List of rumors and urban legends
Being a long-running and popular franchise, there have been various rumors, misconceptions and urban legends regarding the Mario's series fiction and production history.
Production
Super Mario FX
It is frequently rumored that a 3D platformer named "Super Mario FX" using the Super FX chip was in development for the SNES. Variants of this rumour claim that the game was turned or otherwise repurposed into Super Mario 64.
As elaborated in this SnesCentral article, there are no actual proof that such a game was into development (which would've been unlikely due to the timetable of Super Mario 64's development), and claims of its existence seem to originate from IGN misinterpreting a Nintendo Power interview where Shigeru Miyamoto stated he got the idea of developing a 3D Mario platformer (without specifying platform) while making Star Fox. Furthermore, said article's writer contacted Dylan Cuthbert (game programmer who designed the Super FX chip and collaborated with Miyamoto on Star Fox), who confirms that no 3D Mario platformer was in development for the SNES and that "Super Mario FX" was actually a codename for the chip itself.
Larry Koopa is named after Larry King
Several articles (such as this one by the British Official Nintendo Magazine) purports that Larry Koopa is named after the talk show host Larry King, perhaps due to the writer's inability to think of a famous musical "Larry". However, according to former Nintendo of America employee Dayvv Brooks, Larry is also named after a musician like his siblings, in this case, Larry Mullen, Jr., the drummer for the rock band U2[1].
Gunpei Yokoi's departure
It is frequently said that the poor commercial performance of the Virtual Boy caused Gunpei Yokoi to leave Nintendo, with variations claiming Yokoi left "out of shame" or was otherwise demoted by Nintendo prior to his departure. One article goes as fas as to claim that the Virtual Boy was somehow indirectly responsible for the car incident that killed Yokoi.
However, in an interview made for the book Nintendo Magic, a business partner of Yokoi, Yoshihiro Taki, stated that he had long planned to retire from Nintendo and would've done so regardless of the Virtual Boy's performance. The biographical book 横井軍平ゲーム館 provides a similar explanation, stating Gunpei Yokoi had grown cynical about the video game industry and that the Virtual Boy actually delayed his departure, as he decided to design one last successful product (The Game Boy Light) as to not look like he was parting on bad terms.
Fiction
King K. Rool's costume are separate characters in the Japanese Donkey Kong Country translations
King K. Rool's trophy description in Super Smash Bros. Brawl peliculiarly states that "His brother, Kaptain K. Rool, made an appearance in the game Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest." This lead to several fans wondering if this was a change in the Japanese localization, which, due to the broken telephone effect, was morphed into a "fact" that King K. Rool's disguises are separate characters in Japan.
In truth, Japanese material for the Donkey Kong Country series also have K. Rool aliases being mere disguises[2]. and thus the trophy description is merely an error. This is further compounded by the fact that Brawl's trophy descriptions are filled with errors, including ones about games director Masahiro Sakurai worked on.
Ashley's age
It is commonly claimed among online fans that Ashley is 9/10-years old in Japanese WarioWare material and that her age was "changed" for the western localization. The claim was featured for a time on the wiki's Ashley and Red page, although it was later removed for being unsourced.
While there are hints that Ashley is meant to be younger than 15-years old (such as her voice and Ashley referring to herself in the third person in her Miiverse Sketch Masterpiece Collection video, a verbal tic that usually denotes young, immature characters in Japanese media) she has no specific stated age in any Japanese WarioWare media, including the official Japanese WarioWare: Touched! website [3]
External links
- The Transformer's Wiki "Misconceptions and urban legends about Transformers" page
- Smashwiki's "List of rumors" page
References
- ^ Dayvv Brooks (former Nintendo of America employee), on July 18, 2012.
- ^ Japanese Wikipedia page for King K. Rool, Wikimedia foundation (acccessed August 8, 2014)
- ^ Ashley's page on the Japanese WarioWare: Touched! Website, Nintendo of Japan, (accessed February 25, 2014)
