#I was recently reminded that the Mario & Luigi RPGs exist and I thought this would be fun to draw

[totaled-drama]

can you draw the hockey bros in whatever Halloween costume you think they’d wear?

Happy Halloween :)

And here’s some other doodles I drew for some of the other TD 2023 cast members!! The designs are based on characters from Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga :) it’s one of the Mario & Luigi RPGs

[xb-squaredx]

A Rebuttal to Waluigi in Smash Bros.

During E3 2018, Nintendo finally unveiled Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a new entry in the series that made headlines with the statement that every single playable character would make a return, alongside some new faces. With Inklings, Daisy and Ridley making the jump to playable characters, many fans were crestfallen when Waluigi was confirmed to once again be an Assist Trophy and wouldn’t be joining the roster as a full-fledged character. For some fans at least, this quickly turned to anger and lead to harassment directed at Masahiro Sakurai himself. But I’m here today to show that Waluigi simply cannot be playable in Super Smash Bros….but not for the reasons you might be thinking.

When looking at just who makes the cut in Super Smash Bros., there are a number of criteria, unspoken or otherwise. As the series has gone on, just about every corner of Nintendo’s stable has seen representation in one way or another, with even cult hits like Xenoblade Chronicles getting a playable representative with Shulk. Of course, that has since been established as an ongoing series, with two games being released afterward and gaining quite a bit of acclaim, so maybe that’s not the best example. But look to some of the more obscure fighters in Smash and you’ll generally have a good reason for why they were included. For some, like Ridley, it is due to overwhelming fan demand, while for others like Little Mac or Duck Hunt, these are meant as nods to Nintendo’s classic days. It helps that in Little Mac’s case, the Wii Punch Out! game was quite successful. Characters like R.O.B. or Mr. Game & Watch similarly might not be getting any new games anytime soon, but they have historical significance. Since Brawl Nintendo has even extended olive branches to characters from outside of their wheelhouse, and looking at them now, they’re real somebodies in the industry, icons even. Snake comes from a series famous for its cinematic look and stealth mechanics, while Sonic and Mega Man are platforming icons on par with Mario. Ryu is probably THE most well-known fighting game character ever, and Cloud can be considered one of the most well-known JRPG protagonists bar none. As Sakurai has said in the past, “Not just ANYONE can be in Smash.”

So with that in mind, what are Waluigi’s credentials? Being a part of Mario’s cast, he’s in just about every spinoff game, be it a sports title or the Mario Kart and Mario Party series, so with that alone he’s hardly obscure. He also does have quite a bit of fandom behind him, if the recent attacks against Sakurai haven’t shown that; there are simply a LOT of people that have grown to like the guy over the years. I think as far as that criteria is concerned, Waluigi has a decent shot, but that’s just one piece of the puzzle.

Looking at Smash’s roster, you have to consider that this is a fighting game, and with it, characters need to be able to fight. There have been many characters that simply didn’t make the cut due to problems creating moves with which to fight, famously an Animal Crossing rep and Miis. However, as we can see with Smash 4, Sakurai found a way to make them work, but they clearly took some time. There are also technological considerations as well. Ice Climbers didn’t make it into 4 because the 3DS couldn’t handle them, and up until Ultimate, Ridley’s size was a big factor in axing him from the list of potential newcomers. I wouldn’t say that Waluigi has that many problems when it comes to putting him into the game, though. I’ll be honest in that his list of games doesn’t really give him much to go on in terms of a cohesive moveset at first glance, but plenty of characters in Smash get moves and powers thought up just for the occasion. Most of Ness’ PSI moves are from his other party members in Earthbound, for one, and Samus has never had rocket boots in any Metroid game, that’s for sure! So really, the sky is the limit for a potential Waluigi moveset, and with how zany of a character he is he could definitely be someone that could spice up the game…but really, I think there’s a deeper reason why Waluigi can’t make the jump to a full-on fighter: it’d go against his very character.

Go on a journey with me here, back to the year 2000, where the Nintendo 64 Mario Tennis saw release. Waluigi was also birthed here, out of sheer necessity. Each character in the game needed a doubles partner and with everyone else paired up, Wario was all alone. It was here that an “evil Luigi” was created, and he’s been with us since. I think that Waluigi’s creation here is quite telling; of the core Mario characters, he’s the only one who didn’t debut in a core Mario platformer. Even the likes of Birdo was a common enemy in Super Mario Bros 2 USA, a game that might not “count” to some fans, but has nevertheless had elements integrated into the Mario series since. He is the eternal outsider, someone who always seems to exist on the sidelines. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. This has since become a core component of his character.

Of the core Mario cast, Waluigi has never even gotten his own spinoff game, while his…friend Wario has had TWO spinoffs after debuting as a rival for Mario. Toad has even gotten his own game in the form of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker for God’s sake! Even though he’s guaranteed to be in most spinoffs, he’s one of the few characters that are often omitted. He wasn’t in Mario Kart 7, famously, and he’s never starred in any of the Mario RPGS (barring a Rabbid version of him in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle), and that all seems quite deliberate. Going off of his character, as we’ve seen primarily in the spin-off titles, Waluigi seeks glory and recognition, and as described by his voice actor, Charles Martinet, he wallows in self-pity. To give him a starring role in his very own game, or even make him playable in the video game world’s largest crossover…why that just wouldn’t work!

If you so much as glance at Super Smash Bros. you can see that Sakurai puts an insane amount of work into each and every facet of the game, making sure all the littlest details are right. Sakurai really strives to make sure every fighter is as faithful as physically possible. Inklings need to refill ink, Ryu has Light, Medium and Heavy versions of all his attacks like in Street Fighter, and even Ridley, while scaled down a bit, is still designed as a powerhouse who throws his weight around like the boss monster he is. So in enters Waluigi, a character defined by being an outsider, someone who dreams of glory that he’ll never gain, who constantly asks for others to pity him, and what does Sakurai do? He gives him what he deserves.

I don’t think Nintendo, or Sakurai for that matter, hates Waluigi. In fact, I think Nintendo’s grown to love the lanky guy, but they’re committed to the bit at this point. I mean, he’s nearly 20 years old, so if they were going to give him his own game or have him star in a mainline Mario game, or even Luigi’s Mansion or one of Wario’s games, they would have done so by now. He exists in a strange state of limbo, created out of necessity, not really belonging anywhere and lacking any real link to Mario, when you think about it. It reminds me of a critical essay taking a look at Waluigi in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek tone that’s since gone viral. The author in question, Franck Ribery, states that “Waluigi is the true nowhere man, without the other characters he reflects, inverts and parodies he has no reason to exist. Waluigi’s identity only comes from what and who he isn’t – without a wider frame of reference he is nothing. He is not his own man.” Waluigi can be there whenever we need a funny villain, but he is forever denied an entrance point to the big time. That feeds into his popularity as an Internet meme, really. People love him, root for him, but him getting his way would betray his character, so really an Assist Trophy is the best he can hope for when it comes to Smash Bros.

Or maybe Sakurai is really just trolling everyone. Yeah, even I don’t think he’s that malicious, but people can dream!

Until next time,

-B