MOTHER 2 vs. EarthBound Done

Super Mother Brothers(Lucas/Claus) could be a good rom hack

Bowser’s name is supposedly a reference to Jon “Bowzer” Bauman of Sha Na Na. The Koopalings didn’t have names in the Japanese version of SMB3, but the localizers had a little fun and named (most of) them after musicians, and Bowser’s name was supposedly an offshoot of that, having not been mentioned as such prior. However, your scans remind me that he was actually referred to as “Bowser” in the SMB1 manual, so who knows? Maybe the Koopalings musically-inclined names were inspired by Bowser’s rather than the other way around, or maybe one has nothing to do with the other.

Mother 2 vs EarthBound 1999-2011..We will miss you.

@Zoom! But theres more! 😀

Tomato, under the “Game Story” heading of the “Manuals” section, you made a comment:

“…the normal Koopas you run into just walk back and forth.”

This tells me that you’ve thought about the Koopa Troopas in the same way I always have. But isn’t it possible that the idea of Bowser and the Koopa Troopas (and related enemies) being part of the same tribe/species only came about because of the renaming of the Noko-noko? That they aren’t “Koopas” who are “troopas,” they are “troopas” *of* “Koopa”?

It seems to me like their relation might be a strictly American idea.

That’s a really good point, I’ll have to collect my thoughts about that. Also, if a tribe of turtles took over the kingdom but the Koopa Troopas don’t count, who are the other members besides Bowser who invaded with him? Maybe they just made up the story after the game was made, I dunno, heh.

I think the koopa troopas count as the tribe of turtles, it’s just that they’re just trooper turtles under Koopa’s banner, not actually “koopas”.

Well, I think that’s the intention. I’m forever going to consider the whole species “koopas”, and Bowser as “King Koopa”. Yeah, the manual called him Bowser, but every single cartoon, comic, and movie called him Koopa. Isn’t it odd that all that stuff was more accurate in that sense than the US games?

Incidentally, the “Mario Mario” and “Luigi Mario” thing is probably the best part of that cheesy Super Mario Bros. movie. Whatever else one can say about it, and there’s a lot, that one skit in the middle of it was, and is, pure gold. It’s a lame joke, sure, but it’s funny all the same to me, and it wrapped up that little otherwise very egotistical issue of the “Mario Bros.” being called that all the time. I also love that cop’s reaction to hearing them explain it, like even he doesn’t believe how ridiculous it is, and he’s in blade runnerasic park over here.

It might be worth mentioning in the minus worlds section that you can actually complete the “-1” world in the FDS version. In fact, you can complete levels through -3, which is a castle stage that ends the game when completed.

You can find a video of the minus worlds for the FDS version here: http://tasvideos.org/1365M.html

Now what, Mato? One of your dreams is achieved. What’s next? EarthBound to Mother 1 rom hack? Steal the blue disks from Nintendo? BECOME GOD?!

My next goal is to make a cake made out of NES cartridges. I’m worried it might be fatal though.

@Mato Really?

Glad I lived long enough to see this! Ending such a project must be some kind of milestone in the life of anybody. Now go have a party or something!

LIKE!!!

I don’t think the the King Koopa -> Koopa Troopa thing mentioned earlier is true. On some Iwata Asks interview, Miyamoto mentions designing Bowser based off… I think the Journey to the West character that Ox King from Dragonball is based off of. Since he was supposed to be the leader of the turtles, though, he was instead designed as an turtle by some manga artist, albeit with bull features.

I might have gotten some details wrong, but that’s basically how it goes. The name “Koopa” comes from a Korean dish. I think that was just Miyamoto wierdness.

However, even at that point, there seems to be some cross-pollination between the American and Japanese names. Mario and Luigi’s names come from the name of Nintendo of America’s landlord and a nearby pizzaria. I’ve never heard what joeymartin64 said about Bowser’s name before, but I know that he’s right about Nintendo of America naming the Koopalings, and I know that the names carried over to the Japense version of Super Mario World and later games.

@Anonymus

Aw, for Itoi’s sake, not that Mario Segali legend again! I recall there was even a site where they tried desperately to find the guy to see if he even existed, but so far failed miserably. Maybe he got surgery and changed his name as not to be found? Trololo.

Luigi’s name from a pizzeria… Mmmm… Some people think it comes from the Japanese word for “similar, imitation”. I better get out of this subject here, I sense PK Fire coming my direction…

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/politics/top50donors.pdf

The Seattle Times believes Mario Segale exists, apparently. He’s number 50 on this list.

Now Kirby’s a mystery. As far as I know, even the people who worked on his game can’t remember where the name comes from, but it may have been Nintendo’s lawyer.

Mato, you’re amazing, as always.
I’d like to see a JP vs US comparison of Pokémon Red/Blue, but just this is mindblowing.
Congratulations on being so cool.

Interesting how those 256 extra levels caused such a sensation

This is a cool idea for a site. You should do Bionic Commando at some point since the JP and NA versions of those games are pretty different.

Hope it’s okay to post this here, because I thought it would be excessive to post a third time in the Feedback section of the Mario localization page. Anyway, thank you very much for your response to my post back there; I greatly appreciate it. And I can’t emphasize enough how fascinating your Mario analysis is. I love it. But, really quick, I wanted to correct my bad memory in that Feedback post; the music in Donkey Kong that sounds like “peaknuckle” isn’t the hammer music, but the “running out of time” music. Just wanted to clear that up, for what it’s worth.

If you want something simple you could do Super Metroid. There’s only a bit of exposition at the beginning and end, but it’d be interesting to see if Samus’s tone or any plot points are different.

I think that the Starman might have been named after the David Bowie song. Also, to the anonymous poster inquiring about Kirby, I’m pretty sure he was named after the vacuum cleaner.

Hey look, memories http://hijola.fobby.net/m2eb/index.shtml