DSWC Villains Introduction # 8: Mario's Many Mortal Enemies
It's not really Wart's fault that he stands out as this weird, one-off character in a strange, strange game. All the blame really goes to the origins of the game.
Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn't originally a Mario game (odd as that is to write). The original Super Mario Bros. 2, the one that Japan got, was more of an expansion pack to the original Super Mario Bros. The graphics and engine were similar, and the game was made to be a expert version of the game people loved, one for people that felt Mario 1 was too easy (for the record, I was not one of those people).
When it came time to port the game to the U.S., our Japanese overlords felt that Mario 2 JPN wasn't worth porting -- the American public would find it too hard without enough to differentiate it from the first game (which was still actively being sold in the US at the time). Instead, Nintendo took a completely unrelated game (Doki Doki panic) about four members of an arabian family trying to defeat some giant frog guy. They slapped Mario style sprite on over the top of the original characters and voila! New Mario game.
To note, the Mario version of Doki Doki Panic was eventually released in Japan as Super Mario USA. USA! USA!
Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn't originally a Mario game (odd as that is to write). The original Super Mario Bros. 2, the one that Japan got, was more of an expansion pack to the original Super Mario Bros. The graphics and engine were similar, and the game was made to be a expert version of the game people loved, one for people that felt Mario 1 was too easy (for the record, I was not one of those people).
When it came time to port the game to the U.S., our Japanese overlords felt that Mario 2 JPN wasn't worth porting -- the American public would find it too hard without enough to differentiate it from the first game (which was still actively being sold in the US at the time). Instead, Nintendo took a completely unrelated game (Doki Doki panic) about four members of an arabian family trying to defeat some giant frog guy. They slapped Mario style sprite on over the top of the original characters and voila! New Mario game.
To note, the Mario version of Doki Doki Panic was eventually released in Japan as Super Mario USA. USA! USA!
When evil spreads across the land, and darkness rises and the monsters roam. When the creatures of the night make beautiful music, and the things that go bump in the night go bump with greater enthusiasm. When the world is in peril and is in need of a hero...
These guys are, sadly, the best the world can hope for. These are the adventures of the heroes of CVRPG. They mean well, they try hard, and occasionally they do the impossible...
They actually do something heroic.
