The 'Shroom:Issue 201/Pipe Plaza

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Director's Notes

Written by: Zange (talk)

Shroom2019 Zange.png

2023, you were an interesting one for sure.

Welcome to the last 'Shroom issue of the year! I hope that all of you are surviving the holiday madness in whatever way you deem fit. I for one have survived what may be my most interesting finals season yet. Long story short, because one of my classes was scheduled in a very weird way I was forced to take a final on a Friday which rarely happens for anyone at my university so that was interesting... On a more fun note, I recieved Super Mario Bros Wonder for one of my birthday gifts this year! Genuinely, this is the first Mario game in a long time that's really captured my attention. It's so much fun, too!! I have a hard time putting it down sometimes because I want to know what silly little ideas they throw at us next. Also, being able to play as Daisy... excellent choice on Nintendo's part.

After all the extravanganza that we had for 200, we're a bit on the smaller side this month but that's okay! Don't forget that we're always welcoming new writers, and you can find out more by going to the sign up page!

Happy Holidays, and have a good rest of the year!

PIPE PLAZA SECTION OF THE MONTH
Place Section Votes % Writer
1st Dogs in Nintendo Games 9 34.62% HedgehogGaming (talk)
2nd Forgotten Stars of a Golden Age 3 11.54% Shoey (talk)
2nd Editing Tips 3 11.54% Mario jc (talk)
News and information
Poll Committee Discussion
Waluigi Time (talk)
The best analysis of the polls around!
read more
Mario Calendar
GPM1000 (talk)
Find out all about this month's Super Mario releases.
read more
The 'Shroom Report
Waluigi Time (talk)
All the latest writers and all the milestones of the current ones.
read more
What's in a Campaign?
Shoey (talk)
Corkscrew? But there's no wine here!
read more
Did Someone Say Cereal?
Waluigi Time (talk)
Cereal? In Nintendo games? It's more likely than you think.
read more

Poll Committee Discussion

Written by: Waluigi Time (talk)

13th Poll Committee Banner

Hello there, 'Shroom readers! It's been a while since I've tackled Poll Committee Discussion, but I'm happy to be back here with more analysis on our front page polls! Let's see what we have today.

Archives

When a game is remade, how important is it to you that the game's text (e.g., character dialogue) is faithful to the original? - (Hooded Pitohui (talk), November 8th, 2023)

When a game is remade, how important is it to you that the game's text (e.g., character dialogue) is faithful to the original?

Somewhat important, but I don't mind some changes, such as more accurate translation in localized versions or fixing mistakes in the original. 58.75% (2351 votes)
Very important, but I can accept additions so long as any text which existed in the original is unchanged. 16.62% (665 votes)
Very important, and I would prefer no changes or additions be made whatsoever. 9.40% (376 votes)
Not that important, and I don't mind them changing text at their discretion. 5.82% (233 votes)
I don't have an opinion on this. 4.95% (198 votes)
Not at all important, and I welcome changes to the text in a remake. 4.47% (179 votes)
Total Votes: 4,002

Super Mario Bros. Wonder features the debut of Kevin Afghani as the new voice of Mario and Luigi. What do you think of his performance? (Vruet (talk) and Waluigi Time (talk), November 24th, 2023)

Super Mario Bros. Wonder features the debut of Kevin Afghani as the new voice of Mario and Luigi. What do you think of his performance?

I enjoyed Afghani's performance and I think he did as good as Martinet. 43.29% (2514 votes)
I enjoyed Afghani's performance, but I still think Martinet's work was better. 33.59% (1972 votes)
I have not heard Afghani's performance, or have no opinion. 9.26% (538 votes)
I greatly enjoyed Afghani's performance and prefer it over Martinet's. 5.82% (338 votes)
I enjoyed Afghani's portrayal of Luigi, but not Mario. 2.50% (145 votes)
I did not enjoy Afghani's performance because I would have preferred a more distinct performance from Martinet. 1.72% (100 votes)
I did not enjoy Afghani's performance because I think someone else could have been a better successor for Martinet. 1.43% (83 votes)
I enjoyed Afghani's portrayal of Mario, but not Luigi. 1.12% (65 votes)
I did not enjoy Afghani's performance because I don't think he did a good job portraying the characters. 0.91% (53 votes)
Total Votes: 5,808

Analysis

When a game is remade, how important is it to you that the game's text (e.g., character dialogue) is faithful to the original?

He knows too much, send in the ninjas

Our first poll today is a topical one by Hooded Pitohui (talk). With the recent release of a Super Mario RPG remake which made a number of changes to the original's notorious English localization to make it more accurate to the Japanese script, and a remake for Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on the horizon next year, it seemed like a good time to ask how much our visitors care about maintaining the original game's text. Considering that this resulted in another poll where one option received more than half of the votes, I'm pretty sure that I can safely say we found our answer.

58.75% of voters said that game text remaining faithful to the original is important to them, but they're okay if some changes are made to fix mistranslations and mistakes. It makes sense to me that most of the voters would pick this option. Sometimes, older games just have weird stuff that doesn't really make sense, especially when that work is part of a larger series. Seeing Cheep Cheeps called Goby in Super Mario RPG for some reason is just weird to the modern day Super Mario fan. Translators may make mistakes or deliberate changes that lose the intent of the original writers, or typos and grammatical errors can slip through. Worst case scenario, a mangled translation can misinform the player about gameplay mechanics or what to do next. Point being, there's lots of reasons players might want to see the text in a remake get another look from the developers. One user on the forums mentioned it depends on the type of remake for him. Sticking close to the original while fixing some mistakes makes sense in a faithful remake, but taking creative liberties is okay if the developers are trying to re-imagine the game.

Interestingly, some of the users who replied on the forums expressed that even though they voted for this option, they felt that some of the changes in the Super Mario RPG were unnecessary and detracted from the original game's charm. A couple of examples mentioned were Bowser no longer referring to his minions as the Koopa Troop and renaming certain characters like Mack and Yaridovich. There's clearly a careful line that needs to be walked between fixing what needs fixing and not changing things just for the sake of it. Hopefully the remake of The Thousand-Year Door will fare better in this area.

Coming in a pretty distant second, 16.62% of voters consider remaining faithful to the original text to be very important and that it should be left alone, but writing new supplementary text is okay. This suggests to me that these voters want to preserve the experience of the original game as much as possible, but they're not opposed to additions like new scenes or NPCs. One user chose this option specifically with Super Mario RPG in mind, preferring the quirks of the original game over the revised text. While I'm personally in the camp of some revisions being okay if it needs them, I can also understand wanting to experience the game as it was originally made, warts and all. An additional 9.40% of voters took this further and want no changes to be made to the original text at all, even for additional content. We didn't get any responses on the forums from anyone who picked this option, but I would assume these voters want the original experience to be preserved as much as possible, with any changes kept to improvements in the gameplay, graphics, or sound design. Between these three options, over 80% of the voters want text to remain at least mostly faithful to the original game, so it's obviously something that's important to most of our visitors.

Towards the bottom of the poll, 5.82% of voters aren't too concerned with it, and are fine with changes being made, while another 4.47% of voters don't care at all and are more than happy to see changes. This is another one that we unfortunately didn't get any comments on, because I'd be really curious to hear why these voters chose those options, and how far they'd be willing to go. Would rewriting the entire script from the ground up be okay as long as the general story is kept intact? If you agree with one of those options, let me know!

Falling in between those two options, 4.95% of voters just don't have an opinion. If I had to guess, most (if not all) of these voters probably stay away from the text-heavy games like the RPGs, and prefer with the platformers or spin-offs like Mario Kart.

A particularly interesting take on this that doesn't really fit cleanly into one of the options is being okay with updating text, but wanting a toggle to be able to use the original for the sake of preservation. This makes some sense for a game like Super Mario RPG, where the only way to play the original legitimately is tracking down the original SNES cartridge or a Super NES Classic Edition now that new Virtual Console purchases have been shut down entirely. At the same time though, with how much has been done to other areas of the game, if preservation is the goal then I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense for Nintendo to just make the SNES version available as a free download to anyone who buys the Switch version or something.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder features the debut of Kevin Afghani as the new voice of Mario and Luigi. What do you think of his performance?

It's-a me, I'm the Mario now.

Another topical poll originally created by Vruet (talk) and revised by yours truly. A lot of big things have happened for our favorite plumber this year, including long-time voice actor Charles Martinet retiring from his iconic roles in the series. His successor Kevin Afghani has some big shoes to fill stepping into the roles of Mario and Luigi, but if this poll is anything to go by, he's done quite well. Notably, this poll doesn't specifically cover his performance as Wario in WarioWare: Move It!, so maybe there will be another poll about that in the near future.

For our most picked option, 43.29% of voters were very happy with Afghani's performance in Wonder and felt that he was on par with the work done by Martinet. It's not a near-identical portrayal and you can hear the differences if you're listening for it, but personally, I think he's taking on the roles pretty well and will probably only get better with more experience. I have to admit that I'm surprised that this option got such a high percentage of the vote - not as a commentary on Afghani's performance, but because of how iconic Martinet's portrayals are and how controversial recasts can be in general. Although, as one user on the forums noted, the uncertainty over whether there was a recast at all when the first trailer for the game came out is a testament to how well he's done in the role already. I can't say I disagree with that!

Following that up, an additional 33.59% of voters thought Afghani did a good job while still preferring Martinet's work. It makes sense to me that a lot of people feel this way. After all, Martinet did it for more than 30 years and his work as Mario gave him the world record for the most vocal performances for a video game character ever. Unless you manage to nail the vocal performance to the point where nobody would know anything changed if they didn't read the credits, or people just didn't like the original guy to begin with, it's hard to come into a role and cement yourself as a favorite right away. Nostalgia and recognition is a big part of it of course, and I expect that as time goes on and more new fans jump into the series in the Afghani era, we'll see more fans who consider him their favorite Mario.

There's a significant drop-off to third place, and it's the 9.26% of voters who either have no opinion at all or just haven't heard the new voices yet. That's a pretty big percentage relatively, but he's only voiced Mario and Luigi in one game that's still pretty new (and new games tend to not do very well on the polls right away), so either you've played the game or went out of your way to look it up. There's also probably voters in here who did play Wonder but didn't notice the change, or just didn't think it was that important that the funny wahoo man sounds a little bit different than he used to.

Back to more positive reception, 5.82% of voters said that they actually preferred Afghani over Martinet. I have to admit that I'm not really sure why that many people picked this option. I mean, yeah, it's a little bit different, but I don't think it's that different. It's not like if you disliked how Martinet handled the characters Afghani is a big change from that. Maybe they just thought it was time for a change? This is another one that we got no comments for, so if you voted for this one, feel free to tell me why.

2.50% of voters liked Afghani's performance as Luigi, but felt that his Mario left something to be desired. That tracks since it was Mario and Wario that initially tipped people off to a recast happening, after all, with Luigi slipping under the radar and generally being considered a pretty solid imitation. The opposite option for those who only liked Mario came in closer to the bottom of the poll with only 1.12% of votes. That includes our own Chairperson, who felt that Afghani's Mario is fine and pretty indistinguishable, but his Luigi could use work and lacked some of the nuances that Martinet gave to the character.

Less than 5% of the total voters disliked his work overall. The most picked of these three options, with 1.72% of the votes, were actually from people who wanted something even more distinct from Martinet's work. I'd bet that a good number of these voters prefer the Brooklyn accents from the DiC cartoons, and there's probably some in here who just don't like the voice direction Nintendo's gone with for the past few decades. 1.43% of voters felt that someone else could have been a better successor. We didn't have anyone specific in mind when creating this poll, but there's no shortage of stellar Mario and Luigi impressionists out there. Finally, in dead last, 0.91% of voters didn't take issue with the performance in relation to Martinet, but nonetheless thought that Afghani didn't portray the characters very well.

Conclusion

That's a wrap for this month's Poll Committee Discussion, and I'll keep this brief because I feel like I may have talked too long already. Be sure to tune in again next month when probably someone else will be covering more polls!

Mario Calendar

Written by: GPM1000 (talk)

Hey everyone! I can’t believe we are officially in the 200s for The ‘Shroom issues, what a remarkable number. And, fun fact, this marks my 6 year anniversary doing Mario Calendar! I love December a lot, and that is one of the many things that makes this month so special. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and any other holiday that you may celebrate this year, and here’s to getting plenty of Mario games!

Region Abbreviations

Abb. Region
ALL All Regions (JP/NA/EU/AU)
JP Japan
NA North America
EU Europe
AU Oceania/Australia
SK South Korea
CHN China
UK United Kingdom

Console Abbreviations

Abb. Console
NES Nintendo Entertainment System
Famicom Family Computer Disk System
SNES Super Nintendo Entertainment System
N64 Nintendo 64
GC Nintendo GameCube
GB Game Boy
GBC Game Boy Color
GBA Game Boy Advance
DS Nintendo DS
3DS Nintendo 3DS
Switch Nintendo Switch
Wii VC Nintendo Wii Virtual Console
3DS VC Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
Wii U VC Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console
VB Virtual Boy
G&W Game and Watch
64DD Nintendo 64 Disk Drive
MS-DOS Microsoft Disk Operating System
CD-i Philips CD-i
IQ iQue Player
NVS Nvidia Shield
ACPC Amstrad CPC
ZX ZX Spectrum
Coleco Colecovision
TI-99 Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
  • December 19
  • December 31

I’m kind of rushing to get this one submitted in time (the holiday season has been quite hectic as usual), so I won’t add a lot onto the end to this one. However, I do just want to point out how much I love this month for Mario games! If you caught my special article from issue 200 last month, you know that I have December ranked at #2 for Mario games - Mario Kart DS, Smash Ultimate, NSMBW, Partners in Time, and so many more fantastic games came out this month.

The back half of the month is pretty dead, but that makes sense - at this point it’s too close to the holidays to release new games as gifts or promotional deals, and people will have spent most of the money they are willing to spend on games at this point in the year. The first few months are always sort of dead for this same reason, so I expect this is part of that. Anyways, thank you so much for reading, and I’ll see you next month!

The 'Shroom Report

Written by: Waluigi Time (talk)

Hello there, 'Shroom readers! Welcome back to The 'Shroom Report, a section I intended to be a one-off last issue but then it turned out to be more fun than I expected so it's back! In this issue I'll be covering all data for Issue 200. Special thanks as always to Meta Knight for gathering the data for our spreadsheets!

Since it's back to covering a single issue, I've tweaked the numbers back down to what were originally used by Tucayo and NS when they wrote this section. Here's how this works:

  • First-Time Writers lists everyone who wrote their first section for The 'Shroom in the previous issue.
  • Milestones covers certain section numbers reached in the previous issue. Writers are mentioned for every 10 sections written in a team and every 50 sections written overall, teams are mentioned for every 100 sections, and The 'Shroom itself is mentioned for every 500 sections.
  • Most Sections Written lists the current all-time record holders.
First-Time Writers
Writer Section
BlueShelledKoopaTroopa Mario & Luigi Memories
cpcantimark (talk) MK Trivia From A Nerd
HedgehogGaming (talk) Dogs in Nintendo Games
Legend 8 (talk) The Sorcery Show
Mario jc (talk) From the Composer of...
Editing Tips
Meester Tweester (talk) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Randomizer
Meowkie Beyond Belief: Mario Wiki Mix
MiracleDinner (talk) Beginner's Guide to Debian Xfce
Porplemontage (talk) Message from Porple
TimeTravelerToad (talk) A Visitor's Guide to Baby Park
Zdrmonster The Bubblun and Toadette Roleplaying Battle
Milestones
Writer/Team Milestone
Fun With Despair (talk) 10 Pipe Plaza sections
FunkyK38 (talk) 190 Palette Swap sections
500 overall sections
Hooded Pitohui (talk) 70 Main/Staff sections
50 Fake News sections
Hypnotoad (talk) 30 Main/Staff sections
Lakituthequick (talk) 20 Main/Staff sections
Quizmelon (talk) 90 Fake News sections
Shoey (talk) 10 Main/Staff sections
60 Fake News sections
40 Critic Corner sections
Fun Stuff 1,300 sections
Critic Corner 800 sections
Most Sections Written
Team Writer Number of Sections
Main/Staff Henry Tucayo Clay (talk) 142
Fake News MCD (talk) 148
Fun Stuff Shoey (talk) 127
Palette Swap FunkyK38 (talk) 190
Pipe Plaza Yoshi876 (talk) 128
Critic Corner Hypnotoad (talk) 172
Strategy Wing Yoshi876 (talk) 115
Overall Yoshi876 (talk) 747
'Shroom Trivia
With a total of 23 sections including the Director's Notes, the Issue 200 edition of Fake News holds the record for most sections featured in a sub-team at once. The previous record of 15 sections was also set by Fake News back in Issue 172.

Congratulations to FunkyK38 for being the second 'Shroom writer to reach 500 sections!

What's in a Campaign?

By: Shoey (talk)

Hello, and welcome back to What's in a Campaign?, a section where I take a look at various competitors from the hit show Robot Wars. Last month, we took a look at Razer's iconic Series 5 championship run. This month, we're taking a look at the debut of one of my all-time favorite robots, the Series 5 (oh, that's not a good sign, is it…) run of Corkscrew.

The Pride of Scotland

Built by John Heatlie and manned by his children Laurence, who drove the robot, and Lewis, who manned the weapon, the robot was built after Laurence and Lewis asked their father to build a robot for Robot Wars. John Heatile agreed on the condition that his children raise the money for the robot themselves, which they did by washing cars. Hailing from Scotland, the Corkscrew team brought a little Scottish flair with them, always appearing wearing traditional kilts, to which Craig Charles would playfully scold them for wearing "skirts".

Based on, well, a corkscrew, I think Corkscrew is one of the most visually-striking robots from the show. Built around a lorry wheel which has been stylishly dressed in a kilt, fitted with two blades (with one at the base of the lorry and the other at the top), Corkscrew was an early pioneer of the full body spinner category, and while they weren't the first full body spinner (that honor belongs to season 2's Caliban), they were one of the first to really show the destructive potential of the setup. They were also the first robot to actually make it through a full fight with the weapon! Featuring tank-like steering and powered by 3 Bosch 750 watt motors, with one being for the spinning and the other two being for drive, Corkscrew had a top speed of 20 miles per hour and its blades could spin up to 1,400 RPMs. My favorite feature about Corkscrew has to be the bobbing cork top. That's not there just for aesthetic; it actually serves a function. The purpose of the cork is to help the team know which direction the robot is going. On one side the tip is green to signify forwards, and the other side the tip is red to signify backwards. Corkscrew is one of my favorite robots because it really nails the design aspect, looking like somebody made a corkscrew into a fighting robot.

During the Series 5 qualifiers, the producers forced the Corkscrew team to fight with their spinner turned off for safety reasons. Corkscrew fought in three qualifier fights, first against future Robot Wars Extreme 1: Armed Forces Special competitor Sub-Vision. In the next match, they fought against fellow Series 5 and future Annihilator competitor Hippobotomus. Then, finally, they went up against Robot Wars Extreme 1 competitor The Spider. In those fights, Corkscrew went 2-1, defeating Sub-Vision and Hippobotomus but losing to The Spider. This performance, as well as its destructive weapon potential, was enough for Corkscrew to qualify for Series 5, where it was placed in Heat F.

As a reminder, all pictures are sourced from the fantastic Robot Wars Wiki. This month, if you'd like to watch along, just click on this video.

In its first Heat F fight (1:13), Corkscrew faced off against fellow newcomer 13 Black. 13 Black features one of the more unique weapons in Robot Wars history, sporting dual horizontal spinning discs. In theory, this gives 13 Black double the destructive power and gives it the ability to attack from all sides. The fight starts out like most spinner-on-spinner fights do, with the two machines avoiding each other as they get their weapons up to speed. 13 Black strikes first, getting a head-on strike on Corkscrew's body, which tears a little bit of the kilt off. Corkscrew responds in kind, getting an attack on the side of 13 Black which does little damage. Corkscrew keeps on the attack, striking another blow on the side of 13 Black which again doesn't appear to do any damage.

Two mighty blades meet!

13 Black then goes on the attack, hitting Corkscrew and briefly slowing down Corkscrew's spinner. Corkscrew then does a classic full body spinner tactic, sitting in place and letting its spinner get up to full speed. 13 Black stays on the attack and the two robots clash. Three times the two clash head on, but on the third clash, Corkscrew breaks though, disabling one of 13 Black's discs. Corkscrew goes to press its advantage, landing another full power spin onto the side of 13 Black. This time, the attack works! But it kind of works too well! Corkscrew pierces through the side of 13 Black, but, unfortunately, gets stuck in the side of 13 Black.

An immobile Corkscrew stuck to 13 Black

Both 13 Black and Shunt attempt to dislodge Corkscrew from the side of 13 Black, but Corkscrew's blade is just too stuck in. Unable to dislodge Corkscrew, the fight goes to the judges.

Now, this is sort of a controversial decision. So, on the merits of the fight alone, Corkscrew is the easy winner. Since damage is the most heavily-weighted category, Corkscrew wins easily, because Corkscrew not only disabled one of the 13 Black's discs, but it also broke through the side of 13 Black. But if you pay close attention, it appears that Corkscrew had broken down during the hit that pierced the side of 13 Black. The entire time they're struggling to free themselves, it's 13 Black that's doing all the driving, not Corkscrew. So technically Corkscrew should probably have been declared immobilized, but that's not what happens. Instead, Corkscrew is given the victory, which I think makes the most sense. While, yes, Corkscrew was probably immobilized, in the context of the fight, the judges really don't have any way to make that call while the robots are stuck together. So factoring that in, since Corkscrew was winning the fight anyways, it just made the most sense to give Corkscrew the victory.

In the next round, Corkscrew would face off against the 14th seed X-Terminator. Tragically for Corkscrew, before the fight even begins, there's a problem. Their weapon motor has burned out. Corkscrew has been reduced to a ramming bot with static blades. You'd think with this development, Corkscrew would be sunk, right? Surely Corkscrew couldn't defeat a seeded robot with nothing but static blades in goddamn Series 5, right? ...Right?

The fight (5:24) starts with X-Terminator taking advantage of its shape and wedge to push Corkscrew around, pushing it into the wall before landing a mighty axe blow on Corkscrew (which I think hits the top cork of Corkscrew and does nothing, lol). X-Terminator rams into Corkscrew again and throws another axe blow at the cork, which results in its axe getting stuck in the cork this time. This actually could have been bad news for Corkscrew if X-Terminator had used its weight to topple the not-so-spinning machine, but, instead, the axe just comes out. X-Terminator then lands another axe blow, which, again, doesn't do anything. This time the blow just harmlessly bounces off the top armor of Corkscrew, but, hey gotta get aggression points somehow. But then X-Terminator randomly starts having problems driving. I'm not really sure what happens here. Like, Corkscrew does get a solid ram into the side of X-Terminator, but it looks like X-Terminator was having problems even before that. X-Terminator can barely move and is only moving in sort of starts and stops.

X-Terminator losing to a weaponless Corkscrew… Jesus…

Corkscrew takes advantage of this by ramming into X-Terminator repeatedly as X-Terminator just kind of slowly drives around the arena, randomly firing its ax. Finally, Shunt can take no more and he leaves his zone to attack X-Termiantor out of boredom. The fight goes to the judges, but with X-Terminator barely working for most of the fight, the decision was obvious, and Corkscrew, without a weapon and without a prayer, goes to the Heat Final!

In the Heat Final, Corkscrew would face off with the 11th seed and Series 4 top eight finisher, Dominator 2. Before the Heat Final, the Corkscrew team completely rebuilt the weapon's motor, but didn't actually have time to test it. Unfortunately, while the motor was at least working a little bit before the fight (with Corkscrew being able to spin slowly), once the fight (11:45) started, the motor once again burnt out, leaving Corkscrew once again weaponless. Double unfortunately for Corkscrew is that, outside of a flipper, Dominator 2 is one of the worst robots Corkscrew could faced even if it did have its weapon working, with Dominator 2's sloped smooth sides being perfect for getting under Corkscrew. Weaponless Corkscrew would be forced to fight a very tentative fight, mostly attempting to dodge Dominator 2 and its powerful axe. Corkscrew's defense driving was nearly disastrous early in the fight, with Corkscrew stuck in a CPZ with both Shunt and Sir Killalot, but the speedy Corkscrew managed to maneuver out of the CPZ without taking any damage. Realizing that it is outmanned and outgunned, Corkscrew would try a classic "oh god, my robot has no chance" strategy, hitting the pit release button and hoping it could somehow get Dominator 2 down the pit.

The mighty "flipper" of Dominator 2 topples Corkscrew.

But this strategy, unsurprisingly, didn't work. In fact, Corkscrew barely even got to try it. After hitting the pit button, Corkscrew would reverse into Dominator 2 and go up the sloped side of Dominator 2, causing it to tip over. Unable to self-right, Corkscrew was counted out, falling in the Heat Final.

Just a charmless robot

I don't really think anything would have changed if Corkscrew's weapon had worked. The problem is that Dominator 2 is such a terrible draw for Corkscrew because Dominator 2's angled smooth sides mean that, any time Corkscrew charged at Dominator 2, it would run the risk of getting toppled. Sadly, while Corkscrew would continue to return in future Series, it would never replicate the success it had in Series 5. First, it was eliminated in the first round of Series 6 (in a fight I will talk about in a future section). Then it lost in the first round of the UK vs Germany special. Returning in Extreme 2, it would reach the second round Commonwealth challenge before losing to Crushstacean, capping off its string of early losses.

Finally, it would be radically redesigned into a very ugly machine that would lose all of its original charm. …and then it would lose again, losing the first round of its heat after its "new and improved" spinner burnt out immediately. Despite its lack of success, Corkscrew really was a fearsome robot, especially in Series 6, where it sported one of the most powerful spinners in the field. It's also a striking, eye-catching robot that, with some better luck, could have been one of the icons of Robot Wars. It's one of my favorite robots, and I just wish it had this really good run we could have talked about!

Unfortunately, though, it never found success, so we have to end here. Join us next month, and we'll talk about another robot!

Did Someone Say Cereal?

Written by: Waluigi Time (talk)

Hello there, 'Shroom readers! Waluigi Time here with a very strange and niche research project. Probably the weirdest thing I've ever submitted to The 'Shroom as a matter of fact, and that's saying something. Inspired by last month's Dogs in Nintendo Games and a suggestion by my good friend Ninja Squid, today I'll be looking at the existence of cereal in Nintendo games. Yep. Please note that this isn't exhaustive by any means, I haven't played every single game released by Nintendo ever and some appearances just might not be documented, so don't yell at me if I missed something (although if you know about anything not mentioned here, please let me know, I'd be curious to hear it).

Yum

So let's start with our very own Super Mario! Mario himself is no stranger to appearing on cereal boxes, including one that was also an amiibo, but references to cereal within the games are actually pretty rare. In Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, Brash may sometimes mock the Kongs when they leave his cabin by telling them that the only way they'd win a trophy "is if they gave them away in cereal packets". In Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, E. Gadd's notes for the Cawe/Full Moo recommends against pouring the ghost cow's milk on cereal, mentioning that he's still cleaning up the mess from when he tried. The only physical appearance of cereal that I've found in the games is in Wario: Master of Disguise, of all places! One of the treasures found in the level When Dolphins Ruled the Earth! is Rare Gem Cereal, a breakfast cereal actually consisting of emeralds. The description warns against swallowing it whole - you think? (Of course, trying to swallow cereal whole is probably a bad idea in general, whether it's made out of edible matter or not. Please don't choke on the cereal.)

In the realm of "kind of counts, maybe?", the credits for WarioWare: Move It! includes the favorite food of each member of the development team. Shoutout to Owen Thomas, the voice of Master Mantis, for picking cereal out of all the things that you can eat in the world! There's also references in other media like the cartoons and comics, but I'm only counting the games for this.

Even the squids like cereal!

Now the Splatoon series is where things get good. In Splatoon 2, Pearl and Marina mention cereal in three Splatfests - Warm Breakfast vs. Cold Breakfast, Sci-Fi vs. Fantasy, and Fork vs. Spoon. Speaking for Team Sci-Fi, Pearl even mentions a specific brand, Choco Cyborg Flakes. There's arguably a continuity issue though, because in Warm Breakfast vs. Cold Breakfast, Pearl calls cereal "icky" but she talks about eating it in the latter two. However, that was a European exclusive Splatfest, and the other two were only in North America (plus Oceania for Sci-Fi vs. Fantasy), so no one would've actually seen both sets of dialogue on their copy unless they did some region hopping between Splatfests. Looks like we can chalk Pearl's cereal preferences up to regional differences. Several different brands of cereal can also be found in the MakoMart map, which returns in Splatoon 3 as well. Among those cereals is one that's apparently Off the Hook branded! Europe!Pearl must be a sellout. Spoilers for the rest of this section, Splatoon wins the award for most canonical cereal brands in a Nintendo franchise.

Cereal makes its Pokémon debut in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, where empty boxes of it can be found littering Penny's dorm room, among other food items.

And, uh, I'm already out of physical appearances after just four games. Shameful. There's still some references across a few other franchises, though. In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Agitha recites a unique verse for each Golden Bug you bring her. Her response to the Golden Ant is "Li'l ant, li'l ant, I might mistake you for a grain and put you in my cereal..." I can't recommend putting ants in the cereal, but hey... Wii Fit Plus features a calorie burning mode that lets you put in various foods as a reference including cereal, and you know what, sure, it counts. In Xenoblade Chronicles, the item description for Maternal Armu Milk says that it goes great on breakfast cereal. Lastly, in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, a snooty villager may give the player a petition for "Crunchier Cereal for All".

That's all I've got. There's some pretty surprising omissions here, I would've thought there would be cereal in Kirby, or maybe a quick appearance in a WarioWare microgame or as a Pikmin treasure, but as far as I can tell that's not the case. It's not even a food item in Tomodachi Life! Apparently, cereal isn't that popular in Japan, so maybe that's why it doesn't get too much attention from Nintendo. The majority of references here are text only, after all, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them were only added during localization. Anyway, thanks for reading this weird little project of mine!

The 'Shroom: Issue 201
Staff sections Staff Notes • The 'Shroom Spotlight • End-of-the-Year Awards • Director Election
Features Fake News • Fun Stuff • Palette Swap • Pipe Plaza • Critic Corner • Strategy Wing
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