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The original game
Grodus is a powerful summoner.
This would explain why he thought he could get away with controlling the Shadow Queen, he was used to controlling things stronger than himself. She just happened to be FAR stronger than he anticipated. Oh, and he didn't summon anything bigger than his Xs when facing Mario because 1) he underestimated the plumber and 2) if he called anything else he'd risk collapsing the Palace of Shadow. The X-Naut Fortress used to be a spaceship, and landed on the Moon to avoid the conflict on the planet below.
The X-Nauts were probably looking for a new home and intending to land close to the Mushroom Kingdom, but then Grodus got a good look at the place via orbital scans. Princesses getting kidnapped? Magic users on par with him? Plumbers stomping on every baddie in sight? Of course he'd decide the moon was a better place to prepare for a full invasion.- At least he had more foresight than the Shroobs...
The Shadow Queen is the same species as the Shadow Sirens.
- They have the same basic design.
- Further supported by the fact that Queen Jaydes, mistress of The Underwhere (the Marioverse's Hell) follows along a similar design track, thus implying that the Shadow Queen is just one of the Underwhere's less scrupulous entities.
- Isn't this pretty much canon? The Shadow Sirens seemed to be sent out to make sure the Thousand Year Door was opened one way or another. (That's Beldam in the opening cutscene giving the map to Peach, by the way.)
Ms. Mowz is the wife of Rowf, the badge shop owner from the first game.
Someone in the original Paper Mario mentions that Rowf's wife used to sell badges with him. Ms. Mowz in the sequel is a badge thief/salesmouse, and their names are somewhat similar.- Probably ex-wife then.
- Upon inspection, the original lines from the Toad who mentions Rowf's Wife in the Port is actually, "I met that Rowf in a different town a long, long time ago. Back then, he was selling rare foods, not Badges. I recall he had a beautiful wife at the time. They worked so hard together to build a business up from nothing in that town." This editor believes this could still be the case though, that he took up Rare Badge selling/purchasing in order to win back his Shiny Stealing ex-wife.
The four legendary heroes of black chest fame are cursed to be incarnations of the fourth wall.
When they are released, what do they do? They specifically cover the front of the screen, serving as a wall that blocks off everything except for Mario himself. In addition, they are the only characters who know that everyone is paper-thin, and how to use this knowledge to your advantage. Now, are they truly forced to keep up bad publicity, or is their "evil" nature a side effect of knowing too much?- Possible, but it's unlikely their "evilness" was from insanity (at least insanity induced by meta-knowledge). My bet is that acting "evil" while laying the curse was a condition to breaking their own curse.
The name requirement for the Twilight Town Warp Pipe was made because of Doopliss
Perhaps Doopliss was banished to the region to prevent him from spreading his sick pranks further across the land. Think about it...a demon who keeps his name secret for his most potent magic to work wouldn't write it down on himself, therefore Doopliss would never be able to use the Warp Pipe to leave. of course, once Mario exposed his name to get his identity back, Doopliss could freely write his name down and flee Twilight Town, and consequently he appears in later chapters.Charlieton is a great fighter
How else does he make it all the levels in the Pit of 100 Trials? And perhaps he got those rare badges by fighting in far away place...- He probably knows alternative routes through the pit.
Flurrie is from Lumpy Space.
She's purple, she's cloudlike, she floats around randomly, and she is definitely lumpy. She's been living among the Punis long enough to lose the Verbal Tic, but she's still a Lumperson.Mario and Luigi's surname is Gonzales.
That's where Mario's Glitz Pit stage name, the Great Gonzales, came from. I'm guessing the reason they're not called the Gonzales Brothers has something to do with "Mario Brothers" having a nicer ring to it.- According to an interview with Miyamoto, Mario and Luigi only have one name.
- That and it was Grubba who came up with Great Gonzales as a name, not Mario.
The Thousand-Year Door is a theatrical reenactment of the real quest.
The events of Thousand Year Door had been noted to be compiled into book form—or, if we want to WMG further, Luigi was the one who went on the adventure (as evidenced by his stories to Mario and the Super Luigi book series), but Executive Meddling in the universe where Paper Mario was published forced them to change the protagonist to Mario because they believed that nobody wanted to play a game with Luigi as the protagonist. However, somebody somewhere felt sorry for Luigi, putting in the Easter Eggs about Luigi's quest, and Mario can still "cosplay" as Luigi via badges.This explains why you have an audience cheering you on in the battles — it really is all just happening on a stage, and "Star Power" is part of the gimmick to keep the audience involved.- ...and Hooktail eating the audience?
- And for that matter, Cortez eating the audience's souls, Lord Crump sucking the audience into a giant mecha and using them as cannon ammo, and the Shadow Queen absorbing the audience into her own body.
- Don't worry... they all signed release forms.
- And it's all part of the show anyway. If you want, you're free to believe that nobody was hurt.
Incidentally, the end credits somewhat support this theory, since Flurrie is shown on stage with Mario in the theatrical reenactment of "his" quest.
- Not only that, but the first shadow in the credits is Luigi, not Mario.
- If I recall correctly the "Mario" on stage in the credits is actually Doopliss.
The Save Block on the moon was put there by the Goombas that first landed there that Goombella spoke of.
It was their "American Flag", so to speak.The book Goombella reads when you Tattle in battle was written by none other than RAWK HAWK.
Obviously, Rawk Hawk seems to have written his own entry, but what about the others? Well, who better than a fighter to learn the stats of enemies when there's not an adventure going on? And who would be most successful besides a champion? It's only good for Grubba that he kept R.H. more or less content until Mario came along; with such information in his possession, he might've gone after him!Bonetail didn't start out skeletal.
Being stuck at the bottom of a giant dungeon doesn't really call for much nourishment... it may have started out like its living predecessors, but after so long, it became weary and just turned into bones. But, being one of the Shadow Queen's pets, it wasn't able to die just yet. It was meant to die but stayed animated due to the Shadow Queen's dark magic. So, it stayed in this undead state, in a state of rage and unable to do anything but the purpose it was meant to serve: devour anyone who dares enter the Pit of 100 Trials. Mario is able to put it out of its misery with either the Crystal Stars (when going through the Pit of 100 Trials normally) or just... sheer luck and skill (when going through the Pit of 100 Trials before fighting Hooktail). Rawk Hawk is a Captain Ersatz of Sonic the Hedgehog
Let's see: Totally Radical Anthropomorphic...whatever he is? Styles himself as Mario's rival, but can be curbstomped each time without much effort? Rawk Hawk even looks like Super Mode Sonic, what with the golden spikes and everything...The Shady Koopa in the mid-Shadow Queen cutscene was KP Pete
The Shadow Queen's darkness, mixed with his power being returned from Grubba, turned him into a shady koopa.Shadoo is the Pixl Queen
There are actually several clues that point to this in Super Paper Mario. First, Shadoo said that she was going to get revenge on the Ancients using the power of the Pixls. This is similar to how the Pixl Queen took control of the Pixls and used them to enslave the Tribe of Ancients. In addition to this, the Pixl Queen was said to have "powers of illusion", which she used to hide herself from sight. Shadoo has a similar ability, because she is able to hide from sight and take people's forms. These two things make it very likely that Shadoo was the Pixl Queen. It's possible that instead of being killed during the Pixl Uprising, Shadoo was locked up in the Flopside Pit of 100 Trials.The Sling-a-Thing service and the shady Thing shop are a commentary by the developers on free-to-play games.
It's a flash, entertaining, completely free service... but once you're out of things, you're directed to a shop where you can buy more things to fling. Sound familiar?Rawk Hawk graduated from Kansas University.
Rawk Hawk Jayhawk? Look at the
◊similarities!
Rawk Hawk is as strong as he says he is.
Yes, we all know that the two Rawk Hawk battles can turn into a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown issued by Team Mario, but what if Rawk Hawk is only at Level 1 when you fight him? It makes sense, and would explain why Mario and Bowser can beat him so easily. In that case, I don't think I'd wanna see what type of damage the Feral Nuclear Reactor could dish out if he was at a level equal to Mario during the Glitz Pit battles...After Flavio got bumped down to second-richest man in Rogueport, the title of richest went to... the koopa living on the west side.
Anytime you go into his house and talk to him, the koopa will mention some investment of sorts he's made in the past chapter has has made him even richer. It's highly likely that his increase in wealth, coupled with the loss of the S.S. Flavion, was the cause of Flavio's downgrade to second-richest.The town that fell victim to the Shadow Queen's "great cataclysm" and sank into the depths of the earth, to be replaced by Rogueport years later...
...was the capital city of none other than the fabled Luff Empire spoken of in Luigi's adventure. With their Marvelous Compass, the Luffs assumed themselves invincible and thought they could handle themselves against the Shadow Queen during her rise to power. We all know how that ended.The Magikoopa Masters are actually three clones of Kamek.
They look identical to his clones from Mario & Luigi: Dream Team...The reason Beldam is the way she is...
The reason she was mean to Vivian: She was jealous of her. She was more powerful, prettier and probably had more people like her, In-Universe and out. And so, in order to make herself feel better and/or to get rid of the jealousy, she began bullying her.The reason she played favoritism with Marilyn was because one) she felt sorry for her. She couldn't talk and she was rather big, and so Beldam felt somewhat bad for her. And two) she needed her on her side. She was the strongest out of the Shadow Sirens — possibly one of the thee strongest — and Beldam knew if she mistreated her like she did with Vivian, which would've caused a Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal, this could've very well screwed her over.The reason she worked so hard to revive the Shadow Queen was because of an inferiority complex. She felt that her only purpose in life was to serve the Shadow Queen. And she secretly felt inferior to her, so she may've been planning on becoming the next Shadow Queen over Vivian or something.And the reason she was mean to Doopliss... was because she liked him.note The real reason the Armored Harriers are only at the bottom of the major league, despite their invincibility...
...is that they don't actually care about advancing, only about crushing the dreams of rookies, similar to Tonpa from Hunter × Hunter.Doopliss watched A Bronx Tale.
Two characters in A Bronx Tale are called Crazy Mario and Slick, and they're pretty similar to each other, which is why Doopliss calls Mario Slick.The Shadow Queen is related to Fomortiis.
Both were defeated in similar ways in the ancient past, though the number of heroes and the number of stones differed; and they were both sealed away rather than destroyed outright.The place where the seventh Crystal Star was originally hidden is actually Rogueport itself.
There are only two places featured on the Star Map where there is no Crystal Star to be found. Of course, one would expect that the seventh Crystal Star would be hidden in Fahr Outpost, but the natives never even mention the X-Nauts once. And you'd think that they'd draw some attention, in such a small and remote village. So, there really only is one other option. It would make sense that the four heroes didn't manage to hide it in time before the curse hit...Alternatively, the hiding spot might've actually been the Moon all along - it IS featured on the map, after all. A third possibility would be that the Crystal Star never actually was hidden in the first place - it was always in Beldam's possession, and that's how the X-nauts managed to obtain it.
- Pretty sure it's confirmed in the game that it was hidden in Rogueport, with Grodus talking about the X-Nauts having found a Crystal Star in Rogueport. Also, it's stated that the Crystal Stars kept the heroes from being cursed while the Stars were in the heroes' possession, and it's implied that the Black Chest Demons are the heroes, which would mean that one of the Crystal Stars was hidden in Rogueport.
The Gold Star is technically the Pyrite Star.
Pyrite is a gem type, like the other Crystal Stars, and often mistaken for the mineral gold. Hence its nickname "fool's gold". Gold Star just sounds better, so that's what everyone calls it instead.The Dojo Master and Prince Mush and Jolene...
...are related. Same blond hair, same species, similar chosen vocations... I wouldn't be surprised if Prince Mush fights exactly like the Dojo Master does, except stronger.Grodus was one of Smithy's generals.
Grodus was Smithy's attempt at building a general based on a wizard's staff, but the sorcerer rebelled and escaped. Time passes and eventually he builds the X-Nauts, a new race of mechanical constructs based on his own design.Rawk Hawk is a parody of Sonic The Hedgehog.
Look at him! He's got "spines" in the form of a mohawk hairdo, he's got the 'tude... heck, he even has a spindash!- Sonic doesn't have a mohawk. Not that this can't be true, but that's one less shred of evidence.
The Switch remake
The remake will feature new content based on Luigi's adventure.
Maybe not a full game, but maybe at least show the Marvelous Compass, Princess Eclair, the Chestnut King and Minister Crepe onscreen. Or heck, make this whole adventure a separate release entirely.- Perhaps there will even be a full-blown side mode based on it akin to Bowser's Minions or Bowser Jr.'s Journey to provide further incentive to buy the remake. It would be in line with the new content that's being added to the Super Mario RPG remake.
The remake will contain a Sequel Hook for Super Paper Mario.
Maybe a stinger will be added, showing Count Bleck preparing to set the Dark Prognosticus's prophecy into motion. Or Dimentio will make a cameo at some point. This seems more likely if they're planning to remake Super after this game, but it could still happen even if they aren't, to give the games a better sense of continuity.- Any Sequel Hook it has would far more likely be Tribe of Ancients members closely watching Mario with vague comments.
The remake's version of "It's Battle Time!" will feature First Strike versions of the intro.
In the reveal trailer, when the music switches to the battle theme, it starts with an energetic riff of the famous Ground Theme intro rather than the glissando of the track's original version. This brings to mind whenever Mario would get the First Strike on enemies in the original Paper Mario as well as the modern games, which would play an upbeat fanfare when Mario struck first and a more downbeat one when the enemy did instead. The version played in the trailer could easily be the "You got the First Strike!" one for the remake; the trailer itself displays Mario entering battle at that point with no First Strikes either way, but you can't always trust the way a trailer is put together to be accurate to the final product.The Palace of Shadow was originally the palace of whoever ruled over the ancient city beneath Rogueport.
We only know that it was one quarter of the ancient city that the Shadow Queen turned into her treasure-filled lair. But what if it was actually the home of the original ruler of the city that she just happened to corrupt (it's also possible that the ruler was one of the Shadow Queen's many victims)? This would also mean that the Thousand-Year Door itself was the door to the ancient ruler's former home, too.- Goombella's Area Tattles about this place mention that the site of the door was where the palace in the middle of the ancient town used to be, and even wondered about what kinda of people lived there (in the throne room she speculates that the most important person would probably be there). So yes, it could be the former residence of whoever ruled over the ancient city before it was the Shadow Queen's home.
- Then again it does say that the Crystal Stars were created by the Shadow Queen herself, and depictions of them are on the eponymous door…
The "Super Bowser Bros." segments will be replayable in the remake's postgame.
And they will be expanded as a full-on remake of the original Super Mario Bros.The remake will have some sort of Take That! moment against the modern Paper Mario trilogy.
Candidates include Kersti being seen on a wanted poster or a new Goombella NPC Tattle lamenting a Toad without a name.The remake won't have any additional content.
Minor changes, maybe. But no additional content.Mario will be able to use the shower in the X-Naut Fortress, because it would be funny.
Bonus points if they reuse the voice clip of him humming in the shower at the beginning of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.The English and German localizations of the remake will retcon Vivian back into a trans woman facing Trans Tribulations.
In a day and age where trans people are being more recognized by the mainstream, even in works aimed for younger demographics, it's likely that Vivian's most well-known aspect about her will be added back to the scripts that once changed it, especially in the rise of games on Switch that include transgender characters. It's also been shown that Nintendo is willing to rework their scripts for their Mario RPG remakes, as the trailer shows Bowser saying "lunkhead" instead of "airhead", while the Super Mario RPG remake rewrites Culex to be closer to his Japanese incarnation.- This has the potential to be true, as one trailer had shown Bedlam angrily referring to the "Shadow Sirens" as the "Three Shadows — RELATION WITHHELD", implying Vivian's trans aspect could be in the game alongside Bedlam's transphobic treatment of her.
The Shadow Queen's battle will have skippable cutscenes as an Anti-Frustration Feature
Considering the she's most likely to get you killed multiple times, the remake might make it so both her awakening cutscene and the Crystal Stars cutscene can be skipped depending on if they've been viewed once.After Mario gets brainwashed by the Shadow Queen in the bad ending, Mario's sprite will now change to the Doopliss Impostor version in all versions, rather than just the Japanese version.
It makes the scene much more impactful, as in the original, Mario just stood there after being brainwashed, making the scene less scary. So it would make sense for the remake to restore the scene to its original horrifying glory. Additionally, the light flash when Mario gets brainwashed will be replaced by a lightning bolt, like with the Chest Ghosts' curses.There will be a new Limit Break style attack akin to the Triple Moves from the Super Mario RPG remake
My guess is that it would be something along the line where Mario's partners possibly pair off to use their moves together (IE, Vivian setting Koops' shell on fire or Flurrie blowing Bobbery straight at the enemy so he has more time to charge his explosives).Some of the more outdated dialogue in Twilight Town will be changed to fit with modern times
Things like the WiFi speed, if only so that the joke would still land in 2024.- Potentially jossed, as the GBA Fire Emblem reference is still in the game.
Hooktail's most hated animal will remain a frog across all regions in the remake.
The animal identified as a frog in Japan was changed to a cricket in international releases presumably due to the sound effect used by the relevant badge being from a Japanese species of frog that western audiences might not recognize as a frog. The Switch version of the game may, instead of identifying it as a different species, replace the sound file with that of a more western-recognizable frog croak.- Confirmed by preview footage.
Elements that were Lost in Translation in the original will be retained in the localization of the remake.
For example, Koopook hiding in Shiver Palace and Pine T. Sr. becoming a Li’l Oink farmer after he and his son leave.