs but I do picture there would be major changes to how Wario himself is portrayed, by having them be around.

Wario in the Mario games tends to stay true to being a rival of varying degrees of antagonism. Having his own friends and enemies be around would likely lead to him being more of a true neutral, since it gives him his own cast to bounce off of more.

How much they know Mario himself beyond Wanda is a question mark, though the Volts would obviously look up to him.

Honestly, that question is worth it's own post on how the Wario cast could interact with the Mario crew. I should get on that.

3 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 4 months

Note

I was gonna ask you this but since you don’t have an ask box, I’m gonna ask you here if it’s fine with you.

If Nintendo ever decided they wanted to put Wanda (from Mario and Wario) in Smash Bros as DLC as both a Retro and Mario Rep and as either her own playable character or as a duo with Toad/Captain Toad/Toadette/Captain Toadette, what moves would she have, what kind of stage would they have, music would come with them, movesets, final smash, etc. how would they also be protayed in game as well both personality and look wise especially since Wanda hasn’t appeared in any of the 3d games and not the commercials she appeared in?

I’m also thinking about making art of that and how would that look like as well.

Ooooh~ I'd be very interested to see that~

I actually made a full moveset for them years ago, which I still like, as linked above.

As for a stage, I'd say a inside the Tree stomp stage ala' Round Game in Wario's Woods would be a good fit and could be mechanically unique.

As for personality, I generally see Wanda as upbeat and friendly, but also assertive, perhaps to a fault, since she isn't a fighter herself. Someone who makes for a great support for the timid, but brave when it matters, Toad.

13 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 4 months

Text

A couple more things, in part because I want to address something. Also doing it via reblog again, because for some reason the editor didn’t want to save additions last time.

A thing I never touched on with the Smash Ultimate example is regular Toad’s spirit fight, which uses Captain Toad Treasure Tracker music:

An interesting thing to do given there are plenty other tracks that could be deemed fitting for Toad himself, including a brand new Super Mario Bros 2 remix, yet they went for Captain Toad music.

I also saw this news article on Nintendo’s official website:

Talks about the Toad vs Toadette Tour in Mario Kart Tour, but has Captain on the thumbnail, while talking about Toad.

Even extends to the Tour itself, since all VS Tours have a spotlight pipe with variants of the featured characters and Toad got:

Captain.

The only one who breaks that pattern is Funky, in place of a DK alt for the Bowser vs Donkey Kong Tour, but that's also because DK didn't have an alt at the time and wouldn't get one until not long before Tour would cease to add new content.

The german Treasure Tracker website also contains another example of Captain just being called Toad:

We also got yet another instance of Treasure Tracker being applied to Toad, via the german Mario Portal:

Especially noteworthy since all entries have the characters’ own games listed first.

RPG also makes sense to list for him, due to Toad being a major NPC and a game mechanic via Toad Assist, to the point I have even seen more than one japanese fan artist draw him as an honorary member of the party...which has no bearing on anything official, but it's cute.

Wonder meanwhile is an interesting one, because Blue and Yellow are the playable Toads (along with Toadette), so Captain is the only thing they can be referring to here. It’s not impossible they may be conflating character and species in this case, but we don’t actually know, especially since the bio, like all versions in all languages, emphasizes the red spots as a defining characteristic of Toad and while acknowledging him being a species, focuses on him as an individual.

This brings me to another point. Between the Mario Portal, Play Nintendo, the Japanese Movie Pamphlet, that promo video I brought up last time, the Switch News Tab article related to it AND the webpage related to it, we now have a minimum of six sources that call Treasure Tracker Toad’s game.

By contrast, 3D World, where supposedly, Blue Toad is THE Toad, is never tied to him in that kind of fashion and the description for this Play Nintendo video even explicably calls him Blue Toad and the video itself also just calls him a blue Toad:

Not even saying this one source is ultra definitive, I am just collecting.

The Mario vs DK remake also heavily flies in the face of the idea that Toad HAD to be blue due to worries he and Mario could get mixed up.

Even more so given Toad and Mario are the only playable characters here. The choice to leave out Red Spot, Blue Vest, Toad in the platformers like 3D World and Wonder, whenever Captain is around, comes off as very deliberate. as in they are just the same Red Toad.

That is a good cue to get to talk a bit. I have had some experiences with people not quite understanding what I am going for, so here is the gist of it in a few points:

For one, I am not at all saying I am ‘’right’’ or ‘’correcting’’ anything. I fully acknowledge that official word in the past has referred to them as separate characters, I am just pointing out official sources that contradict this idea.

Secondly, while I have a preference, none of my points are born from bias. My conclusion comes from the evidence, rather than me twisting the evidence for my conclusion. There really isn’t anything interpretive about the examples I cite and I make it a point to only show what’s being said and shown in official capacity, no speculation.

I also take every source into account and not just japanese ones, because with Mario, western influences do very much have weight. I mean, this is the same franchise where the Koopalings had no individual names in Japan and had to be named in localization, with those names being adapted back into Japan, as I mentioned waaaay earlier.

A very extreme case, but that should tell you something.

Another thing is that I explicably avoid mentioning canon, since there is no officially defined one and Miyamoto himself has gone on record to define Mario as a fluid cartoon canon, where things can change depending on what each game wants to do:

This is also where the movie comes in. A common retort I get is that it’s not canon and the thing is: this was never about canon, it’s about the fact that Nintendo allowed for Toad and Captain to be so blatantly the same character in Mario’s biggest non-gaming outing to date.

Even more so since they know the movie has a influence on how the average joe sees Mario, with Wonder’s animation upgrade being meant to live up to the movie and the Peach Showtime key art being changed to make her resemble movie Peach more:

And that’s not even going into the japanese movie pamphlet, meant to explain how things are in the games, which continues to treat Toad and Captain as the same character and calls Treasure Tracker the first 3D game to star Toad, no effort to distinguish him and Captain present, which implies deeper intent than just the movie doing it’s own thing.

And then there is the supposed personality difference between Toad and Captain, which I never got.

Captain is supposedly too cowardly to be Toad, yet is described as courageous by Nintendo themselves:

And even spends ⅔ of his game adventuring to save Toadette, despite how afraid he often is, which also shows how loyal he is, a trait deeply associated with Toad.

Toad himself can be compared to Luigi, scared, but brave. There is a reason this art exists:

Luigi’s Mansion in general sums Toad up well, especially 3. He is visibly afraid and in a position where he genuinely can’t do much, yet he is the only one of Lugi’s captured friends in 3 besides E. Gadd, who actively helps out after being rescued, leading to a later escort mission with him.

Toad is on several occasions also shown as a leader figure for the Toads, especially in sports games where they cheer him on (Mario Golf World Tour) or serve as part of his special move (Dr. Mario World, Mario Strikers Battle League).

Toad and Captain genuinely aren’t that different, even the treasure hunter aspect has been applied to Toad in LEGO Mario as said before, an ongoing merch line with a gigantic name.

That’s all I wanted to say, to make my stance maybe a bit more clear than it was before. This entire thing is me wanting to point things out that make Nintendo’s exact intent pretty confusing. On their own none of these would mean much to me, but the fact stuff keeps happening is what makes me question things.

I have made it very blatant that I am a fan of Toad.

When we think of Toad, the main way we think of him distinguished from other members of his species is the red spots and blue vest combo. In a large number of games that is indeed the case.

Most spin-offs, Super Mario 3D Land and Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon, only to name some. Those make it simple, red spots and blue vest Toad is THE Toad. Other red Toads have a red vest.

The only time the Toad thing ever came up again in later years is Puzzles & Dragons SMB Edition and even that one has THE Toad on the cover, despite him having a red vest in the game,

Something that is even stranger given that by then they had stock Red Toad renders around and Nintendo is so overprotective of Mario as an IP, that them letting this slide is notable.

It’s a thing that extends beyond Toad and has been present with other characters representing their species as well. Kamek being the most blatant example of it.

A Kamek. It’s meant to be a generic member of the species, in a new form.

Mario is not a story centric series where only the original text matters. It’s a extremely loose canon, where what the west did, still matters to this very day and is of equal importance.

With all this in mind, let’s talk Captain Toad.

To understand my point on what I mean with contradictions regarding him and Toad being separate characters, we need to look at what Captain was like in the Galaxy games.

Even the headlamp, one of his defining visual features, wasn’t treated as anything that special, with BankToad being able to get it at a certain level of deposited Star Bits in Galaxy 2.

He wasn’t really talked about in any official materials and didn’t even get an official render of any sort, but you know who did and is on the cover of Galaxy 2 no less?

Then many years later came 3D World, the game where Toad and Captain were supposedly clarified to be different characters, co-existing at the same time.

And in every other case, everyone had their proper colors:

It goes so far the official Super Mario website even lists red spots specifically as one of Toad’s defining features, which would make him being Blue Toad in 3D World even stranger:

Captain Toad. Completely new art no less, that stuck around in the game to be in the reveal trailer, less than half a year away from release.

Also, yah know how you can find Captain Toad in levels and sometimes get a collectible out of it?

Toad did the same thing in 3D Land. Even in terms of gameplay function, the two are extremely similar. Similarities between the two are a running theme from here on out.

It is baffling how much they have in common and you can tell that even more by how much the two are linked.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker has an amiibo bundle, amiibo functionality and a pre-order bonus, centered around a character that, according to some sources, you don’t even play as.

All by Nintendo themselves btw. Same with say, this video title or german eShop description for the game, which refer to the main character as Captain and Toad interchangeably.

This even extends to in-game content:

And an Odyssey developer interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVNYfoFcrZY

Then you got Mario Maker call Toad Captain:

A trait mainly seen with the simpler alts. Pit Stop Toad has more unique animations than Captain has.

VS Tour promos even group him with Toad, right next to him. Same happens with Peachette, who is correctly placed between Toadette and her alts.

Hillariously enough, even LEGO gets in on this, by giving Toad a treasure hunting themed expansion:

Not saying this invalidates the entire thing, just pointing out this is a nightmarish mess if you want to maintain consistency.

It’s why Movie Toad is exciting to me.

Giving him the backpack, Captain’s most defining feature these days and thus possibly silently merging them, is to me, the best and least complicated thing they could do.

#Youtube

478 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 4 months

Text

Doing an update, because quite a bit has happened since.

For one, the movie is long out now and on top of the backpack, he also got the Captain Toad theme during his introduction and his section of the credits and on top of that, we got this pamphlet:

Given out in japanese showings of the movie to explain references in the movie and it just calls Treasure Tracker the first 3D Action game to star Toad, no distinction between him and Captain made, so they are pushing that beyond just being the movie's own interpretation.

I have also seen an argument that his introduction in Galaxy 2 proves they can't be the same character, since Captain introduces himself, but not only does that already contradict Galaxy 1:

(Which also indicated him and his gang hung out with Luigi, someone Toad knows)

but in at least one langauge, he doesn't introduce himself so formally, so while I don't know the japanese text, it seems to be a depending on the translation thing:

And even if it is the same in japanese, it contradicts Galaxy 1 and Wonder has him not recognize anyone on the roster, not even Toadette, who he shared an entire game with:

So I genuinely don't take this stuff at face value, the platformers aren't consistent with that stuff.

Aside from that we also got a big game push with it's own trailer, webpage:

Once again treating Treasure Tracker as Toad's game and in the case of the Switch news tab above, even refering to him as Captain, since it only talks about the characters on the thumbnail.

And on top of that, we got even more instances of THE Toad in a definitive way and Captain refusing to show up together.

Wonder, which has Captain as an NPC, does not have Toad on the roster, despite how massive it is:

and Rosalina's Ice World, as part of the Booster Course Pass, which reuses Tour assets left and right, skipped out on an opportunity to have Captain cameo in an obvious place:

So yeah, that's all that happened since then.

Point is they still don't commit to what they claim and it straight up feels like they are walking back on it.

I have made it very blatant that I am a fan of Toad.

When we think of Toad, the main way we think of him distinguished from other members of his species is the red spots and blue vest combo. In a large number of games that is indeed the case.

Most spin-offs, Super Mario 3D Land and Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon, only to name some. Those make it simple, red spots and blue vest Toad is THE Toad. Other red Toads have a red vest.

The only time the Toad thing ever came up again in later years is Puzzles & Dragons SMB Edition and even that one has THE Toad on the cover, despite him having a red vest in the game,

Something that is even stranger given that by then they had stock Red Toad renders around and Nintendo is so overprotective of Mario as an IP, that them letting this slide is notable.

It’s a thing that extends beyond Toad and has been present with other characters representing their species as well. Kamek being the most blatant example of it.

A Kamek. It’s meant to be a generic member of the species, in a new form.

Mario is not a story centric series where only the original text matters. It’s a extremely loose canon, where what the west did, still matters to this very day and is of equal importance.

With all this in mind, let’s talk Captain Toad.

To understand my point on what I mean with contradictions regarding him and Toad being separate characters, we need to look at what Captain was like in the Galaxy games.

Even the headlamp, one of his defining visual features, wasn’t treated as anything that special, with BankToad being able to get it at a certain level of deposited Star Bits in Galaxy 2.

He wasn’t really talked about in any official materials and didn’t even get an official render of any sort, but you know who did and is on the cover of Galaxy 2 no less?

Then many years later came 3D World, the game where Toad and Captain were supposedly clarified to be different characters, co-existing at the same time.

And in every other case, everyone had their proper colors:

It goes so far the official Super Mario website even lists red spots specifically as one of Toad’s defining features, which would make him being Blue Toad in 3D World even stranger:

Captain Toad. Completely new art no less, that stuck around in the game to be in the reveal trailer, less than half a year away from release.

Also, yah know how you can find Captain Toad in levels and sometimes get a collectible out of it?

Toad did the same thing in 3D Land. Even in terms of gameplay function, the two are extremely similar. Similarities between the two are a running theme from here on out.

It is baffling how much they have in common and you can tell that even more by how much the two are linked.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker has an amiibo bundle, amiibo functionality and a pre-order bonus, centered around a character that, according to some sources, you don’t even play as.

All by Nintendo themselves btw. Same with say, this video title or german eShop description for the game, which refer to the main character as Captain and Toad interchangeably.

This even extends to in-game content:

And an Odyssey developer interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVNYfoFcrZY

Then you got Mario Maker call Toad Captain:

A trait mainly seen with the simpler alts. Pit Stop Toad has more unique animations than Captain has.

VS Tour promos even group him with Toad, right next to him. Same happens with Peachette, who is correctly placed between Toadette and her alts.

Hillariously enough, even LEGO gets in on this, by giving Toad a treasure hunting themed expansion:

Not saying this invalidates the entire thing, just pointing out this is a nightmarish mess if you want to maintain consistency.

It’s why Movie Toad is exciting to me.

Giving him the backpack, Captain’s most defining feature these days and thus possibly silently merging them, is to me, the best and least complicated thing they could do.

478 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 6 months

Text

I’ve always been fascinated by the rival system in Mario Kart and was curious to see how many choices made have an origin we can point to, across all four games to use this system.

In the first two games, I’ll only cover the Top 3 rivals, since those are the ones really meant to compete with the player and they feel the most thought through.

Super Mario Kart is the earliest game in the series, but even for that, it’s choice for the rivals feels remarkably sound for the most part:

Mario’s an easy one. DK Jr. lines up, given Mario’s history with the Kongs by that point and both Peach and Yoshi are closely tied to him. It tracks.

Luigi also works well. Yoshi did basically compete with Luigi for the role of Mario’s main sidekick during the 90s, due to Yoshi’s break-out status and both Mario and Bowser are easy choices.

Peach also is an easy one, with the exact three characters closest to her on the roster, being her rivals.

Yoshi is a bit odder. Koopa as his main rival does track, given Yoshi had a much more Koopa-like design during conceptual stages and Peach is at least a friend of his, but Jr is pretty random.

Bowser has a basically perfectly logical rival selection, all characters he directly antagonizes.

Jr I got honestly nothing for. Bowser does make sense; they share a weight class, but Toad and Koopa have no ties to him. At most they can be described as usually being fellow small guys, but SMK does disguise that, due to Jr being scaled up.

Koopa’s Is weird. Luigi and Yoshi did at least directly fight his species at that point, but the lack of Mario and Bowser, who have more ties to him, is odd.

Toad mostly lines up, with Peach and Mario, but Jr once again, is the odd one out.

Super Circuit by comparison feels a bit more out there with its picks. Maybe because Intelligent Systems worked on it, but it does feel a bit random in areas:

Mario’s lines up fine enough, though Wario in third would have made it a more cohesive rival line-up.

Luigi’s is strange. Wario as his main rival I can really only explain with Wario being sometimes portrayed as picking on him during that time, like the Mario Party 1 and 4 intros. Toad and Yoshi are more easily connected, as fellow friends and sidekicks of Mario.

Peach lines up fine enough with Bowser and Luigi is a fitting candidate too, but DK over Mario or Toad is odd, though you could say he was chosen since Pauline’s original design with blonde hair and a pink dress, is a close match for Peach.

Toad’s is fine, all characters he is befriended with and who aid Mario like him.

Same deal with Yoshi, though Mario not being in his Top 3 is curious.

DK’s selection, apart from fellow heavy weight Bowser, I don’t see much of a connection in.

Wario has his fellow heavies as his main rivals and then Yoshi as an odd one out.

Bowser has fellow heavy DK as a bit of a surprising main rival, but it lines up and Peach and Mario are both obvious choices.

Mario Kart 7 feels a lot more thought out across the board again and even has a interesting Third Rival system, with another character taking over if one of the rivals hasn’t been unlocked yet:

Mario’s selection is business as usual, with Metal Mario now as the other character, due to being presented as a rival in one bio, makes sense.

Luigi’s is also pretty much what you’d expect from him.

Peach meanwhile is weird. Toad is relegated to third rival status, while neither Lakitu nor DK have strong ties to her.

Yoshi makes decent sense. Toad’s a pal, Wiggler a mook that also appears in Yoshi’s Island and DK. is more out there, but a fellow animal character with his own series, sure, it works.

Bowser is relatively business as usual, though Rosalina instead of Peach is interesting. Not out of nowhere though, since he did directly antagonize her in the Galaxy games too.

DK has fellow strong guy with his own series Wario as a rival, which is perfect and Bowser as another tough guy to serve as a rival once more, also tracks. Got nothing for Koopa though, save for a possible callback to SMK, since the starting roster is a nod to it, with DK in Jr’s place.

Toad has Peach and Koopa, someone he has been grouped with as a host and partner in Mario Party before, both track. Rosalina is more out there, but does make sense since Galaxy connects them and Rosalina’s Ice World even has the Red Starshroom. Helps this was before claims Captain is a different character, which were never reflected in the games anyways and are now being backtracked on hard.

Koopa has a fellow mook in Shy Guy and two of his SMK rivals, makes sense.

Daisy has a fairly typical selection with Peach and Luigi. Wario also makes a surprising amount of sense, since both originate from the Super Mario Land games and were created by the same division.

Metal Mario faces off against fellow heavies and Mario, fair enough.

Wario has the Mario Bros and no third rival, since both are default characters. Mario is expected, Luigi remains out there, especially by this point, with them not really interacting anymore, but 64 DS did give them a little more connection to work with.

Rosalina has fellow Galaxy character Honey Queen and Toad, it lines up. So does Peach, they may not have much of a connection now, but were meant to in conceptual stages of Galay, so that tracks.

Shy Guy has Toad, a playable character in his debut game and two fellow mooks, makes sense.

Honey Queen is the most out there, with no specific connection to any of her rivals, besides sharing a weight class with Metal Mario.

Wiggler does get connected to Shy Guy and Yoshi via Yoshi’s Island and is usually a species working for Bowser. Nothing out there here.

Lakitu like with Honey Queen, I struggle to find any connections with. Mario is the closest it gets, being the main character and this most frequent force against his species.

The Miis seem to follow a pattern, especially with the main and female characters in the third rival slots. Yoshi instead of Daisy or Honey Queen as a Female Mii rival throws it off a bit though.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe completes that pattern, with a selection that feels thought out almost entirely across the board:

Mario is the same usuals.

Luigi is also exactly what you’d expect.

Peach has Toad who is expected and DK once more, just seems like a MK tradition by now.

Daisy has Peach, an expected choice and Waluigi, who she does have a long spin-off history with. I doubt Nintendo internally groups characters like that, but they did join the spin-offs at the same time, most notably Mario Party 3, as the only two newcomers of the title.

Yoshi has Toad and DK, I am assuming the same connections again.

Toad has Koopa we already covered and oddly, Waluigi. My guess is he was just chosen as a bit of a bully character, like Wario for Luigi, but the two do have some history via the Rain Shower animation in Game & Watch Gallery 4 and DDR Mario Mix.

Koopa has Yoshi and Toad, once more, assuming the same possible connections.

Shy Guy, the main mook of the Yoshi’s Island games, has Yoshi. It more than tracks.

Baby Mario, Luigi, Peach and Daisy have all the babies you’d most expect for them and BM also has Bowser Jr, as a good Baby Bowser stand-in.

Wario has Mario, his main rival and fellow Super Mario Land series veteran Daisy. Perfect.

Waluigi has Luigi and oddly, Toadette. Probably just due to them being partners to another character.

DK has fellow strong heavies Bowser and Wario.

Bowser has the Mario Bros, once more an obvious choice.

The Koopalings mostly have each other as rivals, except for Wendy, who has Peach and Daisy, which I do like. Subtly characterizing her as that spoiled brat who antagonizes other girls.

The Inklings have each other and the Villagers and Isabelle have each other too. Link as a solo rep without anyone else from his series meanwhile, lacks a rival.

Rosalina now has Toad as her sole rival and I stick with the Galaxy connection.

Tanooki Mario and Cat Peach have each other. Fair enough.

Birdo has Yoshi, her main spin-off partner, makes plenty of sense.

Lakitu lacks a rival. He’s just chill.

My best guess for Toadette having Yoshi as a rival would be them being grouped together in the Double Dash ending pic. Wario meanwhile may be a direct callback to their Mario Party team names, implying them to be friends.

King Boo and Petey have each other, being old Double Dash partners and retaining good chemistry in the Baseball games.

Baby Rosalina has Toadette. I got nothing for that one.

Metal Mario and Pink Gold Peach have each other. That works.

Wiggler sticks to the Yoshi’s Island connection, with Yoshi and Shy Guy.

Dry Bones has both his living counterpart and Dry Bowser, while Dry Bowser has Dry Bones. Simple and logical.

Bowser Jr has his mama, except not really, Peach as a rival.

Kamek deals with Jr as a rival, which just keeps fitting more and more, especially after Jr’s Journey.

Peachette, being Toadette in a different form, has the same rivals, Yoshi and Wario.

Diddy, Funky and Pauline all have DK as their sole rival and it makes sense in all three cases.

The Miis meanwhile have no rival this time.

It's hard to say how intentional some of these are, but there is a lot of neat stuff in there, that makes the choices made feel deliberate and it adds just a tiny bit of extra flavor.

#Mario Kart

19 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 6 months

Text

Super Mario Wonder has been out for over a week now and I have beaten it 100% not long after release, so may as well discuss it, shall we?

Spoiler warnings in full effect, since I like to be able to discuss basically everything I’d like, just to clear that up right off the bat.

SMW is the first, for the lack of a better term, normal 2D Mario in over a decade at this point, so naturally, everyone was looking forward to seeing what they’d do next, especially with the step away from the NSMB series, which was really needed by that point.

The NSMB games are also by necessity, the main games to compare Wonder to, given for how long they have been the most recent incarnation of 2D Mario. On that note, this is not meant to be a hit piece on those games. All of them are fine and I am particularly fond of DS and Wii, however they did have problems and it’s hard to think of an area where Wonder isn’t just an unambiguous improvement.

Those improvements already begin in a rather surprising spot: the story.

2D Mario is actually a fair bit more varied in it’s set-ups than it can appear at first, Prior to NSMB it was really just SMB1 and Lost Levels that went with the Bowser kidnaps Peach plot, without much else surrounding it. SMB3 starts as a journey to turn the 7 kings back to normal, with Bowser only kidnapping Peach near the end as a last resort and World, while sticking largely to the base, takes place in a completely new setting. That’s not even going into SMB2 or the Land games, which are all breaks from what we see as the Mario norm in some way. New kingdoms, new characters, new villains and bosses, new a lot of things really.

Wonder in that regard really feels like a return to that. A whole new kingdom once more, with a new companion and NPC species and while Bowser is the big bad, he doesn’t engage in any royalty kidnapping and instead goes after a new power source, which transforms him and he stays that way all the way until defeated. It’s simple, as is typical for Mario, but it is a lot more refreshing than the very samey NSMB plots, which took until U to really add a twist to it and even then failed to do all that much with it, particularly with a level theme as neat as Peach’s Castle taken over by Bowser.

What surprised me even more was how every world had a bit of its own story going on, with the Poplins giving you an idea of what kind of trouble Jr and Bowser’s actions in general, were causing them. A particular stand-out for me was World 3, which doesn’t even have a boss and is instead treated as a series of trials, to obtain a Royal Seed that Bowser hasn’t gotten his hands on.

As with the main story, it never goes especially deep, but it goes a long way to make the Flower Kingdom feel like an actual world, in stark contrast to the Mushroom Kingdom of NSMB games, which was very much just a videogame world for function as a videogame world, doing it’s job and not much more.

The visuals have also seen a refreshing shake-up. Granted, even NSMBU got better about it by U, but even compared to that, I find the visual design of the Flower Kingdom locales to be substantially more appealing, not to mention imaginative. Fungi Mines in particular is full of designs I am a fan of and even a new level theme with its ruins, which isn’t the only time the game diverts and goes for something totally new.

In general, while the game holds true to most of the typical level themes, the aesthetics are so varied that they don’t even really feel that way. This is something you feel as early as World 1, while it functionally serves as the Grassland of the day, it rarely feels that way because the visuals change up enough to not make it feel like a static world theme. It also helps that the order has been changed a bit. You wouldn’t imagine how refreshing it is to not have the Desert be the second world.

The biggest visual highlight of the stages for me were the airship levels, genuinely cool and climactic, in a way that made me pause and just go ‘’woah’’ and I can’t say I feel that way a lot in 2D Mario, but this game brought that out several times.

Of course, the big show stealers are the characters themselves and yeah, everything people say is true. They look great, every animation is filled with personality and detail and there is even some nice stylization, like the sideways mouths for Mario, Luigi and the Toads, which help bring the models in line with the current style of 2D Mario.

Everyone and their grandparents has already made comparisons to the NSMB games and that’s because it is ultimately true. If anything this is one of the best things to point to where these games have different mindsets.

NSMB treated the models more like sprites than anything, going for something functional, with very little flavor, while Wonder is determined to fill its animations with as much charm as possible. Even little things like the characters striking poses when collecting a power-up or reacting to mooks about to get out of their shells, goes a long way in bringing those characters alive, instead of treating them like game pieces that carry out their function and that’s it.

In terms of music it has some stand-outs and the rest is at worst, easy on the ears, about what I expect and everything fits the mood of the stage well, no complaints.

More pressingly in terms of audio is that this is the first time we are hearing the new voices for several characters, most notably Mario. Luigi and Daisy and overall I think they all do a wonderful job, I’m already used to all of them.

It’s also just refreshing to have a set of fresh new voice clips this thoroughly across the board. Mario has never been a stranger to reused voice clips even early on, but by the Wii U era it became even more noticeable than usual and in past years, genuinely a bit distracting, so I am happy Wonder does not fall victim to that.

And then we got the gameplay, of course the most important factor of all and where I have plenty more to gush about.

A notable thing about Wonder is that it has some 3D Mario veterans on the team and to be honest, it shows.

There are some more overt inspirations, such as Petal Isles essentially serving as the hub world of the game, a Shadow Mario type wonder effect or being able to find (Captain) Toad on the overworld in exchange for rewards, as has been his role in the 3D games since 3D Land.

Even taking that aside though, while the game is fundamentally still 2D Mario as we all know it, many of its ideas and gimmicks can sometimes feel more like missions in a 3D Mario game, which I very much mean as a compliment. This is further underlined by stuff like the Wiggler Races, timed enemy gauntlets, Badge Challenges or Search Party sections. In general, there is a surprising variety to the kind of things you get tasked with, which is refreshing.

The characters control quite similarly to the NSMB games, even including nuances like Ground Pound canceling and because of it, control like a dream. The only major difference being that you can crouch walk and that the triple jump is gone. The latter was something I expected to miss, but the levels are designed in a way that never made me feel that way.

While almost everyone plays the same, badges do help bring in variety to make up for it. I stuck with Parachute for just being that fun and useful for me, but I did mess around with a couple and am eager to experiment with it and also play more with the expert badges. I can easily see a ton of replayability options completely new to the series, through them.

It does bring me to my first little gripe, which is the Yoshis being stuck to being designated Easy Mode options. I totally get wanting a full set of 4 for multiplayer, but a simple toggle would have been appreciated. Yoshi does play differently and is still fun, but I’d like a way to play him as a more normal character. Same moveset, but without Easy Mode-like benefits.

What I said about levels being more visually diverse also applies to the level elements. Sometimes it’s small things like the fountain springs in the very first level, but even beyond that the game is so full of new enemies and ideas that it feels a lot like SMB3, in terms of bringing in distinct level concepts one after another. It is miles above NSMB which granted, had plenty stand-out stages too across the series, but also a lot that felt samey, especially as the series went on and some gimmicks were repeated.

The power-ups also hold their own well. Elephant even once you get the initial whut factor out of the way is fun and really the star of certain sections, Drill has some really cool applications and the Bubble Flower is easily my favorite of them all. I love a power-up that has both offensive and platforming uses and this one, especially combined with badges, allows for some really fun stuff.

The Wonder effects are of course the star of the show and a contributor to every level feeling so distinct. The amount of different ideas they came up with and how well they all work, is truly astounding and it’s remarkable how few of them repeat. The balloon or rolling ball Wonder Effects would have been recurring gimmicks in other games, but here, you do them once and twice respectively and move on.

All this combined makes for a remarkably fresh feeling 2D Mario, which was desperately needed and did a lot to elevate the game to something exciting and genuinely addicting.

The bosses are…a bit more of a mixed bag. I like that not every world has one and that does help with the risk of repetition, because aside from the final boss it’s all Bowser Jr. They could be worse, the Wonder effects do help a little, but it’s still full of the same kind of repetitive boss design the Koopalings get flack for, especially the spinning shell bits. They are serviceable, but that’s it and the airship bosses I don’t even count, they are fancy flagpoles.

The final boss though, I actually liked a lot, Bowser’s general state in this game was always going to make it stand out, but more than anything, it isn’t a rehash, it isn’t over in barely any time and it’s not another Bowser over the bridge. It’s new, it lasts long enough to feel satisfying, it feels right in difficulty, it’s just shockingly good.

Speaking of difficulty, that is a thing I heard a lot about when the game got into the hands of people early and to be honest….I don’t really see the supposed difficulty. It does want you to pay attention and that is good, but on the whole I find the game to be pretty breezy. Even the Special World and designated final reward level, were really not that tough. Not that that’s a bad thing though, it is a joyride kind of easy and not the braindead kind.

Haven’t really dabbled into the online or multiplayer, but do plan on that with a friend, so that’s gonna be fun to discover for my second run.

On the whole yeah, I love Wonder, major shocker. It really is a promising next step for 2D Mario, not being afraid to be wacky, full of character, legit fresh and exciting, a true evolution of the formular.

It’s not flawless, but it is an absolute joy and really, any platformer that lets me play as Toadette gets major brownie points out of the gate.

It’s Mario, Mario in his strongest form and I couldn’t be happier.

#super mario #super mario wonder

12 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 6 months

Text

I’ve made a whole post about why I don’t think Mario has any true canon months ago, yet at the same time also pointed out some things where Mario can be surprisingly consistent.

Truth to be told, while I do point to inconsistencies in the games, which are plentiful, the main culprit are Nintendo themselves.

I tend to look at what they say and how they operate to, as best as possible, gauge their intentions with a lot of stuff and a good example of their willingness to play fast and loose and actively alter information is with the Koopalings:

Contrary to what is often quoted, Miyamoto never said they never were Bowser’s kids, but rather that in ‘’their current story’’ Jr is his only child.

Another example of them changing their stance as they see fit to me is how they treated the subject of Mario and Luigi being plumbers.

We have very direct statements of how during the 2010s, people were not allowed to bring up that subject matter in videos:

And even a documented instance of a Japanese bio referring to Mario as having been a plumber a long time ago.

Which, as seen on the screenshot, has obviously been changed since and we got even more recent examples of the movie and one of Wonder’s loading screen trivia bits presenting his occupation proudly. Even at the time 3D World wasn’t shy about it:

Which is one of several times where official statements and in-game content don’t exactly align, heck, it’s weird on a general level given pipes are such a crucial bit of iconography for the franchise, derived by the fact that Mario and Luigi are indeed plumbers.

Stuff like that is why the Toad and Captain Toad thing is a sore spot for me. I never actually denied official sources claiming they are different character, but even despite that kind of explicit statement:

They chose to okay Galaxy supplementary materials that call Toad the Toad Brigade Captain and put him on the cover of Galaxy 2, in the same spot Captain is at in the Starship Mario art no less.

They chose to not have red spots, blue vest Toad in 3D World besides a pre-release Captain Toad life icon, instead having a Blue Toad be playable, which is not how the Toad character is ever represented, to the point where when 3D World art and renders are used to represent him, they are ALWAYS edited to give him the red spots. It’s hard to call it a SMB2 callback, because unlike say, Luigi’s Mansion King Boo or Biker Wario, it’s never even acknowledged or brought back like other game specific designs.

They chose to have a pre-release bonus for Treasure Tracker, an amiibo bundle for it and the function for said amiibo, to be all based around Toad and one of the mission descriptions even just calls him Toad, despite Captain Toad supposedly being a name.

They chose to give Captain in TT Toadette as a partner and include SMB2 elements like turnips and Shy Guys (only red and blue ones like in that game no less) which have no relevance to this supposed separate character, yet are highly tied to Toad.

They chose to have Mario in the Toad costume be called Captain in special Mario Challenge dialogue, in the first Mario Maker.

They chose to show Captain when talking about Toad in an Odyssey developer’s Q&A video.

They chose to have the Toad spirit become Captain Toad in Smash Ultimate, lining up with stuff like Shadow becoming Super Shadow or Alm, Celica and Isaac becoming their adult selves.

They chose to give Captain in Mario Kart Tour most of Toad’s animations, a trait *only* seen with variants and even classify him as a variant internally. Party Time Toad, who is definitively him, has more distinct animations than Captain does.

They chose to give Toad a treasure hunting themed expansion set and even call him a treasure hunter in LEGO Mario, an ongoing merch-line with an extremely big name.

They chose to continue the 3D World thing with Wonder, keeping Toad off the roster when Captain is around, while Mario vs DK has him playable no problem.

They chose to let the movie, Mario’s biggest non-gaming outing to date, very explicitly treat Toad and Captain as the same character and even give out pamphlets explaining references in the movie in Japan. Said pamphlet calls Treasure Tracker Toad’s game, making no mention of Captain as a separate character.

They chose to make a big promo video promoting Mario games tied to certain characters and have Toad tied to Treasure Tracker. This video was also put on the Nintendo Switch news tab, mentioning Captain by name in the description, yet showing Toad and it has its own spot on the Nintendo website too. Additionally they list Treasure Tracker in Toad’s list of appearances on Play Nintendo.

In isolation I wouldn’t think much of any of these, but when it happens so often I do start to wonder what the idea is. They are shooting every opportunity to establish Captain as his own character, especially for normies who likely just saw him and assumed he was Toad anyways, in the foot.

I tend to refer to the movie a lot when trying to cite Nintendo’s seeming attitude towards some things too and yeah, I do still think it’s a big deal the New York backstory is back. It clashes with the Yoshi’s Island backstory, which is also supported by Mario & Luigi Partners in Time, but THAT backstory in turn clashes with the pre-SMB games and bios as late as 1994, that referred to Mario as italian, Foreman Spike as american and Pauline as being from New York, still establishing the old backstory as relevant enough to be brought up in character guides.

They are questionably compatible, but that’s because they are from very different eras of Mario. The Yoshi’s Island one will likely persist as the more commonly referred to one, because it mixes better with Mario’s SMB onwards world, but the old backstory is still accepted enough by Nintendo to allow it in a monster hit movie.

And that’s the thing, the movie takes liberties, but still holds true to a vision Nintendo themselves want to have out there, for Mario and his world. They know many people will be exposed to Mario for the first time in a while or possibly ever, through the movie and okayed for it as a way to interpret the franchise, that is a big deal.

Is the movie ‘’canon’’ to the games? We don’t know, Mario doesn’t have an officially recognized canon ala’ Hyrule Hystoria. It may not be canon in the sense of having happened in the game universe 1:1, but it is canon as a Nintendo approved, modern, big interpretation of Mario.

And the thing is, regardless if it’s canon or not, it’s influence can already be felt.

The Peach Showtime cover art has been updated in a way that makes Peach resemble her movie design a bit more, Wonder’s animation upgrade was directly motivated by living up to the movie’s standards of how people expect the characters to move and animate and then you got this:

A video on Nintendo’s official Youtube accounts, a Switch news tab article and even it’s own page on their website. A remarkably pushed marketing pull for games conveniently only highlighting characters in the movie and the game selection is clearly inspired by that too. Smash for DK to replicate his fight with Mario, Toad explicitly being called Captain, Mario Kart for Peach because that section was a prominent marketing scene for her, etc.

Nintendo’s biggest concern is how they want the brand to be presented, more than any canon. I’ll call out inconsistencies when I see them, but in general, this is what I pay attention to the most and why I am very accepting of the fact Mario is always bound to face changes, bigger and smaller, that may at times even be departures from what came before.

#super mario

17 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 6 months

Text

A thing I haven't really gotten to talk much about yet is that I am a big fan of Classic Daisy and that relates to something I wanted to bring up for a while.

People often describe Daisy as having been just a generic princess who was basically saved by her GC onwards incernation to be a tomboy and more distinct, but here's the thing:

Daisy was already described as one from way earlier on, this was always an intended part of her character.

It's always said ''Well, she was more girly back then'', but really, she still has plenty of that. The flower theme itself is an obvious tell, but you also got stuff like Tour art of her on a shopping trip, her MP4 Present Room having a tea set, her fawning over cute things, among other things:

On top of hints she enjoys baking in Mario Kart 8 brand names you see across the tracks, as well as the fact Daisy has a very long history of sharing many of Peach's dainty animations and moves, to save on resources. Ultimate being a particularly massive example, rainbows, ribbons, parasols, the whole thing.

People also like to bring up Classic Daisy being kidnapped by Tatanga, but for one, Daisy's predicament in Run also is framed a lot like a kidnapping, down to screaming for help and being found after defeating Bowser:

And secondly, I find that to be a very reductive view on a character, this happens to so many of them I don't see how it's a sign of weakness. Peach is best known for being kidnapped and is perfectly capable of carrying even her very own adventures, this legit means nothing.

I really think the popularity of how much people like Daisy in Strikers tends to obscure what her character is like, because everyone is agressive in that series. If Luigi gives you an angry eye twitch or Yoshi rants at you wish a shaking fist, it's save to say everyone is more on edge than usual.

Daisy is for all intents and purposes, comfortably and confidentally feminine, regardless of what version we are talking about. She really isn't the rough and tough hyper tomboy who counts the hours until she can switch from her dress to something else.

She is spirited, competetive and very energetic, but also kind and proud to be a princess, this applies to both of them. Anyone who has seen Mario Party 3's story mode knows Classic Daisy is more than competetive, enough to even be a sore loser about it.

None of this is meant to be a take-down of Daisy, the complete opposite even, it's just meant to defend a version of her that I think has been treated unfairly and like something that needed to be fixed.

#super mario #princess daisy

41 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 7 months

Text

I got no essay or deeper insight about this, but I noticed Toad and Daisy get grouped together here and there.

I like it. Always a fan of those more unspoken relationships.

#super mario #toad #princess daisy

76 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 7 months

Text

The one thing I want to start this off with is to say I have no interest in participating in Paper Mario discourse. If you asked me if I enjoyed Color Splash and Origami King I’d give you a genuine yes (Sticker Star not so much, but few would fight me on that one). I have my preferences leaning towards the old stuff, but this isn’t about shitting on the new, just a celebration of what’s currently happening.

With that said, let’s get this going.

I don’t think a big introduction and recap of the Mario RPG history is all that necessary here. Only thing I’ll note is that I played all of them in release order over the years, apart from RPG, which had to wait until the Wii Virtual Console release in 2008, I even played the Mario & Luigi remakes, so I have a lot of opinions.

Needless to say, the Mario RPGs were one of those branches of Mario I just always expected to be there over the years. Along with the platformers, sports games, Kart, Party, etc, it was always one of those reliably present parts of the franchise I could count on to be there system after system.

The past couple of years though did feel very different. Paper Mario, while still retaining RPG elements, has shifted to a more adventure game kind of focus and with Alphadream gone, Mario & Luigi series is now in limbo, with nothing certain on whether the series will be handed off to another developer or be kept dormant for some time.

There are the Mario + Rabbids games and I like those a lot, but I personally never saw them as part of the RPGs, moreso strategy games with RPG elements like Fire Emblem. It’s just how I see things but I won’t argue with people that think otherwise, perfectly fine in my book.

It just felt like that part of the franchise was basically done for, after so many years of being around, but then, this happened.

Super Mario RPG was announced to get a remake. This was obviously huge for many reasons. It is a niche title that did well back then, but doesn’t really represent the Mario world as we know it now. Not even Peach’s Castle had its design set in stone at that point, that’s how early a take on Mario as a world it is.

It’s extremely faithful to boot. Mario, Peach and Bowser were updated to their modern looks and Toad now has dips on the blue vest, all more than fine changes and besides that, the game is a modernized take on the original to a tee. The environments, original character designs, even everyone’s proportions, are spot on and kept as you remember them.

There is more to say, but that ties into the big announcement we got last Direct too. You know the one:

Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door is also getting a remake and it’s looking every bit as faithful as the RPG remake.

Given how much I have adored this branch of the franchise, I can’t put into words how much this return to what we used to have means to me, it’s genuinely special to me.

It’s hard to say which of these I would have deemed more out of reach, but having both of them on the horizon really makes me wonder about some stuff. In particular, perhaps they are deliberately aiming to relaunch the RPG branch with these, especially knowing the Switch successor is more than likely on the horizon.

Regardless of what the future holds, this announcement hit me in the best way on a personal level. I love RPG and was excited to see it get such a loving comeback, but Paper Mario felt like an even bigger deal. RPG was a one-off that did its thing and then went quiet. Paper Mario is a series that after the second game, has seen change after change that, along with interviews, made it seem like the series I fell in love with, wouldn’t ever go back to what it used to be.

Gonna say once again that this isn’t a means to bash the new games, there even is a lot to them I enjoy. The overworld gameplay is consistently good and it’s more explorative edge and things to do in it even are something the old games can learn from. I also really like Huey and Olivia and genuinely think they and their dynamics with Mario really do a lot to keep me engaged with their games.

Thing is,I still think the old formula was more rock solid and don’t believe in tossing that out just for the sake of being different. There really isn’t anything wrong with sequels that take an established foundation and just expand on and play with it and it’s not like the Crafts Trilogy, as I’ll call them for brevity, don’t repeat ideas either. Every new game has a castle in the sky, a crafts themed main partner, some level of Toad rescuing, a game show at some point, Luigi popping up once per area, etc. Not even saying that as a bad thing, just saying it’s not like the series over the past 11 years hasn’t been using some elements multiple times too.

There is also THAT subject, character variety and yes, I am in the boat that the lack of it has harmed the modern games and no, I don’t think that what the old games did was very different from what Mario always does.

I said this back in my essay on 64, but Mario always does what needs to be done to adapt itself to a new genre. In the platformers, new takes on established species are usually reserved for the mooks or bosses, because they are such an important asset of the game. In an RPG you get that too, but the NPCs you interact with also get more variety, especially the Toads, because interacting with them and a large chunk getting various bits of involvements in story beats or sidequests, is a big part of the game.

I genuinely don’t see how Galoombas, Goombrats, Cat Goombas or in a non-mook example, Goombette from Odyssey and RPG Goombas like Goombella or Frankly are all that different. They all serve a particular purpose and are given distinct designs and characteristics that compliment them. They’re the same thing and of course that’s also gonna mean more unique designs in the RPGs, because while reused models/sprites for generic NPCs is an RPG norm, you do want to create the impression of a lived in, diverse world, instead of making you consciously feel like you’re talking to the same guy over and over again.

It’s a reason and I was floored when I learned it, that the Super Mario kun adaptation of Color Splash has more Toad variety than the game itself:

Sure they got the same outfits, but that's what kun always did, even during TTYD days;

It’s just a massive benefit to establish character and a reason that the Rescue Squad, Captain T. Ode and the Professor from TOK are standouts of the Crafts trilogy, because they DO have something to visually communicate their character and go from there.

These games ARE still deeply rooted in Mario and just add what needs to be added to translate well into an RPG. Like people give a lot of flak to say, the old Dry Bones design in the first two Paper Marios and I get it, but it is important to note this was the most recent design available for them at the time:

The modern Dry Bones design wasn’t established yet, so they worked with what they had. The games never twisted anything Mario in ways that defiled its vision, they just did what they felt was needed to make the game enjoyable as an RPG and a Mario game.

Goes without saying, but seeing the battle system not tampered with is also really lovely to see. I won’t throw shade at the modern games, but I do personally think none of the modern games have come up with a replacement that compares to the old system, with SS and CS even having ways to softlock you in certain circumstances like a really unlucky Kamek curse in the latter, keeping you from using Jump cards against flying enemies.

This isn’t about me not liking something different. I’m an avid pre-Switch ND Cube Mario Party defender who would play all five of them over Super Mario Party (now here’s a hot take).

It’s not about me being pissy about the paper focus. I prefer when it’s just a stylistic choice, with the occasional visual gag nodding to it, but I can give credit when I feel a use of it is creative and not just the characters mentioning they’re paper like that’s a joke of its own.

I had more points like this but decided to trim things because as I said, the point isn’t to bash the new games, I just genuinely think RPG and TTYD have a stronger foundation and are just better translations of Mario into the RPG genre and hope to see them signal a return to this style of Mario RPGs. Heck, they can still make adventure games like the crafts trilogy as their own sub-series and freed from the burden of having to please an existing fan base of a different style, I honestly want to see them go all out with the direction they go for. It and the RPG Paper Mario can easily co-exist that way.

More than anything though, I am amazed these two games exist at all. Both RPG and TTYD are treasured by many, but they aren’t the platformers or Mario Kart or something more recent that can be seen as currently relevant. Bringing these two back shows they are listening to the fans and I hope they do well enough to show to Nintendo that this is something that pays off.

Above all else I want to celebrate that we are getting this kind of Mario game again. Sure, I’ll argue WHY I think it’s such a good thing, but this is more than anything a time to be happy, not to fight.

#Paper Mario #Super Mario RPG #Super Mario

18 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 7 months

Note

Thoughts on the latest Direct?

It was good, a lot I enjoyed. All the Mario/Wario stuff, F-Zero 99 and Another Code were more than enough to leave me satisfied.

4 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 10 months

Text

youtube

They show Toad and have Captain Toad Treasure Tracker as his game.

Just doing a victory lap.

#super mario #toad #captain toad #Youtube

12 notes · View notes

wfagamerants · 10 months

Text

A bit late because lol, rl, but as a blog about my Mario opinions, I can’t resist rambling a bit about my opinions of stuff in a direct full of Mario stuff.

Ordering them in how excited I am for each of them, though in the end I am happy about all of these, it’s just a way to decide how to order them.

Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon Switch

I genuinely like Dark Moon and honestly don’t think it's rep as the lesser of the three games in some circles is earned, so seeing a Switch version is welcome in my book.

That said, I do have some concerns with how choppy the game looks in places. The original had a few moments like this too, but in a HD re-release…yeah you gotta clean that up. Odds are that may even happen, given the game isn’t due until next year.

Besides that, yeah, Dark Moon on Switch. I like the game and will gladly get this and use it as an excuse to replay it, but odds are there isn’t gonna be much new here. Not a bad thing, just makes me struggle to put this higher up here.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope DLC

It looks good, I’ll play it and that is honestly it.

This may be worth a discussion of its own, but while I like Sparks of Hope and even prefer some aspects of it over the original, it didn’t stick with me in the long run like the first game and it seems many feel the same way.

Hard to say what it is, but I am sure I will enjoy this, it’s just that at this point, I am really mostly interested in Rayman when it comes to this game,

The mechanical King Bob-omb’s pretty sick though.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass Wave 5

Fun idea for a new racetrack and a very solid selection of new characters. Good first impressions.

We still don’t know the other 7 tracks, but I do genuinely think every new wave so far has been better than the last, so I am in good spirits about it and Mario Kart 8 is something I can keep coming back to for another round very easily.

New Peach Game

This is easily the most surprising one in its mere existence.

With how little has been shown so far, it’s hard to really have a strong opinion on things, but the stage play theme does make one wonder what could be and little details like Peach not having her crown really are curious.

Above all else though, I am just excited this is a thing. Spin-offs focusing on other characters are always among the most interesting new releases. They allow for experimentation with ideas that may be seen as not fitting Mario himself and after the 2000s, the well of new ones dried up really substantially.

Peach is also still a very unexplored character for this, even her first game is still heavily grounded in regular Mario stuff, while this is looking to be more of a Luigi’s Mansion kind of spin-off, so I am very intrigued.

Super Mario Wonder

Quite frankly, this game, in everything we have seen, feels like an outright apology for how static and safe 2D Marios have been in the NSMB era.

With this is one, it really feels like there was a desire to just get weird and I can vibe with that. The sections for collecting Wonder Seeds seem really creative and out there, with a lot of variety at that and the trippy nature of the first one in particular is a stand-out.

Besides that we got a surprising roster of characters, with the most out there choice being Daisy. Nintendo actually using their characters? Crazy talk.

In all seriousness, I appreciate them expanding beyond Mario and Luigi on a more regular basis now and what helps charm me even more is how expressive and alive the characters are.

Everyone around on social media has likely seen these comparison shots already:

But even beyond that you have little things like the characters reacting to the spiked boulder about to chase them:

I just adore stuff like this and hope the game is full of that.

Beyond that there are still a lot of little things, like the not-Toad NPC, the elephant power-up, that wild looking Bowser Jr, etc. Loads to see and I can’t wait for more info.

My only gripe is that they are still passing up Toad in favor of colorful generics. It’s not gonna make me less excited for the game, even though I feel cheated out of one of my favs, but I wish Nintendo would finally stop doing that.

Super Mario RPG Remake

I won’t lie, when leakers mentioned this one, I wasn’t all that thrilled.

Not because I don’t like RPG or the idea of a remake, but because I expected it to be butchered. Part of its charm is that it is a time capsule to an era where Mario’s now known visual identity and several concepts didn’t exist yet. I fully expected that to be done away with, for the sake of brand consistency, on top of some of the more undesirable changes from the Mario & Luigi remakes.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Genuinely, I was so caught off-guard by everything shown here. Mario, Peach and Bowser are updated to their modern looks, which is perfectly fine, but beyond that, it is genuinely amazing how much they retained the original.

All the original characters are still present which, granted, wasn't unlikely, but still lovely to see.

They retained a more chibi proportioned look, in-line with the original’s renders and sprites.

The environments still look as they did back then, no NSMB colorful hills in the grassland area or anything. They even resisted the temptation to update Peach’s castle to its standard look.

Most shocking of all, the old Toad NPC designs, my favorites in all Mario games, are left intact:

And as an extra bone as a Toad fan, after Wonder disappointed, they even gave him dibs on the blue vest, to further distinguish him from the rest of his species.

Everything just looks so nice. The models and environments, the music, the cutscenes, it’s a charmer across the board.

Much like with Luigi’s Mansion, it’s up in the air how much new there will be content-wise, but honestly, I am fine regardless what direction it takes.

I’m just happy to have a reminder of what Mario RPGs used to be and I will gladly support it to show I miss that kinda stuff, on top of my adoration for the original.

WarioWare Move It!

The Wario fan is most excited for the Wario game, say what?

In all seriousness of course this makes me incredibly happy. Smooth Moves was my favorite WarioWare before the big revival with Gold and GiT and a follow-up with the joycon as the main focus always made sense.

This is very much a traditional WarioWare to its core and frankly, that is amazing, it even embraces the low quality, cursed 3D models from Smooth Moves that I love with all my heart. I would have also liked a GiT follow-up, but this always made the most sense for a second Switch entry and I am happy they aren’t sleeping on it.

The extra stuff like the board game mode also adds some intrigue, not enough to see what this will be like yet, but I am always glad to get some extra offerings beyond the regular stages.

That aside you got the fun vacation theme, 13-Amp possibly being a host now, some lovely Smooth Moves callbacks like the return of forms and so on. I am nothing but excited.

And this is yet another one I am happy just exists. This is the first time since the Wii that Wario has gotten more than one new game on a system and so soon after GiT no less. WarioWare is in a healthy state again and that is huge.

So yeah, banger after banger and a nice uptick after the 2022 Mario output was on the lacking side. I’ll always defend Battle League in many aspects, but it still sucks content-wise and Sparks of Hope, while good, is pretty lacking in the Mario aspect.

Between the 2023 releases out of these and the movie though, we truly have a banger year for anything Mario.

#WarioWare #Super Mario #Super Mario RPG #Luigi's Mansion #Princess Peach #Mario Kart #Mario + Rabbids

27 notes · View notes