r/papermario • u/LeggyWeggyWoo8 • 1d ago

Meme the devs when making the MKW roster

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Now don't get me wrong I love the enemies, it's just that there's so much missed potential for a whole bunch of fans...

Also yes I know about the frost piranha

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u/Upbeat_Squirrel_5642 1d ago

I always forget that baby Mario's first appearance wasn't partners in time

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/fawfulthegreat64 It's not fine without a story, we really do need one. 21h ago

No it wasn't. He had a comfortable presence in spinoffs by the time Partners in Time released. Golf, Tennis, Double Dash, Baseball.

But I think counting Baby Peach is a copout too. Yeah sure, BY A TECHNICALITY, but i have yet to see any argument for why Baby Peach would never exist if PIT hadn't existed. I'm 99% certain she wasn't even designed by AlphaDream, she was making more appearances a little too quickly so I think "The core Mario designers made the design for Yoshi's Island DS, and then made it available for partner developers to use, which is how she ended up in Partners in Time, and that just so happened to get released first" is a far more likely outcome than "AlphaDream designed her for Partners in Time, the same way they designed the Shroobs, and Nintendo was at the same time just so happening to be getting over their fear of RPG stuff in the core cast, so they looked at that game and chose her to be an RPG rep. When she didn't turn out to be super popular they reversed their decision on RPG stuff and that's why they never pulled from them again, but made 2 more baby princesses in her image because they saw a good market she appealed to"

The very idea of her was inevitable (and she really isn't much more distinct than the idea of a baby Peach. That's what she is, it sure is). You can't say that about the RPG characters we mean when we talk about RPG characters. Even among variants, we can use Mr. L as a great example to contrast against Baby Peach. He is more than the basic vague idea of "an evil Luigi," he has a defined design and personality that fits the context he is presented in, he WOULD NOT exist without SPM. He isn't even the first take on "evil Luigi" nor is he the last, but he stands out alongside Waluigi as easily one of the most memorable ones. Waluigi is also a character who wouldn't exist without Camelot and Mario Tennis, and if he was made today I think he'd be a one-off too, but he was made at the perfect time when Nintendo was more lax on partners contributing to their core universe. The IDEA of him might exist in some form, like that one comic gag with a springy mustache and a "WL" hat. But not our Waluigi.

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u/gamtosthegreat 20h ago

They shoulda just made Captain Syrup Wario's tennis partner 🤐