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7771

Mario Chat / Re: Mariology (serious posts wanted)

« on: October 13, 2007, 11:18:04 PM »

All right, here's my new map. This should cover pretty much the entire planet.



Sarasaland is pretty straightfoward, though I am a little proud of the little themed pictures I added to the areas, which you can't make out at this size. If anyone cares, I could upload a close-up of it, or pretty much any other place on the map.

The northern Mushroom Kingdom continent is mostly the same, but there are some notable changes. First, I've decided for the time being that Star Hill from SMRPG and Shooting Star Summit from PM are different places. Not as simple and clean as I'd like, but it'll have to do for now. I've added the Koopahari Desert as a desert connected to Dry Dry Desert, right outside Mushroom City, which, admittedly, was inspired by the Mario movie. I decided to make a compromise between conflicting sources of dubious canonicity. The two deserts are connected by Shifting Sand Land. Hollijolli Village is at the very north of the continent, and Flower Fields is isolated in the northwest. Also, World 6 has reverted to the name Iced Land, as I have recently realized that Sherbet Land is actually on Kitchen Island. Finally, Gusty Gulch is around the border between Dry Dry Desert and the rest of the continent.

The southern continent has Gritzy Desert, because I figured the north one had enough desert land already. It's also had the Beanbean Kingdom transplanted onto the bottom of it, and the areas from the Donkey Kong Country games are nearby.

Jewelry Land is represented as accurately as I can until Yoshi's Safari comes to the virtual console. In addition to adding Diamond City to it, I also added the areas from Wario World, as well as Kitchen Island from Wario Land 1. I don't know where Wario Land II is supposed to be set, but Wario Land 3 is inside a bunch of toyboxes, so that doesn't need to be added. As for Warioland 4, I've decided for now that the levels aren't real, though there's probably plenty of space to add them someday, and the Golden Pyramid is to the southwest of the Wario World areas, inside Dino Dino Jungle from Double Dash. My theory was that the pyramid had some kind of time seal on it, keeping the Golden Diva, Shokora, and the bosses perfectly preserved for however long, and the seal leaked into the surrounding area, and so dinosaurs were still around. Kind of stupid, I know. Anyway, I like how Kitchen Island turned out, but I think I made it way too big. And I also made Vibe Island (which I placed near Dinosaur Land, since it has so many SMW enemies) too small -- it ought to be at least as big as Yoshi's Island. Size wasn't really a major issue when I was making this map.

Don't pay any major attention to the Waffle Kingdom sites; I realized, after I inked everything in, that Luigi gave compass directions for most of the locations. The ones I've been able to reread so far have coincidentally been moderately close to the right places, but they'll need some major revision the next time I revisit the map (For example, I placed the Rapturous Ruins on the Strudel Continent, but they're actually supposed to be "beyond the northernmost sea.").

The main thing on my mind right now is whether Shooting Star Summit and Stardust Fields should be merged, which would drastically change some layouts. I decided not to think about it too hard yet, especially since we'll probably get some shots of the Mushroom Planet in Mario Galaxy, which may solve some of our problems. Also, I know I forgot to add some places, including Thwomp Volcano and Lavalava Island. As always, I'm very open to any comments, criticisms, or praises.

7772

Mario Chat / Re: Likely Characters for Super Smash Brothers Brawl

« on: October 13, 2007, 10:52:11 PM »

I'm predicting that the secret snapshot feature is Photo Channel-type doodling on the pictures, but can also include any stickers you've gotten. Either that, or the snapshots are actually 3D, and can be rotated at any time, with the ability to set default angles for each so that you can still have classic 2D snapshots. If the pictures are saved in a non-exportable format, it would probably take up a reasonable amount of space, since it would just be storing a set of coordinates, and hopefully there would also be an option to convert a view of a shot to a JPEG and save it to an SD card and upload it to TMK.

Run-on sentences are your friends.

7773

Video Game Chat / Re: Zapper is EEEEVIL!!!

« on: October 13, 2007, 10:44:21 PM »

This reminds me of that report that found that kids can use the Internet Channel to access porn on the Wii. Where were these people when every other gun-shaped controller for every other console in history was released?

7774

Mario Chat / Re: Canon, plot, style: What's your opinion?

« on: October 13, 2007, 10:36:48 PM »

Personally, I think Nintendo wanted a continuity, and we largely rejected it. I think the original plan for Luigi's Mansion was that the ending was not a random Boo operating a Bowser suit, but Bowser's spirit reanimating his own dead body, after having been killed in Paper Mario -- otherwise, we have to deal with a new character talking about "all the trouble you've given me in the past" in his debut appearance. I think this is what that whole "more mature Mario" debacle was about. But that's just my theory.

I'm not really sure whether I would prefer that Mario or the one we have now. A continuous story is very attractive to me, but I've also grown very attached to Bowser, especially over the last six years after Luigi's Mansion. However, I do like the compromised continuity that Nintendo seems to be bringing in lately: having Toad Town come back in Partners in Time, with Shooting Star Summit -- referred to by its original SMRPG name, Star Hill -- behind it, and now Toad Town appearing outside a very SM64-style castle in the Galaxy opening. It's not as big, but I'm very eager to see how far they take this over the next five years.

7775

Mario Chat / Re: Mariology (serious posts wanted)

« on: October 09, 2007, 10:47:48 PM »

From what I've seen of SML2, its exclusivity doesn't seem to be much more extreme than most other Mario games, though I am basing this off of SMWiki articles rather than playing the game (though I might get a chance to soon; a friend of mine has a copy at home, the only problem will be actually playing it, since all I have with me is a DS.).

As for Mario Kart tracks, which are pretty much the only thing I can comment on here, as I haven't yet played Power Tennis or Superstar Baseball, I get the feeling that most of them aren't permanent - especially the one around Peach's castle, which changes every year, and happened to not be visible in pretty much any game that features the castle. A bit wasteful for them, but it makes my job easier. However, I would like to try to mark the "previous" locations of most tracks on the final map.

Also, after getting sidetracked on SMWiki several times, I really want to play Super Princess Peach. Which reminds me, I should probably move Vibe Island closer to Dinosaur World, considering it has so many SMW enemies.

7776

Mario Chat / Re: Mariology (serious posts wanted)

« on: October 09, 2007, 12:40:37 PM »

Yeah, I haven't totally ironed out all the Paper Mario stuff, mainly because I haven't been able to find a map online, and I'm too lazy to turn the Wii on and check my VC copy of it.

I never had an SM64 guide, and I'm about 6 hours away from my SM64 manual, so I can't check it, but I had always just assumed that some of the paintings were of actual places, and they became portals to those places. Part of the motivation is the fact that some of them have shown up in spin-offs, and my ideal goal is to get every Mario place ever shown represented on the map (excluding the party games, because those are just too ridiculous). However, none of them have any integral locations; in a map I made a while ago, which wasn't nearly as good, the worlds that were represented were either insignificant islands or little dots in places that would have been on the map anyway.

I'm not totally sure about the location of Flower Fields, since it could really be anywhere. I know it has a set location on the PM map, but if it's really only accessible through the door in the garden, it seems like it ought to be more remote, just like I moved Fahr Outpost way off of its original location on the Magical Map. The red rose-shaped area would be a good location, now that I think of it. Originally, I was just trying to make it look like a Fire Flower from SMW for no real reason. (Incidentally, I'm not totally sure yet on the scale of the map. I do think that this section represents around 1/4 or 1/5 of the planet, but I'm not sure how big the planet is, since Mario Galaxy will surely show that in the Mushroom Universe, planets can have whatever gravity they want, regardless of size.)

I'm planning on leaving a lot of the sections unlabeled, to give the map more longevity, since Nintendo's bound to introduce dozens more places in the next few years. They're intended to mainly represent the unnamed (AFAIK) worlds in SMB, SMBTLL, and SMB Special on the PC-88, with around 8 more to be safe. (I'm still working on the worlds from NSMB, but I've placed most of them in a semi-logical arrangement in pre-existing locations)

I also think that the "map" in Partners in Time is primarily representative, and doesn't necessarily mean that the locations are in the directions shown from each other, and most of them almost certainly aren't that close together. When I work on the second good version of the map this weekend, I'm going to try to focus mainly on PM, PiT, and the Beanbean Kingdom's location in relation to the Mushroom Kingdom.

One of the biggest things I'm struggling with is what relation Star Hill from SMRPG, Shooting Star Summit from PM, Stardust Fields from SS, and Star Hill from PiT have to each other. Fortunately, as far as I can recall, Superstar Saga is the only game that explicitly gives compass directions, meaning that I can rotate the other ones as much as I want, within reason. My theory now is that the big body of water in the center of SMRPG's world map isn't really there, and is instead where several PM locations are, including Shooting Star Summit and the surrounding purple starry land, which leads to Star Hill. PiT shows the castle side of Star Hill, going through SSS, while SMRPG shows the far side of it. However, that's probably inconsistent with the actual game somehow, and I really need to play it again over the weekend to refresh my memory. Meanwhile, Stardust Fields is an unconnected location to the south. Or north.

Though I've never played Super Mario Land 2, I've previously tried to explain it by saying that after SMB, Mario took up residence in one of the end-level castles to hold it until the Mushroom People could repopulate the area, since it's the best explanation I've thought of for why Mario suddenly has a personal castle, and then never has it again. However, since I've never played it, I have no real idea how well the in-game map screens fit with that theory. Hopefully the Super Mario Wiki has some maps or explanations of it and the other games. I don't think they did the last time I checked, but they are expanding pretty fast.

I do have Warioland 4, but I'm not sure whether those places are real. Whether they are might depend on where I decide to put the pyramid itself, and vice-versa. That might have to wait until a later version of the map, after I've placed the deserts and decided where Diamond City is, since the pyramid is shown to be somewhere that Wario can drive to, and he goes through a desert on the way.

I really don't have any good theories as to what the "gateway to the Mushroom World" thing means. I do tend to take a more selective approach with older Mario canon, since they probably hadn't standardized all the names back then, so it's really hard to know what they meant in 1988 by "Mushroom Kingdom" and "Mushroom World." Still, I'll research that as much as I can, and hopefully pull something useful out of it.

And feel free to borrow stuff from the map, as long as you give me a cut of the profit. :) I wouldn't consider it competition at all, just getting more perspectives, which I could really use, seeing as I'm the guy who once wrote up a 100-page long timeline about how everything Mario fits together, then realized that the thing I had based it all on was a year off. If I'm not checked, I'll get way too deep into my imperfect opinions, and no one wants to see that.

Incidentally, I've heard World 2 of SMB3 referred to as the Koophari Desert before. Does anyone know the origins of that?

7777

Mario Chat / Re: Mariology (serious posts wanted)

« on: October 08, 2007, 06:06:35 AM »

I think I'm probably going to switch the positions of Sarasaland and the Beanbean Kingdom. The Beanbean Kingdom pretty much has to be in the northern hemisphere to make sense, since Joke's End is in the north, (the spots in the overworld between interesting places are all labeled with compass directions, and up is north) and north in the southern hemisphere is the equator, which is not frozen.

Also, I may move Diamond City to Jewelry Land, for obvious reasons.

I really wish I had Super Mario Land 2 and Wario Land 1 - 3, because I haven't been able to find decent map information about them anywhere.

7778

Mario Chat / Re: Mariology (serious posts wanted)

« on: October 06, 2007, 11:38:05 AM »

WARNING: This post is too long.

Okay, I haven't gotten my scanner hooked up yet, so here's a photo of my map:



(If it doesn't show up, try http://messiah.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30997498&l=d1768&id=55303319)

Hopefully you can read enough of the captions to make sense of it. This is only part of the northern hemisphere, but I'll hopefully have a full map eventually. The two big continents on the left are the mainlands of the Mushroom Kingdom, where Super Mario Bros and The Lost Levels took place. I pretty much made up the shapes, at least the parts that weren't based on SMB3.

The medium-sized multi-colored island below Dark Land is Rogueport and the surrounding areas, except for Fahr Outpost, which is way up to the north. There are two territories on the Rogueport island that aren't anything in the game, and which I may get rid of in the next revision; they're only there now because I wanted it to look a little more balanced after I took Fahr Outpost off.

Dinosaur Land is to the west of Isle Delfino and its surrounding islands (a turtle, a crab, a jellyfish, and two amorphous ones). You probably can't tell from this size, but I drew Isle Delfino backwards before checking, so I'll be sure to fix that in the next revision too.

The Warp Zone from SMB3 is northwest of World 7 from SMB3, since I figured it fit in with the Pipe Maze's theme (you may have noticed that I don't really consistently follow either standard for SMB3 world names), and similarly, Tiny-Huge Island is off the coast of Giant Land (I'm planning on eventually incorporating several locations from SM64, assuming that the paintings are paintings of actual places). Speaking of Giant Land, I added a rather giant piece of land to it. This is the place where you enter the warp pipe to the mainland in World 4, extended southwardly. Water Land is a pretty faithful recreation of the World 3 map screen, including the island that's shaped like Japan.

On the northern main Mushroom continent, I've started putting in PM and SMRPG locations. Toad Town is in the light green territory between Grass Land and Dry Dry Desert, and is meant to also represent the "Mushroom Kingdom" area in SMRPG (As for the port in PM, pretend there's a river there). Goomba Village is to the west, right on the border of the blue territory. Tadpole Pond, Rose Town, and the Forest Maze are to the south in the red territory, Moleville is in the green one, Booster Tower is in the red-orange one, Seaside Town is on the coast of the lighter green one, and Monstro Town, Bean Valley, and Barrel Volcano are in the one that looks like a liver. I have some other versions of the map where Toad Town is more southwesterly, giving more room for Forever Forest, and I'll try to get it closer to that in the next revision.

To the north is World 6 from SMB3, which at the time I labeled as Sherbet Land, but I may change it back to Ice(d) Land later. Shiver City is northwest, the Crystal Palace is northeast, and Starborn Valley is off the map farther north, possibly on the North Pole.

Since this is only a partial map, many places are still off the map, including Jewelry Land from Yoshi's Safari, Sarasaland, the Beanbean Kingdom, and the Waffle Kingdom (which I'm assuming does really exist), all of which have their directions marked on the edges of the map.

Originally, I made it a point not to label the compass with directions, but I think it's probably safe to say that up is north, right is east, etc. Also, while I tried to use a different color for each territory, the fact that two of them have the same color does not necessarily imply anything about their common allegiances. Also, the colors imply nothing about the territories themselves; though you can probably see a few where I did intentionally choose the color based on the area itself, I mostly chose them just because they looked good in that location.

Finally, feel free to challenge (or praise) me on any decisions with the map (but be prepared for a good deal of answers that are just "I liked it better that way").

7779

Mario Chat / Re: Mariology (serious posts wanted)

« on: October 05, 2007, 09:15:36 AM »

Are you basing the main part off of this:

7780

Mario Chat / Re: Mariology (serious posts wanted)

« on: September 30, 2007, 09:00:15 PM »

Yeah, Nintendo tends to use the term Mushroom Kingdom to refer to the whole world. For my purposes, I'm defining the Mushroom Kingdom as the non-Bowser levels in SMB 1, Lost Levels, and SMB3, the castle town and Mushroom Way in SMRPG (and possibly Bandit's Way), and some places (not totally sure which yet, though they're pretty much all on the Mushroom Continent) in Paper Mario and M&L:PiT. Also, most of NSMB is probably in the Mushroom Kingdom, but I'll have to wait to squeeze that in until I can get another copy of it (I threw away the cart by accident about a year ago).

7781

Mario Chat / Re: Mariology (serious posts wanted)

« on: September 27, 2007, 05:46:27 PM »

So I'm working on a map of the Mushroom World right now... I think I've got SMRPG and PM combined pretty decently. I'm annoyed though, because the collage of map screens from SMBDX that Deezer made and put in one of the mailbags isn't loading, not even on the Wayback Machine. Anyone else have one, or a copy of the original?
(Also, I'll post a rough copy of the map when I get my scanner hooked up. And if I don't get my scanner hooked up within a reasonable time frame, I'll try to convey the basic layout in MSPaint.)

7782

Mario Chat / Re: Is Waluigi gay

« on: September 22, 2007, 09:27:21 AM »

I always knew he was

but never

You, good sir, have won.

7783

Mario Chat / Re: Mariology (serious posts wanted)

« on: September 07, 2007, 10:09:31 PM »

Possible, but it seems rather ridiculous that Mario and Luigi would go to the trouble of going back in time and bringing their baby selves into the present for no other reason than to play violent sports with them, all the while risking deadly paradoxes. However, since the games never say that they're Mario and Luigi's kids (and it would still be ridiculous for them to involve their kids in violent sports), both ideas are in violation of Occam's Razor. So logically, they're actually not in the games at all.

7784

Mario Chat / Re: Your favorite Power-Ups in various Mario games

« on: September 07, 2007, 09:59:15 PM »

Tanooki suit: What other game lets you wear a raccoon suit and turn into a statue?
Frog suit: Mainly for the non-water sections. Especially the way he looks when he goes down a pipe.
Kuribo's shoe: Probably tied with Geno for awesome but abandoned Mario thing that desperately needs more screentime.
Cape feather: Lets pretty much anyone fly all the way through most levels, and lets the really ridiculously good people show off like mad in videos.
P-balloon: Looks even better in SMW than in SM64DS, because in SM64DS it looks slightly realistic. In SMW, it's ridiculously exaggerated. One of the first ridiculously exaggerated things in a Mario game, actually.

But hey, what about the Mega Star from Super Paper Mario? (http://www.mariowiki.com/Mega_Star)

7785

Mario Chat / Re: Mariology (serious posts wanted)

« on: September 07, 2007, 09:31:17 PM »

I think the Mario Party games could probably be disregarded, seeing as Mario Party 6's intro says it takes place in "Mario Party Land." However, if we allow for games to be wherever we want on the timeline (as we already have with Yoshi's Island), then the Party and other spin-off games could be set many years after the main games. For example, maybe after Bowser stole the Music Keys in DDR:MM, no one took him seriously anymore, and he no longer had any real power, and was reduced to crashing Mario's parties.

This is also a possible explanation for Baby Mario and Baby Luigi showing up in the spin-off's: After all the main games (including future ones for many years to come) Mario and Luigi married Peach and Daisy, respectively, and had kids.

I don't think the spin-off games necessarily have to be set after the main games they reference, because the places still exist later. (Mario Kart DS proved this by bringing back courses from all the other Mario Karts and having new ones set in SMB 3 and LM. Of course, then we'd have to deal with the fact that the haunted mansion actually disappeared as soon as Luigi left it, leaving absolutely no time to race around it, so it's probably best to approach the spin-off games the same way things are dealt with in the official Star Wars canon: anything that contradicts higher-level material (in this case, the real games) is disregarded, while everything else is canon until higher canon contradicts it.)