Captain Rainbow, Densetsu no Stafy, SSX On Tour, NBA Street V3, and some others

[Time Turner]

This is something that just bugs me so much. These games are crossovers, but are not exactly treated as such. For those that don't know...

• In Captain Rainbow, Birdo is one of the characters that the protagonist helps out
• In Densetsu no Stafy, Wario helps out Sta(r)fy throughout all of World 8
• In both SSX on Tour and NBA Street V3, Mario, Luigi, and Peach are playable characters in the GameCube versions of the games
• Probably some others I missed, feel free to mention them.

Currently, the wiki has an article on the game... and that's it, unlike other crossovers. Like the Smash Bros series, where we created an article on all of the playable characters, all of the bosses, all of the items, and all of the stages. What I want to know is how should we treat these games? We can't just say they're "half crossovers" or something, since no such thing exists. Either they're crossovers, in which case we create articles for all the everythings in them, or they're not, in which case we create a little section for them on the Video game references article. I just want to get this issue out there. I don't really have an opinion on the subject, but I just want to have some consistency.

 

[Toad Eightyfive]

Oh, long time no see, Reversy.

About the topic, I'd say that the reason (excluding Captain Rainbow, which I totally agree with you about) that these games don't get ample time is that, even though Mario and co. appear, the focus isn't on the Mario series, but on Starfy, the NBA, etc. What makes SSB different is that Mario and co. are major characters, and are given as much screen time as all the other characters. Not to mention Mario and co. are playable.

 

[Time Turner]

I'm surprised someone remembers me.

The thing with the NBA and SSX games is that there's no actual plot, so to speak. Mario, Luigi, and Peach are playable characters in those games, same as in SSB. And if SSX On Tour is like SSX 3, then the game is just "Snowboard down the hills", and presumably NBA Street is similar. There's really no focus on anything.

 

[Toad Eightyfive]

Yeah, but it's still an SSX/NBA game, not an "SSX meets Mario" type of deal.

 

[Daniel Dyce]

Yeah, but it's still an SSX/NBA game, not an "SSX meets Mario" type of deal.

But it's a crossover because Mario is a playable character and there is a stage based off of the Mario series

 

[Toad Eightyfive]

Yeah, but it's still an SSX/NBA game, not an "SSX meets Mario" type of deal.

But it's a crossover because Mario is a playable character and there is a stage based off of the Mario series

I'm not doubting that.

But there's still a distinct emphasis on the NBA/SSX, and Mario just seems to be a stage-filler.

It's kinda like Sonic in Brawl. Yeah, he was playable, Shadow was an Assist Trophy, and Green Hill Zone was a stage, but its emphasis was still on first- and second-party characters like Mario, Link, and Kirby.

 

[Daniel Dyce]

Yeah, but it's still an SSX/NBA game, not an "SSX meets Mario" type of deal.

But it's a crossover because Mario is a playable character and there is a stage based off of the Mario series

I'm not doubting that.

But there's still a distinct emphasis on the NBA/SSX, and Mario just seems to be a stage-filler.

It's kinda like Sonic in Brawl. Yeah, he was playable, Shadow was an Assist Trophy, and Green Hill Zone was a stage, but its emphasis was still on first- and second-party characters like Mario, Link, and Kirby.

I'm not going to argue over wether or not Mario was just filler (fun fact they were) i'm arguing over wether or not it should be considered a crossover and if it is a cross over it should be given the same treatment as all other crossovers

 

[EctoBiologist]

I'm surprised someone remembers me.

The thing with the NBA and SSX games is that there's no actual plot, so to speak. Mario, Luigi, and Peach are playable characters in those games, same as in SSB. And if SSX On Tour is like SSX 3, then the game is just "Snowboard down the hills", and presumably NBA Street is similar. There's really no focus on anything.

 

[Walkazo]

From Category:Crossover Games, we get the following list of crossovers in the broadest sense of the word (boldface ones are currently given full coverage):

Art Style: PiCTOBiTS
Captain Rainbow
Game & Watch Gallery series
Itadaki Street DS and Fortune Street
Mario & Sonic series
Mario Hoops 3-on-3
Mario Kart Arcade GP 1 and 2
Mario Sports Mix
NBA Street V3
SSX on Tour
Super Smash Bros. series
Tetris DS
Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!

PiCTOBiTS and Tetris DS are just puzzle games so there's not really much to cover anyway, so their info being confined to one page seems reasonable. The three non-bold games are lacking in coverage, and Densetsu no Stafy is only covered on the Video game references page and Sta(r)fy's article itself (Starfy#Densetsu_no_Stafy_series) (and Wario's page (Wario#Densetsu_no_Stafy_3) mentions it too).


The only reason NBA Street V3 and SSX on Tour have game pages is because the Mario characters are playable, which elevates their appearance above your run-of-the-mill cameos (items, pictures, costumes, name-drops, homages, etc.), hence they're not relegated to the Video Games references page. By the same logic, one could reasonably argue that Wario's role, while non-playable, was still important enough to warrant a page for Densetsu no Stafy 3 too. However, calling these three games crossovers and giving them full coverage would definitely be going too far.

The way I see it, they're not crossovers, they're more like... guest appearances. More than cameos, less than integral aspects of the game; enough to argue for full game pages, but not enough to warrant full coverage. Treating these games the same as full-on crossovers like Mario Hoops 3-on-3, where Mario material is half the game, would be a huge misuse of our time, effort and server space. Unlike actual crossovers, these games have nothing to do with Mario besides what little Mario material has been thrown in. If you take away the Mario stuff, these games are essentially the same (Starfy could get help from anyone; the sports games can go on without a couple players and a hill or whatever), but you can't take Mario out of the actual crossovers without seriously crippling the games.

That being said, as far as I can tell (my knowledge of this game being admittedly limited), Birdo is a major character in Captain Rainbow, and I believe her absence would take a decent chunk of plot out with it. Furthermore, the game itself seems to be built like a multi-series crossover platform: most of the characters are from other series... However, the main characters are original to the game, as is the setting and story and whatnot. Therefore, I wouldn't put it on the same level as Super Smash Bros., which would be nothing without the crossover series, and which heavily features Mario content (a lot more than the somewhat-re-imagined Birdo and some cameos). On the other hand, saying it's the same as NBA Street V3, SSX on Tour and Densetsu no Stafy 3 doesn't feel quite right either, but ultimately, I'd rather have one solid page about Captain Rainbow, rather than the handfuls of under-tended stubs that would probably result in granting it full coverage. (Most users are not going to know or care enough to write extensively about a Japan-only game that's only tenuously connected to Mario.) If we clean it up and write about the full plot, and not just the Mario stuff, I think we could do Captain Rainbow justice with just the game page.




tl;dr vesrion: There's cameos, there's crossovers, and there's in-between "guest appearances". This last type are games that feature Mario content (i.e. in large supporting roles or as playable characters), yet are rather removed from the Mario series itself, and are not centered around their Mario content. (On the other hand, if you take the Mario stuff out of a full-on crossover, you're pretty much killing the game.) Also bear in mind the fact that our userbase is probably not going to be able or willing to devote large amounts of time and effort building up pages about games that are only distantly related to Mario.

 

[NSY]

About 75% of the material in Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and Mario Sports mix is Mario and only 5% of the material in SSX and NBA are Mario just to sum up Walkazo's point.

 

[Toad Eightyfive]

About 75% of the material in Mario Hoops 3-on-3 and Mario Sports mix is Mario and only 5% of the material in SSX and NBA are Mario just to sum up Walkazo's point.

*my point.