sort of think about past games at all? Aren't some of these people supposedly, y'know, the same people that worked on those games? And then all they can be bothered with, when someone obviously figures it out, is hedging on a cameo, with no explanation or jack crap even though it's an RPG full of dialogue? The best one can surmise from their Mario and Luigi appearance is that at some point, Bowser said "Screw it, you're all grounded for failing! Go to your rooms forever! And remember, it doesn't talk or else it gets the hose again! I'm gonna go make a clone of myself, at least then he won't look funny! I think I'll call him. Without anybody there to go "Uhhhhh, jackass, we already did that 10 years ago. Can you come up with a story that makes sense for why such a thing would exist, that's appropriate for little kids?" "I know, let's have a Shadow Mario! Like Shadow Link!" "Hmm, we need a new villain that's not Bowser in this Super Mario Dolphin game." Now, excuse me, but WTF? It's like they had a meeting at Nintendo one day: He looks almost exactly like Baby Bowser from Yoshi's Island. They were also apparently going to appear in Super Princess Peach, but removed.?īut what has Nintendo instead given us? Starting in Super Mario Sunshine, and many games since- the various Mario sportspartywhatever games, New Super Mario Bros, and even Super Mario Galaxy, we've had this "Bowser Jr." character. They finally reappeared, once, without any dialogue or explanation, inside Bowser's castle at one point during Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga as bosses. But where did they go in all these other games? They weren't even in Mario RPG for the SNES. Now, I can certainly see why several things- even Luigi- didn't appear in Super Mario 64, since it was experimenting in a totally new field. The Koopalings went on to appear in Super Mario World, the super scope game Yoshi's Safari, and a lot of other mediums (most memorably, the SMB3 and SMW cartoons, although somewhat embarassingly so there I'd say XD), even the Phillips CD-i Hotel Mario.Īnd then they didn't appear in any Mario games at all for upwinds of 10 years. Koopa, Iggy Koopa, Lemmy Koopa, Morton Koopa Jr. They were all named after famous musicians (plus two talk show hosts?) Ludwig Von Koopa, Roy Koopa, Wendy O. stuff that was sorta reaching to even include on the NES for one-time uses, although they did recycle parts of them (mainly the shell/body area they only drew three of those I think) in each other's sprites. They had funny hair (mohawks, other spiky hair, no hair, Beethoven hair), weird accessories (nerd glasses, a bow, a clown-esque star ball to ride on, a star-shaped "birthmark" over one eye, groovy shades). So they invented kids () for Bowser seven of 'em. Nintendo decides to do something more imaginative for bosses rather than Bowser/King Koopa at the end of the world, while also lending more weight to Bowser himself as he only appears for one final battle, and with a completely different strategy than the previous two games' relatively uniform attack pattern (and instant-win axe at the end of the bridge by two games I'm referring to SMB2j). Okay, so I'm never at a loss for something to rant about, and I figured this one might actually make an interesting topic of some sort since I haven't seen a lot of thought applied to the matter by anyone in years (though I'm sure there are plenty of people that do somewhere).