mariothoughts.waluigious.com

It's something unexpected... it's another blog. From the makers of Waluigious, from the mostly one, but sometimes three people who brought you Mario RPS, Mama Luigi's Deep Significance, Why Peach is Stupid, and Warp Whistle of Time, comes Mario Thoughts from a Mario Mind.

When you close your eyes, do you see Mario? When you look into the skies, do you think about Mario? When someone says, "I'm-a play some Atari-o" or "That Indian girl has a nice sari-o", do you mishear it as "Mario"? Then this blog just might be for you! Unsorted observations, musings and nerdy commentary on Mario's universe is only a fraction of what you'll be seeing there - links, art and more await. Think of it as Daily Waluigious, but less daily and more Waluigious.

Now, you might ask why this is necessary. Why not just write more actual Waluigious articles? Well, all the writers are occupied with higher education now - Computational Linguistics and Accounting don't allow five-hour stretches of creative time to do research for a full article very often. However, the shorter and more liberal style of the Mario Thoughts posts - note, posts, not articles! - leaves possibility to update more often and cover a much wider range of Mario topics. It's a win-win situation!

Mario Thoughts depends on your feedback just as much as the main blog does - we're happy about all comments, requests, responses, etc! There are already two posts there to give you a taste of the impending fun to be had.

~Waluigious: The Unbearable Lightness Of Getting 1-Ups.

In Which Frantic Is Not Intense

Even though Nuovi Fratelli Super Mario per Wii is more than a sufficient excuse to drop every other responsibility, Waluigious goes on, through all Ice Storms and Thunder Rages. After all, it's the magic season of consumerism and the holiday spirit fills us all with debt, or something.

Gameplay. Once the grand pillar of arcade and video gaming, demoted to just one of its several central factors with the advent of non-plug-ugly graphics and non-beepy sounds, finally buried in a pile of review score rubrics between "Cost of DLC" and "Annoyance of DRM". The video game business mostly stagnates, relying on sequels to the max and remakes for re-money. Nintendo has been trying to be the freshest firm around, but the recent economic crisis took its toll on their strategy as well. DSi LL? SMG two? It's like the model reusage days of Majora's Mask all over again! The point: gameplay is not the focus anymore.

What does a programmer do if he's not focusing on gameplay? He or she remembers that gameplay is about two things: choices and challenge. Without choices, a game is a straightforward test, an ordeal, a movie that you have to keep pressing buttons to watch or it ends. Without challenge, all goals are attainable easily enough that it's a glorified toy. Too many choices cause a sandbox overflow, too much challenge causes The Lost Levels. One of these things is easier to implement - just give the player different characters, or moves, or weapons, balance them out a bit so there's reason to not always use the same one, and you've got the choice part down.*
*Not really, this is very oversimplified. But balancing is not the point of this rant.

Challenge, however, is not a matter of linearly increasing the number, speed, strength or other properties of enemies onscreen. This got a free pass in the ancient Froggeroids 2KB game era, but now, with intelligent prosthetic limbs, Scribblenauts and quad-core processors around, there's no excuse not to make the game (here comes the title drop) intense instead of frantic as it progresses. However, not even all Mario games avoid that.

A good example of the difference between these can be observed on another Nintendo series - the Kirby games. If you ask any Kirby fans to pick out a subset of the franchise with a markedly different feel from the rest, they'll probably direct you to Kirby's Dream Land 2, 3, and Kirby 64, adding that they're "less dynamic, poyo". Indeed, these three were not directed by Masahiro "Interjection! Ha ha ha!" Sakurai, but by another enigmatic person called Shinichi Shimomura, who valued a more relaxed pacing and sacrificed the immense size of the copy ability arsenal in order to come up with creative uses of Kirby's powers. While Kirby's Adventure and Super Star overwhelm you with 5 enemies at once, resulting in a loss of health independent on the player's reaction time (except if it was downright godly), Shimomura's games had a more Mario-like enemy frequency and left the player with a satisfying sense of fairness. In short: Miracle Matter is intense, Nova and Marx are frantic.

 Left: A timeless classic. Right: OMGWTFBBQ

Now it's Mario time. Historically, challenge has been handled quite well in the mainstream plumber series. Already SMB realized that enemies are only the beetroot in the delicious borscht of gameplay, with exciting environment obstacles being the potatoes and secrets being the spices and Bowser being the meat and this metaphor goes too far. Every level (well, except the duplicates) tries to present a new slice of Mario's world, with the hostile inhabitants being only one aspect of it, tinting it instead of defining it. In 4-1, Lakitu dominates the landscape, in 6-2, Piranha Plants harmoniously complement the pipe track, in 8-3, Hammer Bros. mobilize for one last attack. But in 6-3 or the castles, it is the locale itself that presents a much greater danger - and a danger that is far more exciting than just cranking up Paratroopa instances to 11.

In contrast to The Lost Levels, the challenging parts are far enough apart to give the player a fair chance to adjust their senses for the next one, instead of making them mash "Jump" wildly to stay on top of a 1-block platform after dodging two flying Bloopers and a counterclockwise Firebar. When an adrenaline rush turns into a heart attack, you're very far into frantic territory.

Super Mario Bros. 2 does have a few moments of less-than-fairness, like the Autobomb part or the Albatosses-albatossing-Bob-Ombs passage. Any example of randomized projectiles coming from the side of the screen too quickly and a limited ability to dodge them can be considered a sign of excess franticity. (More modern examples: Melty Molten Galaxy's meteor areas, the blue pollen in Bowser's Nose Deck.) This, coupled with the slot-based method of 1-up acquirement, makes SMB2 somewhat less fun, which probably resulted in it not being remembered as fondly as SMB3.

Though I am tired of everyone singing in an eternal chorus about how SMB3 is perfect to a fault, I must join in for a couple of lines and admit that the challenge balance of the Super Magnum Opus is the best I've seen, and most likely will see in a video game. From beginning to end, the game never takes cheap shots at you, and Dark Land is surely one of the hardest and most exciting parts in Mario history. The feeling of accomplishment from flying over the wall legitimately beating Bowser is overwhelming, and the design makes a great job of making you feel responsible for your own mistakes.

In fact, the same can be said about Super Mario World... this is getting monotonous, isn't it? The greatness of the canonic series becomes all the more apparent in direct comparison to the spin-offs. Donkey Kong up to Mario Bros. were model examples of "turn up" difficulty: more barrels, faster Trouble Bugs, more Shellcreepers etc. Mediocrity was abound in Super Mario Land, the awkward jumping physics of which caused many deaths by meanly-placed enemies, but which were fixed in SML2. Sadly, the "Land" series fell into the hands of Wario, who introduced the unique "trial-and-setback" type gameplay: you fail, you try again until your luck lets you get through the 15-obstacle corridor for once, and magically, no matter how good you are, your chances of failing less next time haven't grown!

Mario & Wario doesn't enjoy far-reaching popularity - partly because zombie escort missions in general are high on the list of most gamers' pet peeves, partly because no level had more to offer than the same enemies and flow control structures in higher-density configurations. You can handle two Pidgits? Here's 20 Pidgits. You think changing floors a few times via trampolines is trivial? Try an all-trampoline level. And don't get me started on Yoshi's Safari.

After this, it's easy to see how Super Mario 64 is one of the most-played games of all time. It doesn't have many enemies - oh no, it even has too few. The areas look half desolate, sometimes inspiring a sort of wistful loneliness... but exactly this is what makes out the greatest strength of SM64's approach to gameplay: freedom and exploration. A parallel to real life: is there more feeling of exploration and adventure in a crowded mall or on an abandoned factory site? The carefully weighted absence of characters expands the game world, contrary to all intuition. Super Mario 64 did not have to try to be good, it was effortlessly fun.

Not so with Super Mario Sunshine. Though not as bad as critics pan it to be, it was frantic in some places - Sirena Beach housing two bad offenders, the Manta Storm and the timed paint-removing mission that depended on the opaque goop behaviour and the game's own bizarre understanding of "clean".

Suddenly, mantas! Thousands of them!

The Phantamantas are so random and unfair that the designers were forced to scatter around 20 coins in the arena -  with the possibility for an unlimited number of additional health refills - just so the player had a chance, since not only do the little creeps themselves shock Mario and throw him into a potential mob of their pals, their very traces hurt and paralyze him. If that's not frantic, what is?

RPGs, by their very nature, have difficulty being frantic unless they try really hard to let you run into a random encounter every two steps - and even though the Mario & Luigi series have a dynamic element to them that could be exploited in bad and unfun ways, so far the only examples of superhuman requirements are the fortunately optional Cholesteroad and Brique Madame challenges in Bowser's Inside Story. Super Paper Mario has its fair share of experiments with what constitutes "fun" (15 minutes of holding down a button, writing down long random sequences) and of course extremely irritating sections like the mirror Dimentio/Longadile corridor - but it saves itself with the fact that the characters level up so quickly that nothing is a real challenge outside of a speedrun.

For an example of how aggravating a game on the extreme frantic end of a scale is: Mario Pinball Land. A ball that is, for all intents and purposes, not controlled by you is supposed to a) visit seven sequential locations inside of several seconds, b) hit 15 enemies, all in an extremely tight time window, c) cooperate with two other balls to hit 30 targets in 30 seconds - does this sound like madness to you?

This... is... PINBALL! Note that the Bullet Bill counter is higher than the timer.

Luckily, the modern mainstream entries - SMG and NSMBWii - don't disappoint too much. Galaxy tries hard to always be fresh in its main missions, but still leaves a faint taste of treason in your mouth when you get to the purple coin stars, visualizing some director's "These last bits are for Waluigious-caliber nerds, they get re-recycled content and should be happy for it" paradigm. And NSMBWii has received a lot of polish, probably to make up for the length that for some unknown reason doesn't surpass plain old NSMB. A detailed review will follow.

Any opinions on this polarity? Or is it a concept of a wrongness rivaling the Time Cube? Your thoughts are welcome!

~Waluigious: TL;DR: Lots of enemies is unfair and bad, mmkay?

In Which Mario's Poem Of Bowser-Smiting

Once again, Bowser is challenging me.
I half-laugh, half-sigh at his stupidity.
Did he forget all the times he was bested?
The zero return on the force he invested
in building up armies and strongholds and traps
and lava and cannons and bottomless gaps.
He couldn't defeat me with magic or fire,
and won't ever win even when I retire.

I beat him in castles - Peach's and his own,
dropped him into magma, reduced him to bone,
fought him again when he was resurrected,
once more he plummeted down as expected.
With badly-placed axes his bridge I undid,
turned his weight against him after beating his kids,
threw robots and vanquished his flying machine,
I beat him orange, he started out green!

Around his arena the bombs did explode,
as I threw him into them on his Koopa Road
and his giant jacuzzi couldn't uphold his rump
when I Rocket Ground Pounded it with my water pump.
When he grew giant, that mess I undid,
I even remember doing that as a kid!
Does he really expect that old Kamek to win?
While he charges his magic, I just break his shins.

I remember I worried about one of his plots
involving the Star Rod and the power it's got,
its capture gave him such potential, and still
he lost to a "Peach Beam" and badge picking skill.
He appeared at the end of a challenging fight
against a space robot leader powered by spite,
with a witch that could heal (in a turn) eight HP!
But all that's an average Thursday to me.

At times, he gets suddenly friendly...er...ish...
and we work together for a mutual wish,
yet even in those situations of crisis
he'll attack me whenever opportunity rises.
Guided by thieves, Fawfuls, Shroobs? Just excuses!
None will protect him from numerous bruises.
And everyone with at least a third of a brain
would have realized I would just aim for the chain.

I beat him in soccer, in golf and in tennis,
even at tea parties he's not a menace,
I beat him in Melee, I beat him in Brawl,
his Giga form, so far, only made me lawl,
I beat him in board games of his own design,
From MP to MP8, and I'm certain, 9.
I beat him in everything from fencing to karts,
Baseball and pinball and curling and darts.

I beat him by pointing my 'Scope at his head,
I beat him after we both were quite dead!
I beat him and stomped him and spat in his face!
I beat him inside a swiss cheese star in space!
I beat him in one of his Koopa hotels!
I beat him from inside, his bones, guts and cells!
I BEAT HIM IN RACES, I BEAT HIM IN RUNS,
I BEAT HIM INFINITY TIMES PLUS ONCE...

One answer, though, I will never quite reach...
How did he kidnap me in Super Princess Peach?!

~Waluigious: "It's-a Crazy!" is not part of our motto for nothing!

Waluigious Instigation: Peachtelligence Quotient

Salut and bienvenue to another warped edition of Waluigious In(ve)stigation, this time with a view so controversial, a point so polarizing, an issue so disputed, that you just might not quite like it.

Once upon a time, while giving the Super Mario Wiki a casual browse and looking for typos to correct in a haughty and supercilious fashion, I came upon this gem of description: "Princess Peach is classy, kind, clever, and adventurous." I chortled so hard I almost choked on my Waluigi-style eggplant snack. Clever? Since the ROMhack when? She was kidnapped slightly over 9000 times mainly due to her own lack of foresight, judgment, attention, common sense, and general gray matter, and someone still calls her clever? "This demands rectification", I exclaimed and promptly set off to illustrate the wrongness of that belief with one of those custom Waluigious chart thingies.
And so, here we go.

(Click to see it in full.)

As you can plainly see, Peach's royal IQ has seen a steady overall decline since the inception of the character in 1985, when she still was "the question mark at the end of this game". Going from someone who could inspire compassion, the princess went on to become so clichéd and one-dimensional that any attempt to make people feel sorry for her being abducted would have failed. NPCs joke about it, Bowser jokes about it, even Mario jokes about it. The only one who doesn't really get the humour of the situation is, you guessed it, Peach.

A point-by-point explanation of that overly pink graph:
-Super Mario Bros.: Our princess, who is in another castle, doesn't have much of an on-screen appearance until a few seconds before the game restarts, but luckily we have the enclosed instruction book to consult concerning her background. Quoth the manual, nevermore: "The only one who can undo the magic spell on the Mushroom People and return them to their normal selves is the Princess Toadstool, the daughter of the Mushroom King". This would require powerful white magic that only a wise person would be able to possess, but seeing that in this draft of the Marioverse story, the strangely-singular "Koopa" use black magic and Peach has a father, this all got subjected to a mighty retcon.

-Super Mario Bros. 2 is "Sir Not Appearing In This Chart" since not only do none of the playables of this game show even the minutest amount of personality, but they also were just figments of Mario's subconscious. It's funny how you can strip a character of personification by making him/her playable.

-Super Mario Bros. 3: Now the princess is free for most of the plot, exhibiting some of the helpfulness you might expect from someone able to de-blockify a whole kingdom. In the kidnappings of the other monarchs it's visible how strong the enemy forces are, and how easy it therefore is for the evil Koopas to capture someone. Peach sends you useful and rare items, gives you valuable but poorly-worded hints at the Whistles' locations, it's all awesome... until she gets kidnapped. All the player sees of her afterwards is that gut-wrenchingly poor parody of the SMB "another castle" phrase, followed by "Just kidding! Ha ha ha! Bye bye." This is a substantial foreshadowing of what's going to happen to her IQ in the future.

-Super Mario World: Here, Peach neither has any magic-canceling value nor does she help you, save for the mushrooms in the final battle. In fact, she pretty much just gets kidnapped... 96 exits later, rescued. In fact, the game itself acknowledges this - saving her is merely an afterthought after all the Yoshi eggs, and the final castle is the shortest of all. She could be easily replaced by a chunk of Triforce, a sack of kittens, anything worth fighting a giant turtle in a flying cereal bowl for.

-Super Mario RPG: Square, ever the "Mario is a vehicle for our own practices" crowd, projects their time-tried "spunky princess" image onto Peach, making her sneak out of her castle to join the rebels heroes and, of course, use magic - because pretty much everything in that game uses magic. As a side consequence of this, however, Peach becomes a somewhat bearable person - from the "Aim for the chain" in the beginning, until the final battles, she is not stupid at all. Yet again, pretty much everyone is bearable compared to Geno.

-Super Mario 64: Does anyone else find it suspicious that Peach tells Mario that she has already baked a cake for him, while after rescuing her, she still needs to bake it? But this is just one of the many things that are wrong with her. If the stars are that powerful, why keep them in paintings, holes, rabbits, blocks, etc. instead of, you know, using them against Bowser? The Koopa King himself isn't too smart, either, since he didn't figure out any way to use them effectively, as well. But Bowser's lack of brains is a topic for a whole 'nother article.

-Paper Mario: In this thin adventure, Peach is given one last attempt to be a non-obnoxiously-stupid character. The Peach between-chapters show her sneaking around, investigating, smuggling Mario some items from the castle, baking cake, answering quizzes, stealing identities etc. all by herself, since here she's paired with a character (Twink) who is absolutely useless except for his ability to fly, a talking messenger pigeon of sorts. Even in the final battle, her effort is visible when she focuses her energy to bring down Kammy Koopa. A tear and a farewell to a clever version of Peach that we won't see anymore...

-Super Mario Sunshine: ...because of this one. This game single-handedly brought Peach down three standard deviations on the IQ scale. How this was possible? Glad you ask! It was a carefully planned interplay of idiotic voice, awful plot, and "I'm your mama?" She thinks Shadow Mario is Mario, she asks Bowser Jr. whether he's Bowser's son, and when FLUDD dies, she is distracted from the tragic scene by the shiny Shine in the distance. Even her attempts at being useful shatter immediately, be it her trying to show Shadow Mario to Mario or her objection in court. Why didn't she appeal? Why didn't she go home after seeing the island? No trace of SMB3 or PM Peach to be found here.

-Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga: You might say she managed to trick Cackletta in this one. However, the info of the witch visiting was most likely given to her by Queen Bean. This leaves... Teehee Valley. Have you ever played one of these games where there's a character who's extremely vulnerable, but can't freaking stop, and you have to keep harm from them? Wasn't that extremely stupid and annoying? Now imagine doing puzzles in fast-forward around Peach, who obviously has only one walking speed (run), and if she crosses the boundaries of the screen, she gets kidnapped. Now, I don't think I have to point out that "standing without moving" is not something that requires a lot of intelligence, but obviously that's too high a concept for Ms. Still-Allowed-To-Rule-A-Country.

-Paper Mario 2: In the tradition of Paper Mario, Peach is supposed to help the heroes in her own chapter interludes. Now, however, she is guided by someone far more powerful and intelligent than she is , reducing her only to following orders. While her help is still immense compared to the few previous games, it doesn't really require as much intellectual ability. And, the whole problematic storyline starts with her fleeing from Toadsworth and buying suspicious things from suspicious vendors. Model princess behaviour!

-Mario & Luigi Partners in Time: To give her some slack, she does imprison one of the Princesses Shroob in the Cobalt Star, which is an accomplishment. Now, was the whole storyline really necessary? It wouldn't have been if Peach wasn't the first who used the time machine! Since a person who's extremely likely to be kidnapped in ANY situation, much more an unsafe one like a trip through time, is naturally one that should be used for a test-drive. The real question: is everyone around her just as stupid since no one said anything? E. Gadd is absentminded, and Toadsworth never gets listened to, but all others? Mario? Luigi?

-New Super Mario Bros: Peach literally does nothing but scream "Help!" several hundred times. Bowser Jr. puts her down, not tied up, many times - and she still doesn't undertake anything. You thought you would at least get mushrooms in the final battle? Hints? Anything? Tough luck! Here, the princess does even less than in SMB, if that's imaginable. And from what we've seen of NSMBWii, it seems like it won't be much better there. Just look at her:

"I get my cakes delivered by the Koopa Troop!"

-Super Paper Mario: In the third Paper Mario game, with Peach's transition to a full-fledged party member, she has lost her potential to help them on her own, instead all we got is a transformation from a story character to "someone to switch to for crossing long gaps and then to switch back". Although she tries to be noble, like in the final Mimi battle, she still has more stupidity here than in any other Paper series game. One example: in the Overthere, instead of going around and trying to find out where she is, Peach just picks up a mysterious golden apple and eats it. For giggles. And falls into a magic sleep, potentially forever if Mario and the others didn't save her. She shouldn't even have been hungry, she was DEAD at that point! This is the kind of dumb action that always leads to problems for those around her.

-Super Princess Peach: Oh, originality, a premise with reversed polarity. Peach has to save Mario - something that's only possible by willing suspension of disbelief - and, of course, doesn't talk much since she's playable. Her reactions to story events, however, reflect her established personality. She always rushes right into the Toad orbs even after knowing full well that there's a boss ahead - Perry outright tells her! And even though her emotions help her in this game, one can see how, if her mind works like this on a regular basis, it might inhibit her rational thinking. A lot.

-Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Not really a canon game, but here, Peach is her usual self, offering tea to people on top of a heavily armed and firing airship. Expectably, she gets turned into a statue and kidnapped a few times.

-Super Mario Galaxy: Peach once again invites Mario, this time to give him a Luma (curiously, nowhere in the game is it explained how she came into the possession of a Luma anyway) and, surprise, surprise, she gets kidnapped. Then, she sends him letters with 1-Ups, which is supposed to invoke the spirit of SMB3, but fails, since the 1-Ups are impermanent and non-rare, unlike the wise whistle hints and P-Wings etc. of yore. Finally, we only see her again in the end sequence, where she, along with Bowser, awakens and seemingly doesn't remember anything. Not that she ever remembers anything, particularly to install castle security, anyway.

-Mario & Luigi Bowser's Inside Story: As I pointed out previously, something is seriously wrong with Peach in that game. She is able to throw Bowser with hand gestures like the mightiest wizard, yet gets kidnapped by FOUR different people over the course of the game? (Bowser, Kretin, Fawful and Dark Bowser) This is a departure from her usual persona, but no less stupid. Maybe in the future, Peach will be a sort of "secret weapon" for the Mushroom Kingdom? "Bowser, you defeated our armies and our plumbers, but now you're dealing with PEEEEEECH!"

Honorable mentions:
-Mario Pinball Land: A device that turns people into spherical projectiles. Manned by Goombas. Peach: "I'm so there!"

Pictured: judgment of a true ruler.

-Super Smash Bros. Melee: Home to this sound clip. To quote Charles Babbage, "I am not rightly able to apprehend the kind of confusion that could provoke such a question", especially after a fight which implies that she has beaten everyone to a pulp beforehand.

It's sad that this character is the female that has appeared in the most video games. But I won't beat a dead Yoshi and ramble about how she's a bad role model for girls etc., that's a job for more generic video game blogs. You have the facts now, and it's your turn to build an opinion. Is Peach stupid? Did I misrepresent her? Am I an immature voodoo head? Comments are welcome!

~Waluigious: "I can't believe I got kidnapped…again."

In Which You Get Bowser Plug-Ins

A long, long time ago, in a past obscured by the badly-rendered mists of processing time, in an age where backstories were contained in manuals and in-game tutorials were unheard of, no one could have imagined that the green mass of pixels encountered in the X-4 levels of Super Mario Bros. might someday be the focal point, and main scene, of an entire adventure. It's Bowser's Inside Story (Co-Starring Mario And An Associate) - the third RPG in the beloved Mario & Luigi series. This post is a collection of first thoughts on it, more in-depth treatment of the game will come later in separate articles.

-Curiously, these might not be role-playing games in the primordial sense of the word - the player is not assuming anyone's role more than he/she would in any other Mario series entry, and the level of "customization" that can be exacted upon characters is minuscule to laughable. In fact, the bonus wheel is set up in such a way as to discourage, and later impossibilify, any value distribution leaning towards building up only one or two stats - all the player has is an illusion of control where the characters' strengths are heading, while the program pretty much has all decided in advance. Kind of reminds you of real life, doesn't it? A game of this sort would be more suitably dubbed a "turn-based action-adventure", but this is a topic for a later date.

-AlphaDream has tried the "please the fans" approach in both prequels, but this time, it seems like the company was at least partially brain-controlled by a mad, but crafty Marioficionado. So many mentions of nostalgic Mario elements have been thrown in that they even start sounding conspicuously out of place - one Sockop, a Kuribo's Shoe-like enemy, is called Kuribo - something cringeworthy enough to assume they're just trying to out-reference Intelligent Systems, which raises (not begs!) the question: will the next entries in the two companies' series be Mario & Luigi: Awkward Allusion Adventure and Paper Mario: One Big Francis Chapter? Not that Waluigious won't idolize both games, though.

-It's amazing how the game manages to show the insides of a big, nasty turtle without becoming gross at any point. This is accomplished at the expense of realism, however - very rarely can you even tell it's supposed to be the innards of a body. There is no blood save for the Piranha Plorps, which are obviously based on blood vessels but for some reason spit blue drops, pools of abstract liquid fat replace bottomless pits, and the game's understanding of relative size is about as good as Masahiro Sakurai's grasp on what constitutes a good story. Amoebae, little chunks of meat, singular atoms, memories (?) and tiny floating fish are all roughly the same size within the wonderful world of Bowser. Yet, despite all the kid-friendliness, AlphaDream smuggled in some less-obvious suggestions like the location of a node in Bowser's body that makes him grow (bottom center).

-The inclusion of a challenge mode with replayable boss fights might just be the best thing about the long-term appeal of BiS. After all, bosses are the highlight of all RPGs - and being able to fight even 7 of them over and over again adds to the fun immensely. No boss of the ones offered - and, in fact, almost no boss in the entire game - is defeated just by attacking a single target like 99% of RPG final battles, no, there is always a gimmick to every fight. A lot of the bad guys have 2 forms, being either only or more vulnerable in one of them - and it's your job to make them change forms. It's almost like Zelda, but without swords, without boomerangs, and the dancers hit each other.

-Peach... what is UP with the display of power at the beginning of the game? In short briefs, Bowser gets quickly downed by Mario, then Starlow (who is basically Luvbi, but with less personality and no antique speecheth) and Peach hold him down with some sort of forcefield, upon which Peach raises her hand and levitate-throws Bowser out of her castle so hard he crashes through the roof. Allow me to quote Doopliss here: "No... Why... HOW?!" Let's examine this. If she is capable to throw a knocked-out Bowser with Starlow's help, then, accounting for his resistance when trying to kidnap her, and the usual absence of any yellow balls, she should at least be able to keep him away from herself by pushing. Logic flies out of my ears as my brain collapses on itself. This is worse than the premise of SPP. What adds to the ludicrousness is Peach kissing and thanking Mario after catapulting Bowser out with a wave of her hand. "Thank you Mario! But your princess is ruining the foundations of Marioverse canon in another castle!"

Any disjointed morsels you'd like to throw onto the pile? We're happy about every opinion! After all, one man's trash is another man's Trashure, and a Sneed doesn't fall far from the Flifit.

~Waluigious: After this game, you'll know 1000% more words to rhyme with "awful".

In Which. Just In Which.

The Music of the Week from April 27th to May 3rd is...

...what do you mean, it's October already?! Wait a second... what is an "NSMB Wii"? And a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy? The revival of the Koopalings... another Mario & Sonic game... "The Story Of Bowser's Insides"? And this all happened? You see, all I can remember is Dr. Mario Express, and then there was this fancy mushroom I won from a mechanical Geno and then there was Fortran who told me how the tiny train and the book in the ruins were connected and then I woke up in a bathtub full of ice and my Game & Watch Collection was missing.

Anyway, to keep it brief, there will be no lofty and unrealistic goals like "three articles a week" this time, just good, old-fashioned "whenever we can"-style blogging. Also, as you can perceive with unaided eyes, my writing skills are so rusty, they're... mossy. See? You'll have to endure that for the time being, just as you have to endure the Thousand Year Intro Sequence to SPM before the fun begins.

A separate paragraph of thanks to our loyal readers. Without you, we'd be nothing! Not that we're all that much otherwise... Thank you for your continued support even as the site and the authors were down in The Dump, The Vice, and the Galactic Stadium.

In the immortal words of Waluigi, "Wa-lu-i-gi, yeah, yeah, YEAH!" Let's get this party re-started!

~Waluigious: Shoot for the 3-Up Moon, land among the Power Stars.

The One Where My Mind Wanders

Shortly after I ended my last entry, I recalled another interactive experience in a Mario game. It probably took a little longer to remember because it wasn’t meant to be played that way.

About a month after Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga came out for the GBA, a friend of mine told me he was having trouble with the final boss. We gave it a couple tries on the Cube’s Game Boy Player, so we could both see the action. Then an idea struck us: one of us could control Mario while the other focused on Luigi using a second controller! With each of us intent on keeping just one Bro. alive, the battle became much easier.

We decided that it went over so well, we’d try a playthrough of the game like this. It was really an intriguing experiment, and was fitting for a game that emphasizes teamwork. There was someone to laugh at the witty writing with, we had to coordinate our jumps in the overworld and Bros. Attacks in battle, and it generally gave the game a whole new value. But really, what I wanted to address was another Mario-related E3 announcement.

At E3, the third entry in the series has finally been granted a release…range of the third quarter of this year. It was also granted an English subtitle: Bowser’s Inside Story. If I hadn’t seen any game footage months ago, I would’ve pictured an interactive investigative reporting adventure. Bowser’s newest plot is to send out his troops not to cause physical destruction or kidnapping, but instead practice some muckraking journalism, attempting to oust Peach from office and make outcasts of the Mario Bros. by digging up dirt. Ask tough questions through the DS Mic! Take notes with the stylus, but make sure they’re legible enough for editors to read, or you could lose credibility! Send your fellow hard-beaked Troopas (pro) tips via Wi-Fi! Equip your Lakitu legions with cameras to find incriminating evidence! As Goombas or Dry Bones, “play possum” and eavesdrop in tight places! Send your Boos to listen for juicy gossip behind citizens’ backs, but be careful not to ask for a face-to-face interview!

…Yeah, actually, the Mario Bros. get sucked inside Bowser. (The first M&L game has the final boss fight inside a digestive system. The second has the majority of a chapter. And now, apparently, the majority of the game). The “teamwork” nature of the series has expanded to an unwitting symbiosis between the Bros. and Bowser: they can screw with his nerves and muscles to help him proceed, and he can devour certain foes for them to deal with. Bowser is also contending with (or working with; it’s hard to tell between the language barriers and the limited footage I’ve allowed myself to glimpse) an old acquaintance (I have spoilers!).

From what I’ve seen, I approve. My only real complaint about the previous M&L games is their unflattering treatment of the Bros.’ archenemy, and, while he hardly appears menacing here, he does seem strong and competent (if it’s anything like Super Paper Mario’s “give me Carrie to ride and I’ll eat this game for breakfast. Oh, and I have all the best lines, too,” portrayal of Bowser, then I’m happy).

Well, there’s my incredibly focused, insightful two cents on the new M&L. It really is a great time to be a Mario fan. If we can just hold out till fall, we can play this until new New SMB comes out, then play that until Super Mario Galaxy 2’s release. But that’s a topic for next time.

~Waluigious: The Game Boy Player's Co-op "feature" does not work quite as well for Mario Bros.

The One About Partners In...Platforming

First off: Yes, I’ve been gone for a really long time. I had college graduation, and the papers/finals leading up to that, and now a (thus far) fruitless search for a job. I can’t say it’ll get any better, because I shouldn’t be spending that much time posting on Mario blogs when searching for full-time writing-related employment, and should I find a job, I can’t imagine my free time is going to increase. But I do plan to drop in when I can, so hopefully there’s still people who occasionally check this place, because I’ve prepared a lengthier piece, and I don’t wanna rant to myself.

I sometimes brainstorm what the perfect entry of a given game series would be. Not as much as I used to, especially during the early 64 era, when flawless shining beacons called Yoshi’s Island 64 and Donkey Kong Country 4 danced through my mind’s eye with beauty the PS3 couldn’t replicate. No, I came to realize some of my expectations were unreasonable, and that developers have limitations. Still, I occasionally let my mind drift to what a future title should have. And on rare occasions, it actually happens.

Case in point: New Super Mario Bros. Wii. This little gem came completely out of left field during Nintendo’s E3 conference. Despite the (ridiculous) title, this is an entirely new game (New Super Mario Bros. 2? Newer Super Mario Bros.?). Anyway, the game’s intended selling point is its co-op feature: four-player co-op. Those who followed the DS title’s development probably remember the point where two-player co-op was a touted feature. Well, it looks like it’s been resurrected. Players 3 and 4 are blue and yellow Toads (I’m going to assume the blue one is “The” Toad going back to his SMB2 coloring, because my hatred of replacing established characters with generic mooks runs too deep), combining with Mario and Luigi to form a rather familiar color scheme. But more on the World of similarity Newer SMB seems to bear to one of its ancestors later.

If you don’t understand the significance of co-op available in a Mario sidescroller, you’ve obviously never gotten together with a couple buddies and tried to romp through SMB or SMW. You all more or less know the game back to front, but the sheer euphoric mood and attempts at backseat driving means none of you are all that focused. And if one of you is, he quickly realizes he needs to lighten up…until you miss the same jump twice apiece and get serious for a minute or two.

It’s a blissful, irreverent experience that only good friends and the wonderfully tight, forgiving, but not insulting design of a Mario-caliber platformer can create. And how much sweeter will it be when you can be playing with your friends simultaneously?

SMB3, the game that got so much right, came closest to this. You weren’t “racing” like in SMB; a stage cleared by Mario is out of Luigi’s way too. But the map kept track of the individual players’ cleared stages, and they could “battle” each other for cards, showcasing simultaneous play in the format of the Mario Bros. arcade game, a nice nostalgic nod. But while SMB3 included that “cooperative AND competitive” atmosphere, you still couldn’t interact in the main game, nor could you in any Mario platformer (Galaxy’s pointer doesn’t count) until now.

Admittedly, unless Nintendo makes an uncharacteristically difficult game, Newer SMB will flatten like a Goomba before four Mario veterans moving like a coordinated strike team (if strike teams jumped on things). But for kicking back with your buddies--all of whom are platforming veterans and KNOW how to play efficiently, they’d just much PREFER to chuck you into a Hammer Bro. every once in a while--the typical Mario format is just perfect.

Now, I suspect I’m preaching to the choir here, but I have to call out folks claiming this is a pale imitation of LittleBigPlanet. To its credit, LBP is one of the better things to happen to platforming. It has a “cute but not nauseating” charm that Mario fans should be accustomed to, and its level editor is beyond anything of the kind Nintendo has produced or seemingly will any time soon. But there’s more to “Mario Magic” than consumer brand recognition. Any platform aficionado can recognize Mario physics, as well as their accessibility and smoothness. And the aesthetics of the Mushroom Kingdom are just unbeatable. Kid-friendly, but something all but the most self-conscious college kids wouldn’t hesitate to revisit. If the level design is as good as any other Mario hop-n-bop (that isn’t Super Mario Land), it’ll be head and shoulders above LBP. And there’s no way LBP can compete with the locales, items, and enemies of Mario. Hey, what a segue!

Now, before my past hiatus, I revisited (Old) New Super Mario Bros. I won’t rehash that, but the point I want to dig back up is how it drew just as much from SMB3 and SMW as it did from SMB1, yet its developers went out of their way to exclude some of those games’ key elements. Well, with World’s notorious “red-green-blue-yellow” motif returns the late ‘80s/early ‘90s…with a vengeance!

Newer SMB is no longer shy about its inspiration. First off, while Old NSMB paid its tribute to SMB3’s suits with the Blue Shell, the sequel gives us at least two more. First is the Propeller Suit. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a tribute to Fly Guys, but regardless, flight has returned to Mario sidescrolling! I don’t really have much else to say about this power-up…it doesn’t look quite as thrilling as the Tanooki Suit or the Cape, but we’ll see. And did you notice no two Mario games have the same flight power-ups? Weird…

Next is the Penguin Suit, which fits in nicely. Penguins have enjoyed their niche in the series ever since Bumpties slid into Yoshi’s Island (subsequently bumping Yoshi into a fatal batch of thorns), and as cool as the Tanooki and Frog Suits were, I like ones based off series regulars. Word is this suit blends aspects of Old NSMB’s Blue Shell and Galaxy’s Ice Flower, which were my favorite items in those respective games, so I approve.

As you may recall, the developers felt Yoshi was way too new-age for a retro romp like New SMB. But Newer SMB is a different story, and the dino with the bottomless belly is back! He seems to handle much like his SMW debut, with the addition of his flutter kick. I couldn’t be much happier.

Finally…the Koopalings have returned! I’ll be modest and pretend it wasn’t because a Nintendo spy read my scathing criticism of Bowser Jr.’s existence from a few months back (thank you, thank you, thank you). Of course, that post details why the Koopalings fit this type of game much better than Bowser Jr., so I’m not going to reiterate that.

Newer SMB is reportedly coming our way Holiday 2009, barring a patented First-Party Nintendo Title Delay ™. But wait! There was MORE Mario news at E3? Read my opinion on two more Mario games soon!*

*May not be “soon” by any stretch of the definition, but here’s hoping!

~Waluigious: I'm not sure if I can trust that newcomer yellow Toad. He seems like the type to toss the others into a lava pit, filling the castle halls with shrill cries of "I'm the best!!"

In Which Wario's Woods And Wouldn'ts

Puzzle games, in general, do not feel the need to justify their story - they expect players to not pay any attention to it anyway, since this genre's forte is the mechanics. An RPG can get away with a glitched battle system and tacked-on minigames if it distracts from them with a shiny epic story, and an action-adventure can gloss over ridiculous camera movement with a beautiful scenery and catchy soundtrack... but no one ever plays a puzzle game for the background and presentation. Still, the levels of ridiculousness have to max out somewhere, but Wario's Woods, the famously difficult NES/SNES critter-bombing trip, takes it too far.

Wario and his horde of mind-boggingly un-Mario-like minions are overrunning the Mushroom Kingdom! Chaos reigns, havoc is wreaked, and one unexpected character rises to defeat them all... Toad. Not a hero, but an incredible simulation! This brave mushroom warrior (read: cowardly kidnappee) is assisted by his long-time friends Wanda the fairy of Mario & Wario fame, and Birdo. Wanda seems to be characterized only by two things: she loves helping people defeat Wario, and she can make stuff appear out of thin air. It was blocks in her first game, now she drops bombs. You'd expect Toad to use her powers and bomb the chips out of the fat troublemaker and his cohorts, but no. Absolutely harmless little fuzzy creatures have to be killed in a cruel color-match game to progress, instead. But wait, there's more idiocy!

Birdo's role is to somehow keep Wario from entering the field's control booth and replacing Wanda with... a Pidgit. Some random Pidgit who doesn't even have a carpet. Said Pidgit drops new fuzzy creatures instead, lengthening the time you'll spend in the level - while Wario shakes the arena and makes the ceiling drop down a bit. After a while of the titular wood owner's shenanigans, Birdo returns and the cycle recommences. Only when the last creature is blown up with same-coloured bombs does the round end... and a new one begins immediately afterward. The minions are fought differently in the two versions of this game: the SNES one has them competing with you in killing innocents, and the (strangely later released) NES one wises up a bit and makes Toad actually fight them with the bombs. However, this is not the point. The point is "WHY?!"

Why Toad? If Wario actually posed any danger to the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario and Luigi would confront him at once. They'd even confront him if he stole their newspaper! There's no reason given for them not being present. In fact, no known Mario characters beside the five main ones are there at all; the fuzzy things are completely arbitrary, while the evil monsters range from anime mermaids to hillbilly pumpkinheads to knights and trolls, i.e. stuff that has no business in a Mario game. But, inversely, if Mario and Luigi have actually been taken out by Wario's henchmen, how could a squishy mushroom possibly stand a chance against them?

Another interesting question. Why is Birdo on Toad's side while the Pidgit is on Wario's? There have been Pidgits in Mario & Wario, too, as the easiest enemies, so Wanda possibly has a vendetta against those birds. Didn't Birdo try to kill Toad and vice versa in SMB2?! "He might have thrown my eggs back at me, but if he's against Wario, then I'm his best friend!" Of course, Subcon might all have been a dream, but nontheless, this all seems extremely peculiar. And Wario actually becomes bigger throughout the game in the NES version. Creepy.

While other Mario stories with only a limited number of characters feel natural (SMB, SMW, SM64, SMS, SMG all had about 4-5 characters actually important to the plot), and even the side games make more or less a sort of sense if you squint and tilt your head sideways, Wario's Woods is downright surreal. An unlikely protagonist, a mini-boss from the game he first was playable in, and a Wario-hating fairy on one team, Wario and a minor enemy from the same game as the mini-boss on the other. The game feels like an elaborate prank, but it's not clear whom the joke is on. Most likely the player. Meanwhile, in an alternate dimension...
Yep. Definitely the player.

~Waluigious: The Subspace Emissary is a piece of cake to understand compared to this.

In Which Hypothetical Apocalypse Someday

Now, there's lot of talks about bad economy and Nintendo losing "gamer cred" recently by making their games too innovative for the fat basement fulltime-campaigning "hardcore" crowd. "Nintendo no longer fun", bitter critics hiss. "Wiimote shake a grave mistake, casual game incredibly lame", Dr. Seuss wannabes proclaim. Some doomsday prophets even blabber about Nintendo having to roll up and exit stage right since they can't keep up with the modern technology of the next generation.

Of course, that's all not true. We know that Nintendo is a software and hardware giant with a budget of billions of whatever currency you want, and it'll take more than some tiny global economic slump or insignificant 50% decrease of customers to inflict any damage to their HP. Remember, we're talking about a company that rose from a family-run playing card store to a brand recognized by everyone who hasn't been living under a rock on one of Saturn's moons for the last 25 years. They have won lawsuits against Universal Studios when they were just beginning to expand, and they survived the GameCube era!

Leaving behind all constraints of reality, however, if Nintendo were to be destroyed in the far future, one possibility would be losing the casual gaming market entirely to some sort of new entertainment medium. In 1972, the year Pong came out, people couldn't have imagined what kind of effect video games would have on society several decades later - they started as nothing more than just another kind of toy, something completely harmless and of no concern to adults. Who's there to say this can't happen again? Maybe a new form of fun-filled pastime is already in progress of being invented somewhere, and people will leave video games for it. Only the die-hard fans, whether the aforementioned shoot-fest aficionados or franchise nerds like the people who read Waluigious, will remain faithful to our hobby if it becomes obsolete. In such a case, Nintendo would have REALLY bad cards if it plans to continue with its current strategy - but all it would take is to revert to its old ways to gather fans again. A lot of the people who hate Nintendo now were avid fans back when the games were more difficult - "Nintendo Hard", if you will.

Mario games are kept up, and will be continued, because they have been around for long enough that even people who hardly ever played a video game in their lives recognize the character, and associate the experience with quality - after all, there aren't many people who were scared or depressed of a Mario game. The joy and fun they bring is universal... true, there are some who found them boring, even as little kids. Most of these people had serious issues and grew up to be criminals or heartless corporate henchmen. Tangents aside, no matter how casual Nintendo may get, no matter how needlessly new and abnormal the controls are, no matter how far the graphics slog behind the current industry benchmarks, we'll still get new Mario games just because he's not merely a mascot, but the main pillar that supports the company.

There's also the real-life-related scenarios likely to bring an end to Nintendo, which would be World War III, Japan-sinking earthquakes and basically any catastrophe big enough for people to think of playing video games in the face of such a disaster as nothing but blasphemy. But really, in these cases, we'd have other things to worry about, like shielding ourselves from the deadly radiation.

And finally, one thing we all - as Mario geeks - have to remember is: while the Mario universe is born within the halls of Nintendo, it lives inside the minds of the fans. Mario will die not when the last game is no longer produced, but when no one longer remembers him. I will remember. Will you?

~Waluigious: *anthem version of SMB main theme*