The scans:
Who is it, I have to wonder, that gets to decide which ones get to become series staples and which ones fall by the side? Who decided that the Porcu-Puffer or the Dino-Torch were so inherently flawed that they didn’t need to appear in any subsequent Mario games? What made them so inferior to the rest of the minions pictured in the second scan? And who thought it necessary to bring Pokey back from the obscurity of Super Mario Bros. 2, resulting in the segmented, ambulatory cactus’s appearance in nearly every subsequent Mario game? (Damn activists and their pro-cactus agenda.)
Maybe more importantly, I note two facts in the infobox on the right side of the first scan: in order, “[Super Mario World] is known as Super Mario Bros. 4 in Japan” and “Super Mario World’s direct sequel was Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds and was supposed to be released on the CD-i.” I’ve read about Wacky Worlds a bit online and recognize that it is the Mario game that never came to be. And I realize that Super Mario World was released in Japan with the subtitle “Super Mario Bros. 4.”
See? And it makes sense, especially given that an earlier incarnation of Super Mario World featured Mario sporting the raccoon tail that allowed him to fly in Super Mario Bros. 3. (Like in real life!) But if this Super Nintendo launch title is Super Mario Bros. 4, then what is Super Mario Bros. 5, especially if the horrifically titled Wacky Worlds — that is, the “direct sequel” to the subject at hand — never came to be?
In 1995, Nintendo released a sequel to Super Mario World: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, which starred Mario in infantile form, clinging tenaciously onto Yoshi and screaming like a banshee when the two were separated.
It would seem logical that an actually published sequel to Super Mario World would get to take the title of Super Mario Bros. 5, but I’m not sure that this game actually should. Essentially, this game departed enough from the standard Mario hop-and-bop gameplay that it birthed Nintendo’s Yoshi games as a series in their own right, what with their egg-tossing and constant eating. (They’re like a primer for bad motherhood.)
So if it’s not Yoshi’s Island, maybe it’s Super Mario 64 — the first 3-D Mario game and the second title to continue the trend of one-title-per-system that began with Super Mario World. (If the Wii gets a follow-up to Super Mario Galaxy before a new age of Nintendo systems dons on it, it would be the first in years to break this trend.) Of course, you could also say that Super Mario 64 was the start of the al the games where Mario could run around in any one of 360 degrees from where he’s standing — yes, that is different than up, down, backward and forward — like in Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy. So, essentially, this one may not be the true sequel either, if you look at it instead as the first in a new series.
Really, if any game deserves to inherit the subtitle Super Mario Bros. 5, it would be a game that most people probably didn’t play and which has never been ported to any latter-day Nintendo system: Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins. It was the game that introduced that Freudian nightmare Wario as well as the second Mario outing for the Game Boy. The game did its best to re-create the basic Super Mario World graphics and atmosphere and gameplay with the magic of creamed spinach color. But even if it was the title that deserved to be the true follow-up to Super Mario World, it should get nixed for the same reason that the previous two games should: It spun off into a radically non-Mario direction. Its sequel, Super Mario Land 3 starred not Mario but Wario, who later went on to bop-and-hop through five more games, each with a more Wario-specific style of gameplay. Beyond that, Six Golden Coins is already a sequel to another game: the Super Mario Land, which owes more to the original Super Mario Bros. than anything else.
The conclusion: None. There is no Super Mario Bros. 5, and, thus, it’s stupid to imagine what could deserve that honor.
Realization: Anything that had a chance at having the honor immediately lost it by spinning off into its own thing. Boo.
Additional realization: I think I hate Pokey.
Third realization: What the hell ever happened to the Koopa Kids, foremost among them Morton Koopa Jr. — the only video game character to be named after trash TV titan Morton Downey Jr.?
Other noteworthy Super Mario-related posts:
- The strange origin of Mario characters’ names
- Obscurio: The most famously un-famous Mario characters
- Super Mario, King of Japan
- The surprising intersection of Super Mario Land 2 and indie pop
- Questions reasonable people should have upon playing Super Mario Bros. for the first time
- The best song from Super Mario RPG and its TV soundalike
- Mario’s lack of balls
- Nature re-creates Super Mario Bros. 3... completely by accident
- Toad had a bad dream
- Who Put the “P” in the P-Wing?
- How the worlds in Super Mario Land got their names
You could probably make a similar article on title numbering based on the other Nintendo franchises like Metroid and Zelda. You also forgot to mention New Super Mario Bros. But anyways, the most recent prominent game the Koopa Kids can be found in is Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.
ReplyDeleteGood point. I'd forgotten about New Super Mario Bros., which is really more of a direct sequel to Super Mario Bros. than anything.
ReplyDeleteI say Super Mario World is more of a "direct sequel" to Super Mario Bros. 3, in the way you say New Super Mario Bros. is a direct sequel to the first Super Mario Bros. And Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Island DS would be sequel's to Yoshi's Island.
ReplyDeleteI guess the only one that hasn't gotten its own sequel then would be Super Mario Bros. 2.
That is so weird. I had no idea that Super Mario World was supposed to be Super Mario Bros. 4. Does this mean that Super Mario Galaxy is actually Super Mario Bros. 8?
ReplyDeleteActually, now that I think about it, Super Mario World --- a.k.a. Super Mario Bros. 4 --- kind of is Super Mario Bros. 5 already. By the time this game came out, Nintendo had already released four Mario games in Japan: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2 (the super hard reconfiguration of the previous game that eventually got released in the States as Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels), Super Mario Bros. 2 (the American sequel to the first game, which was released in Japan as Super Mario USA before Super Mario World had come out), and finally Super Mario Bros. 3.
ReplyDeleteSo the numbers at the end mean nothing.
But we already knew that.
It seems like most of the dinosaur-themed enemies from SMW never made it to other games, even though some of them did take place in Dinosaur Land.
ReplyDeleteThe Li'l Sparky in SMW is basically the same as the Spark in SMB2. They don't look very similar, but they both do the same thing.
Nathan: I've noticed that too, with the Spark. Oddly enough, it ended up being an item in the newest Smash Bros. game, though under the name "Hothead," and with the note that the character first appeared in Super Mario World. So Nintendo at least doesn't acknowledge the difference between it and the Super Mario Bros. 2 enemy.
ReplyDeletePorcupuffer did reappear, he's in New Super Mario Bros (or at least a very similar enemy is, in the beach levels, and bright red in colour). The Koopalings are returning in New Super Mario Bros Wii. Most of the enemies in the chart have returned at least in some of the spinoffs, although I have no idea where Chargin' Chuck and Reznor went recently.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny you mention Super Mario Land 2 as a possible Super Mario Bros 5 though, I wrote an article on that being under appreciated some time back now, and here I find the same kind of possible point being made. Of course, here's a possible Super Mario Bros 5... New Super Mario Bros. Or the Wii game with Yoshi and Koopalings.
Maybe the Reznors will reappear when Boom-Boom does. Or has he already, and I just don't know about it?
ReplyDeleteBoom Boom apparently hasn't shown up since Super Mario Bros. 3.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mariowiki.com/Boom_Boom
This recent upswing in comments on this posts makes me think I should re-do it, focusing on various games' reasons for deserving the Super Mario Bros. 5 title.
I actually own that Super Mario World VHS, it's like the entire game being played with Japanese commentary!
ReplyDeleteSorry for the late comment, but I'd just like to say, most Super Mario World characters/enemies did appear again. Note:
ReplyDeleteMario/Luigi/Peach/Bowser - Other Mario Games in general (most)
Koopalings - Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga, New Super Mario Bros Wii
Koopas - Most Mario games
Lakitus- Most Mario games
Goombas/Paragoombas - Most Mario games
Bob-ombs - Most Mario games
Piranha Plants - Most Mario games
Munchers - New Super Mario Bros Wii
Pokeys - Most Mario games
Rex- Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga
Boos - Most Mario games
Ninji - Paper Mario
Magikoopas - Super Mario Galaxy
Big Boo - Super Mario 64 and onwards
Fishin' Boo - Super Princess Peach
Blurp - Super Mario Land
Cheep Cheep - MOst Mario games
Wiggler - Most Mario games
Porcupuffer - New Super Mario Bros Wii
Urchin - New Super Mario Bros Wii
Torpedo Ted/Launcher - Super Mario Galaxy
Spiny - Most Mario games
Spiketop - New Super Mario Bros
Yoshi - Other Mario games in general
Mega Mole - Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga
Swooper - Most Mario games
Blargg - Yoshi series, Super Mario Galaxy 2
Thwomp - Most Mario games
Dry Bones - MOst Mario games
Fishbone - New Super Mario Bros Wii
Sparky - ...
Hothead - Super Smash Bros Brawl
Mecha Koopa - Super Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros Wii
Banzai Bill - New Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2
Reznor, Dino Rhinos, Dino Torches, Chargin' Chucks, Dolphins, Bony Beetles, Amazin' Hammer Bros and Sumo Bros generally never appeared again, although Chargin' Chucks, Dolphins, Amazin' Flying Hammer Bros and Bony Beetles appeared/were going to appear in the Super Mario Advance 4 e reader levels.
Yeah, but as far as minor enemies introduced specifically in SMW, most didn't make a big splash. Magikoopas did, Swoopers did, Wigglers did, Fishing Lakitu did (as far as being a his Mario Kart role being an extension) but the rest fell by the wayside. They've gotten one or two appearances in games that make a habit of pulling from the "obscure character" bin, like Superstar Saga or Super Princess Peach, but many didn't become the kind of quickly recognizable series staples in the way that, say, certain Super Mario 64 baddies (Whomp, Mr. I, Mr. Blizzard, plus non-baddies like the MIPS rabbits and the penguins) did by virtue of how quickly the Mario universe expanded after its release as a result of spin-offs. (It was followed by the Mario Party games, for example, many of which had no more recent Mario game to mine characters from.) As far as direct spin-offs draped in the "look" of the big-name Mario game that preceded it, Super Mario World only gets Super Mario Kart and Yoshi's Safari. It's not that weird, I guess, when you consider that a lot of new baddies were introduced in Super Mario Bros. 3 that also didn't end up become such big deals and of themselves. In fact, I feel like the majority of iconic Mario baddies and side-characters come from the first game, from SMB2/Doki Doki Panic, and from Super Mario 64.
ReplyDeleteActually, now that I'm thinking about this, I want to look a recurring enemies and see which ones appear most often and which games introduced them, just to see which one has been the most generative.
To be fair, none of those you mentioned became big outside the spinoffs, note how the Whomps only appeared in New Super Mario Bros and then Super Mario Galaxy 2, Mr I only in Super Paper Mario and Mr Blizzard literally only in spinoffs. In terms of making much of an impact, I'd say the only real winners of the series were the baddies in the first game, some from each subsequent Mario main game, Koopalings, Bowser Jr, Petey Piranha and King Boo.
ReplyDeleteIf I was gonna judge though, I'd say Super Mario Sunshine had most effect on spinoffs, at least from the Gamecube to early Wii/DS era.
sega wat a saga
ReplyDelete