winstein

Here's a preview on what I am working on, and in the vein of the current avatar I have now, there will be a digital rendition of the picture I have drawn to be used as an avatar. Do pardon how unsightly this looks since I didn't like how scanned images of drawn pictures turned out.



Thank you for reading.

I get a kick out of renaming titles that replaces "M" with "W" and vice versa, since the naming of Wario in relation to Mario is my favourite renaming for an "evil" variation of a character, and certainly more original than adding "Evil" or "Nega" to the character's name.

So here are some examples:
- Winecraft
- The Legend of Zelda: Mind Maker
- Mild Gunman
- Super Wario Waker

I don't know if it's common or if it's normal, but I seem to be able to recall how I learned a good number of the words I have learned.

Here are some examples:
- Revive: Super Mario RPG has this word
- Heinous: Pokemon Leaf Green, a word describing Team Rocket
- Purloin: A Pokemon called "Purrloin" comes from this word
- Hyperventilate: Garfield comic strip on 14th July 2002
- Conceal: Medabots GBA RPG, a support type that increases evasion
- Inert: Bejeweled Twist, which is the description given to rock pieces since they cannot be destroyed through matching them
- Retire: Sonic R's choice of word if a player wants to end a race
- Convenient: I learned this word on computer class during primary school for typing lessons, and the word struck out to be because the "venie" part of the word reminded me of "genie"
- Goliath: Worms World Party; there is a mode called "David vs Goliath", where one worm start with high HP while the rest start with little HP.
- Prominence: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance; This is one of the Illusionist' attacks, who specialises in hitting every enemy on the field with magic. This is the fire-elemental one

I've posed a question to a few parties, which is the question of whether Sonic or Garfield got it worse in public perception. The majority of people who answered the question gone with Sonic, such as this Tumblr post. From what I have seen, only one person believed Garfield got it worse than Sonic if his reasoning were to be believed ("Garfield has always long been a symbol of selling out Even by big name artists"). The general reasoning is that Sonic's inconsistency, leading to a community that doesn't agree with the things they enjoyed with the character.

Even then, I still can't shake the feeling that Garfield got it worse because from what I have seen on the internet there appeared to have more visible appreciative fan art on Sonic while Garfield's more visible fan art are more of "anti-fan art", not to mention how Garfield's Twitter is plagued with unpleasant posts (it stopped getting regular posts, which I attribute it to that) that don't know how to keep it to themselves, while Sonic's Twitter has an overall more pleasant community.

Sometimes I wonder why people are more aware of the breadth of SEGA's IPs compared to Nintendo's IPs, even though the latter lasted longer. What I mean is, yes, SEGA is best known for Sonic and to a lesser extent Puyo Puyo and Yakuza, but people are also aware of their other IPs like NiGHTs, Jet Set Radio, Virtua Fighter and Panzer Dragoon. In fact, there is a Wikipedia page that chronicles all of SEGA's IPs.

Nintendo on the other hand, had at one time got a complaint that they never made new IPs since Pikmin before Splatoon surprised people with its success that even convinced its naysayers. That is a misnomer given how many types of IPs they got out even between 2001 and 2015. Rhythm Heaven and Brain Age are among a few IPs that Nintendo had during those times, not to mention how overlooked the success of the Wii IP was. Of course there's also including famous ones like Mario, Legend of Zelda and Pokemon. In fact, this page chronicled a list of over 200 items in the list so it's not as if they are having a shortage of them, despite not every one of them reaching the heights of their best ones.

I suppose this is one thing that Smash does very well: it puts a lot of Nintendo's history into the spotlight, and while not every IP is represented by a playable character, they are still there to educate us on the amount of IPs that Nintendo do have.

For a very long time I have a disdain for people being passionate about voice actors that the idea of having one is a bad thing. I remembered that I got a warning on Bulbagarden forums because I commented that I liked the voice of a particular Pokemon in the Best Wishes anime. I should probably provide context on this because it would seem like a strange idea to most of you: back then the Pokemon anime had a mass replacement of voice actors that it became a sensitive topic. Apparently commenting on a voice of a character is a hot topic meaning that even though I only received a warning, it soured me on the idea of voice acting in shows because I am rather touchy on the idea of receiving infractions. (NOTE: Commenting on voice acting as a prohibition at Bulbagarden was already lifted by now)

There is also a case when a particular cartoonist had rejected the notion of his characters being voiced, claiming that the reason was basically that the reader's imagination of the character's voice would be "robbed". That plus the above gave me the impression that voice acting is a scourge to the enjoyment of a show. It's one reason that until now I never heard the any Friendship is Magic characters speak even though I have seen the animation. At times I wondered if a show could succeed without a need for voice acting because it seems that voice actors bring in the most money, and they even have a higher salary on average!



That's not to say that I held this belief for a long time, because I suppose it's based on irrational reaction. For one, I never knew for a long time that Hagar the Horrible has an animated series, and I always imagined that he has a very deep booming voice. When I checked out the animated series, I was surprised that he has a very rough voice that's not as deep as I thought, and I liked this. Another example is that it took me some time to overcome a mental block to check out Steven Universe and I think I appreciate the voice acting of that show. Even the cartoonist's particular work has a parody sketch on Robot Chicken, but because there were no official voices, I found the voices given to his characters to be quite perfect!

Sometimes I still think that it's ridiculous for fans to latch on to their favourite voice actors while I thought of myself as free from this, but some reflection on my part revealed that I might not be so different, because I would have a character I would prefer to stick with a particular voice. And that character is none other than Mario (I bet you saw that coming, don't you?)! Although Mario has a number of voice actors over the years, when Martinet's gave a high-pitched Italian accent to Mario, it really felt like a perfect match.

So yes, it doesn't sound like much but it's mystifying to me that the success of an animated show hinges on voice acting. Especially because to me an animated series is best enjoyed for its stylish animation over the voice acting.

Thank you for reading.

I previously watched a Tennis match in the Fever-Tree Championship Finals between Feliciano Lopez and Gilles Simon, and one thing I have observed is how often Faults (when the server failed to hit over the net) and Outs (when the ball bounced outside the court) happened.

Contrast this to Mario Tennis where it's easy to hit over the net and how difficult it is to get an Out and that either shows how either Mario characters are extremely talented in Tennis or that I am shocked that reality is not exactly as perfect as Mario and gang made Tennis out to be.

In every Mario spin-off, Luigi will eventually join Mario in doing what he does. As an example, for the longest time Dr. Mario is just Mario, but later on there's Dr. Luigi and then in the next Dr. Mario game, Dr. Luigi stands together with Dr. Mario. In Super Mario Maker, the second game added Builder Luigi. And Luigi is also doing something significant and not just standing in the sidelines! It stands to reason that when there's a new Mario game, Luigi will also be present because I guess people like him.

Now contrast that to a Luigi spin-off game like Luigi's Mansion. In that game Luigi is doing the work to rescue Mario, while Mario has traditionally never been able to participate in the same activity as Luigi. Given the how the recent Mario games unfold, it felt unfair that Mario had to be left out of the action when Luigi is the star. I suppose if Mario is playable then it would lose a lot of Luigi's purpose. I can imagine a scenario where Luigi complained about being treated as the second banana, then Mario will politely remind Luigi that he already invited him for every activity that he participated in and that people generally love him. He then made a quick comment that Luigi never invited Mario to help with vacuuming ghosts. (Writer's comment: I am one of the few people who wants Mario to be playable in Luigi's Mansion, instead of letting him languish in paintings every game)

What I am saying is that treating Luigi as some unpopular character is unrealistic now. Because Luigi is always together with Mario in every game that he starred in, so it's not like Luigi is unpopular (something I didn't like in Mario + Rabbids when Beep-o treated Luigi as some unknown at first). In fact, Luigi gets to do more because Mario never participate in Luigi's games while Luigi gets to participate in Mario's games.

It's pretty wild to compare some of my opinions on certain characters back in 2011 and now. I written the comments to accompany the pictures I've drawn for the selected characters. Here are some opinions at that time:

Donkey Kong: I am surprised that Mario had stated to start his career in 1985, when Donkey Kong was the first start of his career in 1981, as evident in the 25th Anniversary last year. Anyway, little nitpick aside, I don't have high regards on apes, so you can guess I don't have a lot of interest in Donkey Kong, as he's just a famous gorilla to me. However, I do like his necktie, which is a nice touch on Donkey Kong.

Rosalina: As I haven't got my hands on Super Mario Galaxy, there's not much I can say about her, although I heard that she had a touching backstory, which is probably not common for mainstay Mario characters. However, she's one of the better female characters in the Mario universe, which is a great thing to me.

Mallow: For some reason, I felt Mallow's performance in Super Mario RPG is lacklustre, probably because I often used physical attacks to conserve FP, and I heard that Mallow's best stats are the Magic stats. Anyway, Mallow's probably not as popular as Geno, since Mallow didn't have any cameo appearances in future games. Even I don't think Mallow's very highly, so I apologise to Mallow fans beforehand!

Geno: Geno can be a puppet of a doll, or maybe a scarecrow, but one thing for certain, no matter how Geno looks, he's a pretty awesome guy. I find it strange how Geno is actually intangible that takes the form of a doll, but his personality is one of the coolest aspects. But then, I am just being too straightforward here, so I am just going to say Geno's an awesome character and leave it as just that.

Click to expand...

These characters are some of the examples of how my opinion had changed since, so for example I held Donkey Kong in higher regard compared to before, and same for Mallow to a lesser extent, while I am neutral on Rosalina. Unfortunately for Geno fans, I am not quite feeling the love for that one, possibly because of how important the (Smash) fans played him up to be when I don't see it, because when was the last time Geno appeared in a Mario game?

I don't know if I should share what I drew, only because I fear it might be unpleasant to look at.

Many folks are excited about superhero crossover team-ups, or perhaps network-based (ex: Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney) crossovers or even video game characters team-ups, but here I am wishing that a comic strip team up would happen at some point.

Group shots such as the one below is nice...

...but seeing Kingdom Hearts made me wish that there is something for comic strips even though the nature of the works made it difficult, due to the violence involved.

One reason is that the strength of the most popular comic strip characters could raise the profile of others. Although comic strips aren't as big as they once were, I imagine Garfield and Snoopy teaming up would give the crossover some attention. Another reason is that I would love to see a number of less popular characters appear outside of the comics since they have limited opportunities.

It's not in demand for practically everybody, but there's at least one person who would want this.

I have to admit: when I seen the main character (the lady) named Sedine, my first thought is Shantae, no doubt due to the animesque design, long purple hair and body type. In fact, I can somehow see Wayforward tackling a game like this, although it's pretty unrealistic from what I can tell.

In terms of game companies that I missed for its old approach, that company would be Popcap Games. Their games has a mixture of casual elements and making dedicated playing rather rewarding, which is something Nintendo tend to do quite well. They used to do a lot of different types of games and even create new varieties of games, which includes things like a shoot-em-up that moves horizontally (Heavy Weapon), turn-based battles using words as a method of attacking (Bookworm Adventures) and an aquarium game about shooting aliens (Insaniquarium). Sadly when they were with EA they practically only focused on what they have, and of their existing properties, Plants vs Zombies is the one they focused the most on. I mean I like Plants vs Zombies but not the way they're handled since they were with EA.

And also because Bookworm Adventures has never been topped, and the real shame is that we may never see anything like it again. There is a game called Letter Quest that attempted to do this, but that game felt run-on-the-mill (ex: Q is an individual tile in Letter Quest) and doesn't provide a sense of action like Bookworm Adventures did (ex: Letter Quest doesn't reward big words with status effect tiles), even if it does have the right quantitative improvements (such as challenges and customisable stat boosts).

I've learned a couple of trivia that I didn't know or thought wrong:
1) Ms. Pac-Man debuted in 1982. I used to think that it debuted in 1981 since I might have misread the year long ago, and also that it felt logical that the game was launched not long after Pac-Man proved to be a phenomenal hit. That would make Ms. Pac-Man younger than Donkey Kong, Mario and of course Pauline.
2) Q*Bert, an arcade game character and a side character in Wreck-It Ralph, is owned by Sony. I was not aware of this and only found out about this on Hardcore Gaming 101. That would explain why Nintendo systems after the SNES never had a Q*Bert game even though on certain systems it made sense for there to be one.

It's pretty amazing how Wario's series are very much divorced from the wider Mario series. Besides Wario himself, you never actually see the cast of characters that starred in his games, nor is Diamond City every seen. On the other side of the coin, Mario does feature in some microgames, but not personally except for the very first Wario game since it's still considered a Mario game (Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land). It's like Wario doesn't want to be associated with all the characters found in his series when in Mario games, nor does he want to associate himself with the other Mario characters in his series of games.

At least with Donkey Kong, while yes, Mario elements are completely absent from DK games, Donkey Kong has substantial representation in the wider Mario series, such as in Mario Kart 7 with DK Jungle, or the DK stadium in the Mario Baseball games. Even Diddy Kong gets to be playable in several Mario games! To bring this point further, Mario and DK have a series of games where they share the title, and thanks to that, Pauline's also able to return (before Odyssey made a big deal about it).

(Somehow, I can clearly imagine that Wario is at odds with the other WarioWare characters and that feeling is mutual, even though they basically had to collaborate with each other for the sake of microgames)

Something I've noticed recently is that Garfield's Twitter stopped posting new things, at least not until there are some newsworthy updates. Normally they would post daily updates from Monday to Friday with something snappy to say, but it stopped earlier this month on August 2019. It's unlikely that the update has anything to do with the Viacom purchase only because it happened a bit earlier than that, but when I looked at Garfield's Facebook posts, there is only one possible reason: the tendency for inappropriate and sometimes not-safe-for-work replies to crop up. Seriously, Garfield's Twitter will never fail to have them, and because Garfield is a family-friendly property, the inability for those people to take the hint meant the Twitter posts had to stop so that those inappropriate content also stop coming (at least in droves).

My reasoning for comparing to Facebook is how the replies are generally more positive and encouraging, and in fact, new posts are still being posted there. It helps that Facebook also hosts a Garfield fan group that is generally more innocent about Garfield, so I think by association they posted on the official account too.

Sometimes I wonder whether popular fan works like Lasagna Cat and the horrific interpretation of Garfield (character) are harmful to the brand. Like yes, Jim Davis has allowed fan works to exist which would normally be considered a win similar to how Sonic fan games have free reign in its ability to be promoted, but sometimes when the result is the readiness for people to remark inappropriately by referencing said works, I am not so sure.

Divorce is another topic in comic strips that I don't think is common, but it's still fascinating to see since comic strips tend to veer on the standard family dynamic where the husband and wife are together, although not necessarily having a healthy relationship (examples: Andy Capp, The Lockhorns).

One such comic with divorced characters is Shirley & Son. As outlined by the comic below, Shirley and Roger (who isn't mentioned in the title) are the couple who undergone a divorce under unknown circumstances, and because they have a son, the son named Louis stays with his father on some days, and then stays with his mother for the rest of the time. Of note is that Shirley's neighbour Jackie underwent more divorces than her, so she seems used to the idea of a divorce. One interesting thing to note is that Jerry Bittle, the author, didn't go through a divorce himself, but he has friends who did, which is how he got material for his comic that would end up discontinued... because the author met his death on a vacation.




Gil is another comic I can think of where the main character's life is involved in a divorce, since his mother and his father are living at different places. The comic has essentially made it clear why Gil's parents had a divorce, and it's basically has to do with his father's attitude. I believe that Gil spent most of his time with his mother, which is probably appropriate given his mother's more positive role model compared to his father.



A few comics has divorced incorporated into the main characters' background too: Big Nate is one, where according to the fan wiki, the titular character's mother divorced his father under the circumstance that his father has an unbearable attitude. Barney & Clyde has Barnard (he's nicknamed Barney by Clyde) remarry, and his daughter had taken a sour attitude towards him and her stepmother even though she lives with him. To a lesser extent there's Sylvia of Pickles, who is the daughter of the elderly couple. She also remarried, meaning that her son and her current husband are not blood-related.

Comic strips with ageing characters are still very fascinating to me, since it's very rare for there to be one. A lot of comic strips prefer to freeze all the characters into the same age for years even as the environment around them had evolved, such as the introduction of smartphones. Some of the comic strips do age the characters but there is an "age ceiling" where characters stopped ageing once they reached it. An example on this is Peanuts, where even the baby characters grew up but are still stuck as children. I think Gasoline Alley might have frozen the ages of the characters in recent years but it's been years since I checked that comic.

One example of a comic strip with ageing characters is Baby Blues which is about a couple raising a baby, but eventually they have another two children. The ages of the children while each new baby was born are different, although the age of the characters started to slow down when the third child was born. It's interesting to note that Zoe and Hammy are still extremely short (a little taller than a baby's height) even if they are not babies any more. (Top 2: 1990 comic, bottom: 2018 comic; I haven't found a modern comic with all 5 members in the family present).



Another comic I would like to highlight is Arlo & Janis, since the characters do age and that is best seen by their son Gene who is an adult at this time of writing, whereas he was about 8 years old when the strip started (by contrast, Arlo was 35 when the strip started). The cartoonist (who hasn't been replaced, by the way) mentioned that it's to make technological and social advancements less awkward compared to if the characters were to have an age freeze. The age gap and a gag might hint that the titular couple are within their senior years (55+) already, meaning that Gene would be in the late 20s at this point. Comparison between an early strip and a strip from 2019. Noticed how different the characters look, especially the son Gene (last panel in second comic). Top is 1985, bottom is 2019.

I am convinced that Sonic and Garfield both have a lot in common even though they couldn't be more opposite from each other, such as how Sonic likes to run around and Garfield is generally lazy, and how their colours are even basically the opposite (Sonic is blue, Garfield is orange).

To list down some things:
1) The main characters have an attitude that people like
2) Their art styles are distinctive with their large expressive eyes
3) Their body types are pretty similar
4) They make wisecracks
5) Their later works are generally considered to be of lower quality than their heyday
6) They have a huge anti-fanbase that thrives in treating the property with a huge dose of cynicism

I do have to say that Sonic had it somewhat better than Garfield, because at least with Sonic it's far easier to find an actual fan of the character, but it's far more difficult to find one for Garfield.

It's interesting how there are so many Mario Kart imitators, yet there are far fewer Mario Party imitators. There were some contenders throughout the years like Sonic Shuffle (made by the same folks that handled Mario Party), Pac-Man Party and Disney Party (and to a lesser extent Crash Bash). The sheer number of Mario Kart imitator lead to more Kart racing games with quality, as we've seen with Crash and Sonic Racing (not to be confused with Sonic R).

Because of the lack of long-running Mario Party imitators, Mario Party is still the undisputed king of party games that marry board game and a mini-game collection.

(Yet we still haven't got a interactive element like a stage or item from Mario Party in Smash Bros)

Even though Waluigi has already enjoyed getting a lot of appearances in games, I still feel grateful whenever Waluigi gets to appear in a new game. It's also fortunate that he appeared early enough that he's a guaranteed inclusion in the roster, such as in the Mario & Sonic games and the Mario Party games. Some cases like Mario Kart 7 was unfortunate though.

My reasoning is due to how unique of a status Waluigi is. He's never appeared in a Super Mario (main series) game, but he's appeared far more often than a lot of characters that first appeared in Super Mario, so much so that he could feasibly stand beside the other main Mario characters. Moreover, spin-offs aren't inherently something to dismiss because they are complimentary, not derogatory to the main series. Unlike most of the characters that regularly appear in spin-offs, Waluigi gets to be something a lot of characters don't get a chance to be: playable. Yes, being playable improves the appeal of the character especially if the video game is fun, which is the case for most Mario games.

I suppose it's true when they say that Waluigi is hardworking: he may not have the privileges that many characters have (appears in Super Mario), nor does he appear in a game that is treated with importance (RPGs, character-focused series like Yoshi and Wario, and Super Mario), but he still has frequent playable appearances where he shows his character (here's where the "hardworking" part comes in) and I felt that it payed of.

Seeing how Waluigi gets a lot of push back when it comes to Wario and being playable in Smash only made my case clear. Sure there are people who didn't like Waluigi as to enjoy his exclusion, but at the same time the existence of detractors means that the appeal of the character is large enough to have them, as evidenced by those who actually like the character! It's unfortunate that there are quite a few people who were verbally uncool with Waluigi's unplayability in Smash, which I was disappointed with because it provided detractors ammunition to strengthen their case. Similarly there's Daisy who get a lot of dislike, but still, I do not wish for that to happen to other people's favourites like Rosalina, Geno or Fawful.

It's a bizarre thing for me to mention, maybe even lampoonable, but I just have to get it out there.

I recently learned that both Garfield and Space Invaders debut on the same month: June 1978. There isn't a specific day mentioned for Space Invaders unfortunately, but Garfield debut on the 19th of that month. It's amazing because within the history of newspaper comics, Garfield is somewhat younger than the middle of the timeline, but Space Invaders is practically early in the timeline of video games.

It's fascinating that despite being one of the main characters, Jon is bereft of the merchandising blitz that Garfield and his animal friends received. It's another way Jon is the opposite of Garfield, since he's relatively free of merchandising. I know Jon is not exactly the most appealing character in terms of design, probably because he might not look that great in 3D. Even Wario and Waluigi have official plushies and figurines despite their more "ugly" design! At most he's got a few figurines though.

I can't tell if Peach is analogous to either Manny Mouse of the X-Mickey comics or Eurasia Toft of some of the Mickey Mouse comics, since Peach was a replacement of the Mario's original girlfriend Pauline (who I would say is analogous to Minnie Mouse). Manny Mouse is essentially a recolour of Minnie Mouse with some slight differences, while Eurasia Toft is a taller and more human-like figure that shares the same species as the hero. Images of Manny and Eurasia respectively:



(Side note: X-Mickey also has a Goofy-lookalike who is a werewolf)

This was a thread I made years ago: https://www.marioboards.com/threads/35001/

But somehow a zygote/foetus analogy gets mentioned in relation to Mario, like as though Donkey Kong is unworthy of being treated as an important hallmark for Mario. I think times has changed now that Mario is proud to reference his Donkey Kong origins.

(Forgot to mention that even Captain Toad is proud to reference Donkey Kong compared to even Mario at that time, until I think Super Mario Odyssey)

For just the reason of loving Mario reciting video game titles (such as Mario Kart 8, Super Mario Odyssey and Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour), sometimes I like to imagine it if a game has Mario as the main character saying the game's title. Some example (even though the original game doesn't necessarily have the character reciting them):
- "Mario and the Pirate's Curse!"
- "Mario Unleashed!"
- "Mario's Mansion!"
- "MarioWare Incorporated! Mega Microgame-ses!"
- "Mario Raving Rabbids!"