Gameplay and story are completely different. If they gave some random Goomba in TTYD 5000 HP that wouldn't make it any more powerful story wise just a heck of a challenge to beat gameplay wise. Similarly if the Shadow Queen were easy that wouldn't make her not a near invulnerably almighty demon who can enslave the world on her own.
Of course there's a general correlation. But it's not always the case. Imo Cackletta isn't as powerful as the Dark Star yet Superstar Saga's final boss is harder than Bowser's Inside Story. One boss being harder than another may usually mean that it's canonically more powerful, but not always.
Count Bleck is actually one of the hardest bosses in the game if you ask me. I guess you probably played this in adulthood whereas I was still in my single digits when I first fought Bleck. I didn't get the whole bosses are too easy thing back then. Coming back to it now I can appreciate its flaws for sure, easy bosses being one of them, but that doesn't make the story any less amazing. I agree that both Bleck and Dimentio deserved to be harder which would have communicated their vast power in terms of gameplay as well as dialogue and cutscenes, but that doesn't mean that they're actually less powerful.
What do you mean?
There's the whole Bowser and King Boo theory. Or we could just assume the plots are discontinuous. Plus if Bowser is cannonically more powerful than Super Dimentio the heroes should have won the first half of the Super Dimentio battle and wouldn't need the Pure Hearts. Bowser is pretty powerful for sure but he's not a godly almost immortal multiverse eater.
Bowser has a lot of weaknesses and oversights in his plans that let Mario kill him like the Star Spirits in PM64 or simply uinderestimating Mario (in several games).
well I won't talk about the final battle from PM because you haven't beaten it yet but when you fight the shadow queen in TTYD let's just look at all the stuff she can do, she can breath different types of breaths that cause status affects, she can suck the life out of you to heal herself with her hands, turn her big hands into an army of small hands that drains the audience or attacks you, she can temporarily increase both her damage and defense and for her most powerful attack can charge up energy and let it all out in a single large explosion.
I said, Dimentio isn't extremely powerful in his base form (though I'd argue still a considerable threat) but Super Dimentio is the most powerful form any Mario character ever takes. If Bowser got the Chaos Heart or something at least as powerful (I know someone was saying the Star Rod but my impression so far is that Chaos Heart > Star Rod, as for the Dream Stone I've not played DT yet so I'll have to wait before giving my opinion on that one) I'd agree he could be at least as powerful as Super Dimentio ever was.
I know. But Dimentio was persistent as well he just got defeated permanently. We don't even know that for certain however, we just assume it because we never saw him again (though I really wish we did). Infinite revival doesn't mean everything. If I had to pick the more powerful character out of this one dude who doesn't do anything and doesn't have any real power but keeps being annoying because he can come back to life an infinite number of times, or someone with divine evil power that can basically kill anything and did lose forever, but only because of one very specific and difficult weakness, hands down I'd pick the latter.
Yeah haven't played that
I was exaggerating, but my point stands that infinite revival doesn't override everything else.
Thanks for respecting spoilers. I mean as I say gameplay and story are different, I'm pretty sure that lots of games have gameplay mechanics that exist for just that and aren't representative of what goes on canonically. SPM may have kind of botched the combat but it's not fair to also say that its bosses are cannonically less powerful because the devs added weak attacks gameplay wise or made them too easy.
That and the whole multiverse consuming process. There might be other stuff but that we know of that's all I can think of.
I'd argue that picking up Bowser by his tail and throwing him into a mine isn't as impressive as travelling the multiverse to find ancient artefacts that allow you to be fully empowered by the power of love and save the multiverse.
In any case the Pure Hearts are definitely more powerful than a triplet of ordinary old mines.
I mean counteracting the protective power of the Chaos Heart is a huge amount of power in itself. It's not just that they're a special maguffin that can do this, they really are presented to be the most powerful thing there is and are the only hope of turning back the evil prophecy. The ancients had to hide them in all their secret places so that only the true, worthy hero would find them. They open doors to new worlds. They are a force so powerful Tippi can feel it from a mile away. Cmon thats definitely better than just a regular old explosion.
Again gameplay =/= story. That was just a part of the battle system which SPM didn't have, and I don't think would have worked with this game.
I don't remember if it was ever said explicitly but definitely it feels implied. Whoever wrote the Mario Wiki page on the Pure Hearts agrees with me anyway.