Welcome to the Real Story

Anyone who can place the reference in the article's title gets a Yoshi Cookie.

Anyway, time for another storyline article. This time, I'll be discussing why I feel that certain aspects of games should not be considered "canon" with regards to the story. No, I'm not going to question Mario's oft-mentioned jumping prowess, or insist that coins aren't actually used as currency or anything dumb like that. You'll see what I mean as we get further into this.

My experience with video game storyline issues began with the Zelda series. During that time, I learned many lessons, but, for the sake of avoiding a nostalgia-ridden tangent, I'll keep to mentioning just one for now. That lesson is that not everything that happens in a game happens to the characters within the parameters of the fictional universe. An example I use to explain this point happens quite often in many games: characters explaining the controls to other characters. In the Zelda games, they wouldn't make anything of it, and just had the Deku Tree tell Link to use C-up to listen to Navi. The Mario games, on the other hand, are of a lighter mood, and the writers tend to like being a little goofy when it comes to this stuff. Players of Super Paper Mario will know what I'm referring to here. So no, I don't believe that Pixls consider the player to be a "Great Being" or that they believe that it uses the 1 button to have Mario use their abilities. That's just the writers having a little fun with the player.

Think of it this way: a video game is, first and foremost, a game. The story is, more often than not, secondary. Sometimes, a game has to clarify what is required of the player, breaking the fourth wall in the process. However, when you think about it from another perspective - the perspective of the storyline - a lot of this doesn't have to happen at all in the context of
the fiction. It's just there for the edification of the player, and, in a (usually) light-hearted setting such as the Marioverse, the developers can have a chuckle here or there as well.

Of course, this can get dicey, especially with regards to the Marioverse, thanks in part to this fellow:

pah! games were better off without all this continuity garbage anyway!

Yup, good old Cranky Kong, embittered elderly simian, and, depending on who you ask, star of the original Donkey Kong arcade game. For the record, yes, I believe Cranky was the original DK, and that the current DK was DK, Jr. And, for that matter, that Baby DK is a young Cranky Kong, but I digress.

I bring up the grizzled gorilla because of his nasty little habit of breaking the fourth wall. From his debut in Donkey Kong Country until the end of Rare's control of the series, most of what Cranky Kong had to say revolved mainly around berating modern games, claiming that the arcade titles of yesteryear were infinitely superior to the fancy-schmancy 3D-rendered
adventures of the now. He also demonstrates a unique self-awareness. He knows that he is in a video game, and states this constantly. For that matter, several other Rareware games have this schtick, including those that arguably take place in the Marioverse. The ending of Banjo-Kazooie, for example, sees that game's characters openly discussing the development of a sequel. Conker's Bad Fur Day takes this even further, containing an ending that involves active participation on the part of a programmer. Closer to home, Super Paper Mario makes it quite clear that "game over" is fairly common in the Marioverse vernacular, as a synonym for death.

What to make of this? I don't know. It'd be a hell of a stretch to chalk it up to the same negligible level as gameplay instructions; we're talking about relevant plot information here. Maybe these characters really do know that their universe is a work of fiction; after all, it is. Maybe it is programmer humor, after all. Maybe I'm just thinking about this way too hard. In the end, though, it falls into the realm of that which can't be verified.

Alright, thus far, we've established that characters probably don't talk about button-presses, but do think of their lives as games. Unfortunately, that's about as clear-cut as it gets when it comes to Marioverse theorizing. I'm not done, though. I've got one more topic to discuss; throwaway cameos. I'll try to keep this one a little more brief.

is hyrule in the marioverse? no

Pictured above is Link, hero of the Zelda series, fast asleep in Super Mario RPG's Rose Town Inn. While some might take this as a crossover-via-physical-appearance, thereby connecting the Mario and Zelda series together, I consider it in the same area as gameplay instructions; that is, just a humorous nod on the part of the developers, this time to another work. If you absolutely must have an explanation for this character's existence, I'll give you one: he's a Marioverse character heavily influenced by Link's design. Hell, let's go crazy and say that it's this guy that Bazaar mentions in Donkey Kong Country 3. However, this does not mean he is actually the same Link as any seen in the Zelda series. Once again, I must point to an outside example to prove a point. In Tales of Symphonia, there is a swordsman in the slums of Meltokio who, if spoken to, will mention a "cute flower seller." Swordsman? Slums? Flower seller? Sounds like Cloud Strife and Aeris Gainsborough to me. It's meant to. The character is a one-off joke, obviously meant to bring Cloud and Aeris to mind. But is he actually Cloud? Is he actually talking about Aeris? Not at all.

As always, you're free to disagree with any or all of this. But think about this: does it make more sense for all the Nintendo franchises to literally co-exist, or to exist separately, while the real-world creators of them retain a sense of humor. Until you can explain Princess Zelda's collection of Mario-character paintings, I'll stick with the latter.

doubt it