Board 8 > Anagram ranks anything Mario-related

(+) Yeah! (+)

We've done this with Star Wars, Star Trek, Final Fantasy, Flags, Visual Designs, Metal Gear, Pokmon, the Legend of Zelda, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I decided that I wanted to do another big epic genre series, but with SW, ST, and FF already out of the way, and the fact that I have major holes in my LotR (no Silmarillion), Dragon Ball (no DB, GT, or Super), and Persona (no 1, 2, and Royal) knowledge, I decided it's time for Mario.

Same rules as last time: post anything at least tangentially related to Mario, and I'll crank out a full writeup analyzing it, and rank it against other Mario-related things. But if you post some weird crap I'm unfamiliar with, I'll just veto it. I can't possibly name every Mario game I've ever played, or every Mario-related thing I've seen, though, so there's a lot of weird Mario crap I am familiar with.

Chris Pratt

Hide and Seek (online multiplayer) mods

Donkey Kong (1981)

Torpedo Ted

Luigi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0uh6Qs-Q8Y

Mario's Game Gallery

SupperMarioBroth Twitter account

Lakilester

Blue Shell Incident

Tonkachi Mario

Anya Taylor-Joy

Kublai Khan as depicted in Mario's Time Machine

Mario Teaches Typing

Bowser's Fury

The pachinko machine level in Mario Sunshine

Kuribo's Shoe

Hotel Mario cutscenes

Super Mario Maker 2

Trials of Death (Mario Maker 1 level)

You can rank either the level itself or the whole lore about it, however you want to do it.

Captain Lou Albano

NBA Street V3

- Kuribo's Shoe Tier
Kuribo's Shoe: It's such a stupid power-up, but it's sort of emblematic of what makes Mario as a series so unique and good. It's just a hodgepodge of weird ideas that make no logical sense, but because they form such a solid aesthetic, you just sort of accept it.
Luigi: Luigi is the embodiment of being overshadowed. He is the Janet Jackson of video games. It is insane how 100% of Luigi's personality comes from Luigi's Mansion. Before that, he was just Green Mario. Like, they radically changed Luigi's entire personality for their comedy-horror game, and then they actually stuck by that. It's like the only piece of continuity in the entire series, is Luigi being a coward. Everything else shifts constantly EXCEPT his personality. And it even sort of fits the fact that Luigi is better at jumping than Mario, yet doesn't get the credit. But man, Luigi. He's the ultimate #2 in all of fiction. I guess that's really Tails, since Tails is the #2 #2, but I'm giving it to Luigi. Once we get to the other human characters, I'll have more to say about them philosophically, but Luigi as a character just exists to be Player 2, and then just stuck around because he was useful as a character to the series. Poor Luigi. Remember the Year of Luigi being a whole lot of nothing? They can't even decide what his relation to other characters is besides Mario. Does he have a thing going with Daisy? Does Bowser care about him at all? Who knows!
Super Mario Maker 2: I am fully onboard with Nintendo legitimizing fan creations. No complaints here.

- Hammer Suit Tier
Chris Pratt: I've never seen Parks and Rec, so my Chris Pratt exposure is limited entirely to Guardians of the Galaxy, the Mario movie, and the Jurassic World movies. Oh wait, he was in the Lego Movie? And the Magnificent Seven reboot? He's married to Arnold Schwarzenegger's daughter? And he's related to the Kennedies? Goddamn, this guy is more interesting than I thought. Anyway, I'll just rate his chops as an actor, and he's fine. He is perfectly serviceable as Action Man in the Jurassic World movies. I mean, those movies are awful, but it's not his fault. He's fine in Guardians, but I wouldn't really say he elevates those movies. I could imagine him being replaced and it not really changing much. He's fine as a comedic presence, too. Look, he's fine. He's not great, he's not a draw for me, he's just fine. Mildly above average in terms of how much I care about actors.
SupperMarioBroth: I love it. Great idea. I was going to save this rant for later, but obviously Mario lore is the stupidest type of lore in video games. It's even dumber than caring about Zelda and Pokemon lore. I won't go into this yet because I'm sure we'll get way more into this at some later point, but mocking Mario lore as a concept by correctly explaining it is a great idea. I really like the detail of Waluigi's cap having a sticker that's coming off.

- Super Mushroom Tier
Hide and Seek mods: I had to look this up, I'd never heard of it. I watched a bit of Mario Odyssey hide and seek, and it seemed like a creative use of the materials by fans, so I'm a little impressed. I hate LPers who just scream and overreact a lot, though.
Donkey Kong (1981): I sort of hate ranking REALLY old games, because I inevitably feel like a jackass for saying that I just don't enjoy them as much as most modern games. I know Donkey Kong was a huge deal when it came out, I know it changed everything, I know, I know... But like, if you ask me which I find more fun, Donkey Kong 1981 or, like, most random indie roguelikes on Steam? If I'm being honest, I sort of have to say the latter. But it is crazy how much video game lore tracks back to this random stupid video game from the early 80s. Is this the first video game where a hero rescues a kidnapped woman?
Tonkachi Mario: Oh, is this just a really old romhack? Oh Jesus, 1987, that is indeed an old romhack. Too old to even be called a romhack, huh? I was going to give this a low rank for being kind of boring compared to other Mario romhacks I've seen, but 1987? It deserves some points just for that alone.
Anya Taylor-Joy: What's the Mario connection... Ah, she voices Peach in the movie. She's fine. I don't really want to give her points as Peach in the movie, but as a voice actress, she did fine. I'm not going to lie to you, the only person in that movie whose performance rises above "fine" is Jack Black. Have I seen anything else with her... Oh, Split and Glass. I guess she's fine? She's the girl in The Menu, that movie is good. Okay.
Kublai Khan: Can I just say, it's so bizarre that Genghis Khan and his ilk are usable as just silly historical figures in comedies. They murdered SO many people. I guess this is the power of time healing all wounds. How are the Mongols remembered in like China and the Middle-East? Obviously, in the West, they're remembered as like insane barbarian murderers.

- Frog Suit Tier
Lou Albano: This was the voice of the Mario cartoon? ... Honestly, he looks exactly like I expected.
Blindfolded Mario Maker Guy: This is the level of content creation we've sunk to. Everything reasonable has already been done, so now we're down to insane nonsense like this. I appreciate the guy's focus and ideas, I guess, but... I dunno, I can take or leave this. I did like the part where he runs into plants while in Link mode.
Torpedo Ted: This is stupid, but stay with me here: I like Bullet Bills more because they're more serious. They aren't smiling, and they have angry eyebrows. They know their job, they have their job, and they aren't screwing around. Torpedo Ted is smiling like an idiot.
Lakilester: I'm gonna level with you. I played Paper Mario like twenty times as a kid. I loved that game. I hid a bad report card from my parents so they wouldn't punish me by taking away the game. I do not remember this character at all. If you'd just shown me a picture of him, I would've believed this was someone's OC but for the too-true-to-the-90s quality of the image being hard for randos on Deviantart or whatever to replicate.
NBA Street V3: Oh god, is it racist if I make a joke about white men not being able to jump? I was going to say that they made no attempt to make the Mario characters fit the game's real world aesthetic, but that's not quite right. I'm looking at images of the game now, and although it's true that the Mario characters have their normal wonky Mario proportions and vibrant colors, I don't know... there's definitely something that's been altered about these models. These are not just straight ports of the SMS models, someone definitely altered them in some fashion, but it doesn't make them fit into the real world any more than they usually would. Completely bizarre.

- Poison Mushroom Tier
Mario Teaches Typing: My school had this on a computer, I don't even remember whether it was the computer room or library computer, and even as a dumbass first grader or whatever I was, I could tell it was garbage.
Pachinko Game (SMS): I wonder if Japanese game developers realize that no one likes pachinko outside of Japan. Like, my understanding of this game is that it only exists because it's the closest you can get to being a random slot machine that legally qualifies as a game, and thus evades Japan's anti-gambling laws. Is that correct? I don't remember if I even beat this level. I beat Super Mario Sunshine, but I got the minimum number of shines to do it. If you needed this game to finish, then I beat it, otherwise I probably didn't. I remember it being aggressively unfun and stupid.
Hotel Mario Cutscenes: These are actually a significant step up from the CD-I Zelda games' cutscenes in terms of competence. They are nowhere near as ugly or stupid-looking. But seriously, can you imagine Nintendo being as flippant about its brand today? Absolutely every detail of every major Nintendo IP is now so polished and defined that new ideas are rare. What's the last time a third party got to touch Mario? The Mario vs Rabbids game? "You know what they say: all toasters toast toast!" I love how stupid and pointless Peach is in these cutscenes. It's like the perfect embodiment of how stupid and vapid Peach is as a character. She doesn't even get an ending cutscene where she's like "lol thanks for saving me." Honestly, I'd seen all of the Zelda CD-I cutscenes before because they're so awful and hideous that every frame is hilarious. These were mostly new to me, and I'm sure it's because they're just not as ugly and terrible and funny.

- Veto
Mario's Game Gallery: Unfamiliar with this one, sorry!
Blue Shell Incident: I'm not watching a 30 minute SFM shitpost video, get out of here.
Bowser's Fury: Didn't play it! I did play Super Mario 3D World, though.

Researching:
Trials of Death: I found a video to learn about the lore of this level, but it's 40 minutes long, so I'll rank this later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Go6v0mr1A

Hell Valley Sky Trees

Hexagon Heat

Fat Yoshi

Donkey Kong (1994 Game Boy)

Excellent.

Yakuman DS

It is insane how 100% of Luigi's personality comes from Luigi's Mansion. Before that, he was just Green Mario. Like, they radically changed Luigi's entire personality for their comedy-horror game, and then they actually stuck by that. It's like the only piece of continuity in the entire series, is Luigi being a coward. Everything else shifts constantly EXCEPT his personality.

Luigis Mansion, Smash Melee, and Superstar Saga all released pretty close to each other and all really differentiated Luigi. I think thats what caused it to stick. Some props should go to Paper Mario too with Luigis secret diary.

WarioWare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mes8fnBUL8g&pp=ygUdTWFzc2l2ZSBEYXJrIFZvaWQgc3VwZXIgbWFyaW8%3D

Bitto posted...

Luigis Mansion, Smash Melee, and Superstar Saga all released pretty close to each other and all really differentiated Luigi. I think thats what caused it to stick. Some props should go to Paper Mario too with Luigis secret diary.

Well, what I'm thinking about specifically is in SSS where Mario has fireballs and Luigi has electricity powers, and I'm wondering about the alternate universe where Luigi got differentiated by keeping that as his theme.

The 1-1 theme

Pink Gold Peach

Anagram posted...

Bowser's Fury: Didn't play it!

Why not?

Donkey Kong Jr. (1982)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K783SDTBKmg

Rosalina

Anagram posted...

Is this the first video game where a hero rescues a kidnapped woman?

not even the first Nintendo game where a hero rescues a kidnapped woman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07ONM3UNZeo

Birdo

So Wazzupgenius already said Birdo. I concur. Concurdo.

But also: Thwomp

Hmm, should I give you a super mainstream music pick or something weird from a romhack?

I'll start with something easy.

Super Mario 64 - Staff Roll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI12BK9VC3U

- Kuribo's Shoe Tier
Rosalina: I've cooled a lot on Rosalina, I liked her more when she first came out. What makes her unique is that she's the only Mario character who actually has a backstory. No one else does. The most you get is that Mario and Luigi were babies once maybe I dunno. Go to the Mario Wiki right now and find any other mainline series character whose Background tab is even one-tenth as long as hers. Rosalina, and Rosalina alone, has an entire backstory with lore attached to it. And yes, it obviously gets completely contradicted in later games by the introduction of Baby Rosalina (unless you believe in the idea that the baby characters aren't really connected to the adult characters, or that they're regressed versions of themselves rather than being from the past, etc), but the fact that this character got past Miyamoto is crazy. He's well-known for shutting down any attempts to do anything different with the Mario brand, and somehow, someone slid Goth Space Peach right past him. God bless the soul who did that. And poor Daisy! Before Wonder, she hadn't been in a real game since 1989, and Rosalina just shows up and takes her place as 'Girl 2,' despite Daisy putting in the hours in all of the spinoffs. But Rosalina has something Peach doesn't: cool magic tricks. She floats! She has a wand! A star follows her around! Her voice has a cool reverb effect! It's not a mystery why Rosalina is way more popular and beloved than Daisy, and probably more popular than Wario, I would guess. She's everything I want in a woman: blonde, 8 feet tall, magic, and owns a spaceship. If you're a woman who has all of those attributes, call me.
Kuribo's Shoe
1-1 Theme: This has the most memorable first two seconds of any video game song, and then after that, obviously it's still super memorable... But you compare this to the LoZ main theme, and it's not comparable. The Zelda one completely annihilates this in terms of quality. The Zelda one feels epic and compelling and draws you toward a classical fantasy adventure even though it's a shitty NES chiptune, and the 1-1 theme is just kind of silly fun. It's not even especially wacky or cartoonish, it's just, here's a bright, colorful video game. I'm not saying it's bad or anything, it's still like the most important piece of video game music ever made, but... is it really the best? Is it even the best Mario theme? I doubt it. And you compare this to the Pokemon RB opening theme, and it's completely destroyed. DK Country beats it, too. I dunno. It's better than the main themes for Kirby, Metroid, F-Zero, Kid Icarus, and Star Fox. And yet, for all I just ragged on it, it's still going into my second highest Mario tier, so take from that what you will. When I think of Mario, I do not think of a series that's really defined by its music in the way that, say, MGS or FF are. It has music, and the music enhances the games, but I'm not like "goddamn that 1-1 theme unf."
Luigi
Thwomp: I love thwomps. They're like a perfect video game enemy. You understand the rules they operate by instantly, they always follow those rules, and their movements can be predicted and used to solve puzzles by standing on them and getting up to places you can't normally reach. They're an A-tier enemy, but not an S-tier one.
Super Mario Maker 2
Hexagon Heat: One of the classic minigames. Perfect concept and execution. Not my favorite MP minigame, but probably in my top ten.

- Hammer Suit Tier
Chris Pratt
SupperMarioBroth
Hell Valley Sky Trees: I'll be honest, I kind of love stupid stuff like this. Completely unexplained nonsense thrown in to make the game more mysterious. My favorite example of this is the bag in the dumpster in RE4. Did the dumpster bag show back up in the remake? I can't remember. I've played RE4 like ten times, but RE4R only once. It's not even bad, it just could not possibly match the original in terms of influence and importance.
Smash 64 Commercial: I know there's a whole 'thing' about nostalgic adults thinking their childhoods were better than modern kids', but I'll say this: the best 90s commercials absolutely trounce the best modern ones. You can't have a completely uncynical stupid commercial anymore. You could not play the Mr. Bucket commercial today without it becoming a Tiktok meme in one second.

- Super Mushroom Tier
Hide and Seek mods
Donkey Kong (1981)
Tonkachi Mario
Trials of Death: I didn't realize the video was made by the guy who made the level. Okay, listen. I generally dislike kaizo games. I generally dislike romhacks where the sole purpose is to be balls-bustingly hard. But I can respect the idea of making the HARDEST level. Not merely a hard one, but the actual #1 hardest one, and spending 2500 hours trying to beat it, taking so long that the Mario Maker servers are taken offline and no one else will ever be able to play it. It's a level of single-minded insanity that I don't want to be near, but I can I sort of respect it. The level itself looks like complete garbage nonsense, though. I hate playing that kind of stuff. And I skipped the part of the video that was just youtubers I don't know overreacting to him beating it. Who watches reaction videos?
Anya Taylor-Joy
Kublai Khan

- Frog Suit Tier
Lou Albano
Practice Makes Perfect (Legacy X): I won't lie to you, I don't like or know much about rap. When I was a teacher, kids asked me to name five rappers off the top of my head. All I could come up with was Kanye West, Eminem, Coolio, P-Diddy, and Will Smith. I can't think of any type of music that has less to do wtih Mario than rap. As far as rap goes, though, this is okay.
Blindfolded Mario Maker Guy
Torpedo Ted
WarioWare: Here's the thing. I don't really like minigames. I like them occasionally, and I like the really, really good ones, like blitzball and Septuple Scare, or whatever the FF8 card game is called, I'm not looking it up. But they need to be REALLY good. That's why I'm not really a Mario Party guy, either. So a game that is nothing except super short minigames, none of which are like super polished? I dunno. At least it gives Wario something to do, I guess. Wario is more philosophically interesting than he is interesting as an actual character.
Lakilester
NBA Street V3
Fat Yoshi: Was this in the original game? I had to look it up. Feed a baby yoshi 30 yoshie cookies to make him fat, and he'll give you items. I mean, okay? I feel completely ambivalent about this.
Donkey Kong Jr. (1982): No one on Earth feels strongly about this game, and that's fine. It's notable for two things: the deep lore of the Donkey Kong series, about whether DK Jr. is the modern Donkey Kong or whether he's a separate character, and being Mario's only appearance as a villain. Again, imagine Nintendo today gallavantly using its properties like this, doing weird things like making the hero of one game the villain of the next. It would never happen. But yeah, anyway, no one on Earth cares about DK Jr, and no one ever will. He's also really ugly as a character. The game IS more functional than Mario Teaches Typing, though.

- Poison Mushroom Tier
Mario Teaches Typing
Pink Gold Peach: I remember when this came out. It's sort of the ultimate example of lazily adding fake characters to video games, even moreso than Mortal Kombat's palette swap ninjas, because at least those required someone to write backstories for them. At least Baby Rosalina required someone to model her. I'm pretty sure that if I had the Mario Kart model for regular Peach, that I could make Pink Gold Peach. And the fact that she's Pink Gold Peach, and not even just Gold Peach, somehow makes her even lamer. But like Waluigi, Pink Gold Peach is enhanced by her lameness and the laziness she embodies. I have to believe that someone said "we need a second heavyweight human female for girls to play as besides Rosalina," and when they realized the only human woman left was Pauline, they just pooped this out instead. I guess this is better than just inventing a new human character for spinoffs. God, they really lucked out with Daisy already existing.
Pachinko Game (SMS)
Yakuman DS: Alright, let's see what this is... Mahjong? Motherfucker, do you think I care about mahjong in the slightest? I can't think of anything I care less about. Let's at least see the Mario characters' official skill at mahjong. Goomba has a 1 star, Luigi has a 3 star, Toadette is killing it at 4 stars... I don't know if I buy Bowser Jr at 4 stars, he's always seemed like an imbecile. Toadsworth at five stars makes complete sense, though, he's like the only character who would plausibly have the time and inclination to get good at board games.
Hotel Mario Cutscenes
Mario Galaxy 2 Glitch: It took me a while to realize the glitch. If you go into this pipe, and then back through it, there will be a big black void where there wasn't one before? I... don't care at all. It's just some weird oversight. They were going to include something there, they removed it, but they didn't fully remove all traces of it. Fine. Unless it's usable for some speedrunning thing?

- Blue Shell Tier
Birdo: I don't know if I want to get into the gender issue with Birdo, I guess I have to because it's the only thing this character is remembered for. I mean, let's not even address how this creature is not a bird at all. It is clearly some kind of reptile. Trying to read the gender tab of Birdo's wiki is insane because of how it tries to address the official sentences that say "he" while still using "she." I don't know, I'll be honest with you, even independent of any gender stuff, this character is gross. Even as a kid, I did not like Birdo. The spinoffs tried to pair her (I'm just going to use female pronouns) up with Yoshi because they're both humanoid reptile things, and like... I felt bad for him? You know what Birdo reminds me of, it's Q-Bert. It's the giant snout hole. And I hate Q-Bert! Q-Bert is gross. Whatever animals in real life have mouths like this, I don't want to be near them. Like, I'm sorry, but the original concept of this character was clearly to be a parody/insult toward trans people by being a gross monster man who wants to be a cute girl, and has just stuck around on the Mario series like a polyp. Would anyone be sad if this character just stopped showing up forever? Would the series be diminished in any way if I went back in time and replaced Birdo's boss fights in SMB2 with just, I don't know, a really big goomba or something? Is this a character trans people try to reclaim the way I know some do certain characters in Danganronpa or Persona? Because I want nothing to do with Birdo at all, it's definitely my least favorite 'main' Mario character. Unless someone finds something worse, which, I don't know, maybe you can.

- Veto
Donkey Kong (1994): Never played it!

WazzupGenius00 posted...

not even the first Nintendo game where a hero rescues a kidnapped woman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07ONM3UNZeo

Goddammit, I knew about Sheriff, too.

The Starman

Wendy O. Koopa

Heck yeah!

Mario Pinball Land

Beep Block Skyway