K-SCORE: 84
Publisher / Developer: Nintendo
Director: Kenta Motokura
Writer: Hiroaki Hishinuma
Spoiler Level: Major
“a nagging feeling at the back of your mind pervades the experience”
As you play this game, very much an expansion of the concepts solidified by its predecessors Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy, you start to hear whispers in the distance. The controls, the mechanics, the mechanic himself are much the same, just like the concept. It’s simply more and more. Watch and listen. The upbeat music and bright colors both begin to fade. Indeed, in time, even Mario’s “whahaas” and “whoopeees” and “whoohoos” lose their luster. A nagging feeling at the back of your mind pervades the experience as you begin to wonder: is there really much of a difference between power moons and power stars? Is the collection of such things a noble goal, born from a desire to enhance a ship, which can already fly anywhere in the world and even to the moon? Is this really a quest to save a princess who has been captured dozens of times and yet never takes precautions to fortify her castle or strengthen her security? Does she want to be saved? Why complete the monotonous tasks of unearthing every one of these magical artifacts from their subterranean lair in which they’ve found sanctuary? Why? Because there’s no longer 120 of them or 240 of them. Now there’s 880 of them, and if that doesn’t appease, then just buy them with gold, and hoard a mountain of them with along with every artifact, sticker, and costume in all the lands of all the worlds. This is possible now because Mario’s hat talks to him. But those aren’t the whispers you hear in the distance. No, the whispers come from Mario himself, audible only in a moment of calm at the edge of dreaming. Yesterday, he spoke to me, and this is what he said:
A wedding, I was told. Peach and that turtle-dinosaur mutant hybrid. I came to jump on his head, as is my birthright, but I admit even now that I gain no thrill in it any longer. I simply cannot give him the satisfaction of getting away for once. He must know he is a loser and in his losses he must be miserable, even if long ago I grew weary.
But this was no ordinary wedding farce. No. For here I met Cappy, charming and cute, who, perched atop my head, brought only smiles to the faces of the travellers I met along the way. Only for me, Cappy had an offer, a Faustian bargain that proved to tempting to resist. “Join me with your skull and no longer will you have to content yourself with just pounding and smashing and murdering your foes in lava and ice and bottomless pits. I offer you the power to consume the very essence of your enemies. Know their will. Turn them against each other and then abandon them as soon as they no longer suit your needs.” What can I say now in my own defense? I was bored. I took the deal.
A frog feels nothing, wants for nothing, and is but a means to an end. They were just experiments, and the countless amphibians that I left dead in my wake deserve no sympathy. Would you cry for the mutton you ate that once was the sheep I herded back to your pen? No. The animals were lost, and I was their shepherd.
I cannot say the same of the T-rex. In all my travels, I found only two. Mighty, though they stood, their minds were nearly as weak as the frogs and they submit easily. They are beings of pure, directionless, rage. Why? Who knows? I imagine it’s a terrible thing to be among the very last of your kind, lonely and frustrating. I used their might and their anger to smash my way through whatever stones and barriers stood before me, and wept not for the corpses of these giants that I left behind when I was done.
As for the bullets, all of whom their master named Bill, their hearts are much the same. Rage, frustration, though this time I suspect its born from an inability to turn skyward or slow to a stop. They are not rare things. The munitions stockpiles of every cannon through which they are fired must be vast beyond imagining. Destroy one, and the very next Bill will be with you shortly. And thus they were more useful to me. I watched them emerge from their portholes, grinning, naively believing their fate would be different than their brothers. Time and again, Cappy and I took hold, travelled away, and rammed them face-first into a target, or just a wall, or nothing at all, for eventually they grew tired and suicidal, clinging on to just enough of their identities to know that the last power remaining in them was the power to terminate their own pathetic existence.
It was the Goombas that really opened my eyes to what Cappy had done. I’ve known these creatures all my life. They are simple things, slow moving, and easily squashed. Truly, I’d never before thought about what they are like on the inside. Cappy showed me. They are lustful things, born of breeding for breeding. They seek only to stack on top of each other in great orgies of confused Goomba flesh, gravitating towards one another like magnets without a sense of decorum or even tactic. The female versions, I found, were the rarest of prizes. What the others did to them when they found them, I dare not speak of. I should not have been surprised. The only thing I can claim to have known of the Goombas before now is that they come in vast numbers, seemingly identical, a weed of a living thing.
Most of my dear possessed did not yield to my cap willingly, but the chain chomps were different. They wanted to be owned, wanted to be cared for, like a dog who has been mistreated. These little orphan creatures know only the circles of space as permitted by the length of their chains, and to know them on the inside is to know the ignorance that accompanies such a small world view. Yet somehow, an aggressive sort of love persists through that. They leapt forward to embrace me, and when I entered their heads and their bodies, I found only a yearning for freedom. I pushed them only to the limits of their binds and then left them exactly where they were, unwanted and uncared for.
Sherms are what the kingdoms call the tanks they station in defense of their strongholds, guarding these “power moons,” (which, despite their smiles, are nothing more than batteries). Inside the mind of a Sherm, I found out they are much like knights, noble ones, who truly believe their positions as guards is of paramount importance. But under my spell, a single Sherm could defeat a batallion. Weak, they are. And I made them watch in horror as I destroyed the very landscapes they had been sent to protect.
Ascending my adversary’s keep, I encountered a rare bird with a long beak. Did you know that what it wants is to nest in peace? Probably, you did. But did you also know that if you control its mind then you can shove its beak into the sides of buildings and fling yourself higher and higher until you’ve left the thing bent, broken, and useless.
On and on we went. I took the essence of fish and flung them out of the water, of the hand of a great pyramid defender and made him punch himself in the face repeatedly, of a chef who I made fling his own cookware at his own creations, of a cloud djinn, of a caterpillar, of a gliding pterodactyl… the important thing is that I used them and then left them behind. No. Not even left them. Oftentimes, when I’d left their minds alone, which dazed them and weakened them, I’d return to my old ways and pound on their heads so I could rob them of the few coins they carried. I had thousands weighing down my endless pockets, but I liberated them of their wealth and their lives nonetheless.
The capture that gave me the biggest thrill, however, was that of a man. In a dimly lit building off an alley of a city, I found someone playing with a remote controlled race car that I wanted to play with. He was so enthralled with his toy that I took him unawares. All his thoughts and fears and dreams became immediately exposed to me - the time he awkwardly kissed his best friend from grade school “just to practice” and then how he regretted never telling her he loved her. The time his stepfather pushed him off his bicycle and cursed his slowness when he tried to learn. The way he yearned for more appreciation at his go-nowhere factory job, and how he feared he was too much of a coward to say anything and of the greater fear that he was too lazy to deserve the appreciation he craved. I knew everything about him in that instant for I was him and more, and I did nothing. I said nothing, except, “Yipee!” and I played with his toy without asking, dozens of times. When I left him, all he could utter was, “What just happened?” Why am I wasting my time with these rodents and sea creatures, I asked Cappy? Let us go to those I know best.
I found Yoshi where I’ve always found him, sitting on the roof of Peach’s castle. I could have leapt on his back and we could have ridden together as we have thousands of times, ever since I was a little baby. “Yoshi!” he said, as always, smiling, like we were about to go together on another journey. I took a look at the small, uncomfortable saddle on his back, and flung my hat at his face. He looked surprised for just a second, and then bent to my will. Yoshi… Yoshi hungers. Deep inside the recesses of his brain there is almost nothing but the endless cravings. Apples and mushrooms and entire living creatures. Eat and eat and eat. It’s all he wants, all he needs. He cares nothing for those that see him, for those that pet him, for me who rides him. They are means to his gluttonous ends. Under my new power, I gave him that, quickly and fully, and then left him. We stared at each other a long moment with mutual understanding, grinning. I now knew why he always hangs around this girl. Peach. He hopes one day for the greatest of meals. This is my ally, I thought, and I moved on.
Bowser needed to be thwarted, punched, jumped on, and otherwise abused before I could have his mind for my own, but in this over all things, I am accomplished. It was easy. His little wedding show, his petty thievery, his new hat. He makes such a spectacle these days, building all these new strongholds and fortresses, sparing no expense ensuring the “journey” is filled with diverse landscapes and beautiful scenery. Fool. I found him even less challenging than when he stood over a rickety bridge above a pool of lava. And inside? Hahahaha. Desperation and love. Genuine love. Not just for the princess he’s always trying to steal but for the entirety of Mushroom Kingdom. He shelters them and feeds them and cares for them, gives them purpose, and the only thing that he hopes for in return is that he not be forgotten, not be left behind. With his body, I carried the princess through the avalanche of destruction I’d set in motion and then, of course, I left him behind. In his weakened state he tried to declare his true feelings for her, and I just…. Hahahaha…. I just kicked him in the… hahahaha… kicked him in the face!
WHAT?! You think I care? Cappy robbed me of that ability when he gave me this one! Or… no? Perhaps… perhaps I’ve always been this way. No! I was whole before, but halved I am better now! More! Bring me more! I must feast upon their souls and their bodies. One day, I’ll catch the princess while she is sleeping. She’s not tireless. One day that mayor, my ex-girlfriend, will stop singing, and I will have her too! Peach and Pauline both! And once they’re spent, their essences drained, I shall flush them down a pipe and then the entire world will hear my call. WHERE IS MY BROTHER!? LUIGI? I’M COMING FOR YOU!