Mecha-Bowser

MECHA-BOWSER

Mario's pursuit of his shadowy doppelganger leads him to the island amusement park of Pinna Park. There he finds himself accosted by a gigantic robot version of Bowser that attacks him with fire breath and Bullet Bills.

This is Mecha-Bowser, a giant robot patterned after Bowser. Mecha-Bowser would appear here and there throughout the Mario series, including its origin in Super Mario Sunshine, the Mario Kart Arcade GP games, multiple Mario Party games, and a questionable version from Super Mario Galaxy.

As a fighter, Mecha-Bowser will be big and heavy, using its mechanical components and attacks from its various boss battles to built its moveset.

Likelihood rating: Probably not.

Mario Highway

The Mario Kart arcade series has not seen nearly the rampant success of its console sister series, but I figure it should at least be represented. The stages aren’t anything crazy, their tracks and layouts being kept fairly simple for the limited capacity of the arcade machines, the most famous being the beach-set Mario Highway appearing in both of the first two games.

This stage, I would imagine, would be somewhat like Melee’s Mute City, a touring stage that moved along the track, but in a much simpler and straightforward manner than the more complicated subsequent touring stages like Port Town Aero Dive and Mario Circuit. Halfway through the second lap, the track would transform into its companion track Mario Beach.

Potential theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwUfbZjJm0w

Robo Mario

It’s no question at this point that Mario Kart earned its place as Mario’s most profitable spinoff series. While it saw plenty of life on both consoles and handhelds, Nintendo felt it worth their time enough to work together with Bandai-Namco and develop a version to be played in arcades. Both Mario and Pac-Man characters would appear as players, and rather than a grand prix, it had a short one-player mode that ended in a race with a strange robotic duplicate of Mario.

This is Robo Mario, who only appears in the Mario Kart arcade games. He will race the player one-on-one, and if they can beat him, they will move on to the final boss.

As a character, Robo Mario will play more or less just like Mario Kart, though not quite a clone. The arcade series came with its own items and logic behind the way they work, so Robo Mario will represent that as a whole, his moves pulling from those items and other features of the arcade series.

Likelihood rating: Probably not

Character Sheet: Robo Mario

 ROBO MARIO

Now that we've covered all of the secondary Mario Kart titles, let's get into our two new characters added to the roster this time around. One is much like Waluigi last time in that they are being covered here mainly because it's our first time actually seeing them in this blog, and the other is more directly based on the games covered. They are:

1. Peachette

2. Robo Mario

Today, let's cover Robo Mario, a character probably not known very well by the general Mario game playing populace, as he only appears as a major boss in the Mario Kart Arcade games. My original concept for this character was for him to simply be an echo fighter for Mario Kart (with MK Arcade items traded out for the standard Mario Kart items), but honestly, there's so much uniqueness to the items in the arcade games, I think I could make an argument for them to be semi-clones of each other rather than full-on echoes.

Most of the Mario Kart arcade items follow a general principle for how they act. Some lock-on to targets, some are simply thrown forward, some are dropped or shot behind, some are used to hit those who come too close, some affect the user's status, and some are a bit more random. There are a number of items in each of these categories, so I'm going to be going with those that stood out as most memorable to me. I hope that's okay with everyone here. If you don't agree, you can probably swap out with other items you prefer. The general principle of this series is not particularly to make the most perfect moveset possible, it is to see if I can make one at all, so it really doesn't matter that much what's in each respective slot.

Here's the moveset that I came up with:

Standard B: Basin

This one is the lock-on projectile spot, and as for me, the basin was easily one of the most comical and memorable of these. So, Robo Mario will pull out a basin and throw it forward and it will head toward the nearest player ahead of him.

Side B: High Beam OR Magic Hand

I prefer Magic Hand here, but High Beam seems to be more prevalent, at least as far as I could tell. Under Magic Hand, it will reach out and grab an item from another player's hand, and under High Beam, it will flash a beam of light that will stun a player for a short time.

Up B: Tornado

This one is based on the tornado item from the game, but rather than send it out at an opponent, he instead will suffer the effects of it himself, as the tornado item will come out and launch him spinning upward. The move gets good height but loses some maneuverability.

Down B: Pie

This was my most memorable of the Backwards moves. Basically, the move will drop a pie on the ground behind Robo Mario that will then act as a potential hazard to trip up opponents.

Final Smash: Blue Shell OR Robo Bowser

Now, I could just use the same move I used for Mario Kart, as it's still a part of the arcade games, or I could use the robotic version of Bowser that replaces Bowser when Bowser is the playable character, acting as it would in the game itself.

Entrance: Robo Mario will screech onto the stage, just as Mario Kart would.

Taunts: Up, Robo Mario will put his hands into the air in the standard victory celebration. Side, it might be fun to have him pull out a Taiko drum (like the kind Don-chan is) and have him flip it back and forth for a second. Down, he will spark and deactivate for a second before coming back up.

Thanks for reading! Now, let's deal with the roster updates. Actually, come to think of it, that should only update the Mario roster this time.

Mario Kart Arcade GP

 MARIO KART ARCADE GP

If you're thinking the Mario Kart arcade games are going to be the same experience as a regular Mario Kart games, you're . . . going to be surprised. The first arcade game was released in 2005 and was primarily developed by Namco as will become fairly obvious. You mostly do play the same: drive a kart, throw items, but they're not quite the items you've come to expect from the series. Let's get into it and you'll see what I mean.

First up, our roster is a mix of Mario and Pac-Man characters. On the Mario side, we have our main eight (shocker!), and on the Pac-Man side, we welcome Pac-Man, Mrs. Pac-Man, and Blinky (the red ghost). Obviously, as with the regular Mario Kart games, none of this really matters, as what matters is how the car drives and the items available.

Speaking of items, they are mostly divided into eight main categories: lock-on shots, basically homing projectiles like the Red Shell; shoot forwards, like the Green Shell; drops backwards, like the Banana; shoot backwards, like you can do with the Green Shell; shoot forward and backwards, so the Green Shell with no limitations; melees, that attacks opponents at close range, like the Piranha Plant or the Super Horn; statuses, that affect the user, like a Star or Mushroom; or other. Some of these are Mario or Pac-Man specific, some seem to be just everyday items. The lock-on shots include bombs, tires, Boos, a basin, clouds, bananas, trash cans, and a bazooka. The shoot forwards include shells (shocker!) and a tornado. The drop backwards include bananas (shocker!), tacks, oil slick, firecrackers, and smoke. The shoot backwards includes a pie. That's it. The melee item is a thunder stick, and the status items are shields and mushrooms. The other category includes a high beam that blinds opponents and a magic hand that steals other people's items. All of the characters also have "specialty" items unique to them, but at the end of the day, all still fall into all of these categories and the differences tend to be fairly cosmetic.

Bowser appears also as a boss at the end of the game, standing on a pedestal and breathing fire at you, like he does. But we also have another boss entirely unique to the arcade games, a robotic doppelganger of Mario named Robo Mario (oh, you better believe my brain has already pegged him for gimmick rep/echo fighter).

As for stages, this is a definite divergence from the main Mario series, but understandable given the needs of an arcade game. The game has six cups, with two stages each, but the stages mostly seem to start out pretty much the same but end up diverging at a certain point before coming back just before the finish line. The Mario Cup features Mario Highway and Mario Beach, both set in a tropical setting. The DK Cup features DK Jungle and Bananan Ruins, both set in the jungle. The Wario Cup features Diamond City and Snow Panic, both set in a city, supposedly the city from Wario Ware, but I didn't really feel like it really was, and honestly had more E. Gadd references than anything in Wario Ware (eh, still more representation than the main series ever gave them). The Pac-Man Cup features Pac-Mountain and Pac-Labyrinth, both based on Pac-Land and regular Pac-Man mazes. The Bowser Cup features Bowser's Castle and Castle Wall, both set, well, I think you can figure it out. Then finally we have the Rainbow Cup, featuring Rainbow Coaster and Rainbow Downhill, where you face Robo Mario.

Well, there we are. Let's see what we've got:

Characters:

Mario Kart: Lock-on (basin or tire, fave), Shoot Forward (tornado), Drop Backward (oil or firecracker), Shoot Backward (pie), Melee (thunder stick), Status (shield), High Beam, Magic Hand

Robo Mario: see all above, total gimmick rep. Might not even need to be echo.

Mario

Luigi

Princess Peach

Toad

Yoshi

Donkey Kong

Wario

Bowser

Stages:

Mario Highway

Mario Beach

DK Jungle

Bananan Ruins

Diamond City

Snow Panic

Pac-Mountain

Pac-Labyrinth

Bowser's Castle

Castle Walls

Rainbow Coaster

Rainbow Downhill

Thanks for reading! Next up, we'll cover Mario Kart Arcade GP 2!