Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 7 (Patreon)

Welcome, everyone, to the seventh issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone! 

Today, we are going to look at all the different quips that Bowser says in the "Super Koopa Bros." platforming segments in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door whenever he loses a life.

Great! Just great! Now I look like the huge, mighty king of GUYS WHO READ SUPPER MARIO BROTH!

Bowser's Life Loss Lines

At three different points during Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, particularly after Chapters 2, 4 and 6, Bowser is playable in segments that resemble traditional Mario platformers (and were no doubt instrumental to the idea underpinning the sequel, Super Paper Mario). These segments, collectively, are known as "Super Koopa Bros." due to this being their name in the game's soundtrack.

Since these segments are meant not as a challenge, but more as a relief of the dramatic tension usually preceding the Bowser scenes with the story-heavy Princess Peach scenes, they do not punish the player for losing. Bowser is shown at the beginning of each segment to have unlimited lives, represented by an infinity symbol.

(While this is merely a frivolous connection of otherwise unconnected games, if we remember that in Super Mario RPG, Bowser's Magikoopas are shown to create a magic Treasure Box that can produce an infinite amount of coins, and if we take the fact that 100 coins equal one extra life in Mario games to be true for Bowser as well, then it can explain how he can have infinitely many lives: he simply has his Magikoopas convert the unlimited coins into lives for him.)

Before each attempt, Bowser will appear briefly in the center of the screen and say a quick line, whereupon the screen fades to black and the gameplay fades in. A player of typical skill may get through all segments without dying and may not even see that whenever this happens, the following things occur:

• The world counter in the heads-up display increases by one
• Bowser says a different line before gameplay starts.

In all three segments, Bowser goes through the same set of 30 lines in the same order. It takes a lot of patience to see these as it becomes very repetitive to try and get Bowser killed 30 times, but fortunately, I am here to show you all of them so you don't have to do it yourself. I will showcase four of them at a time, arranged in squares. You can see what attempt it is by the world counter on top of each screenshot.

The line "Inconceivable!" may be a reference to the running gag of this line being used by a character in the 1987 cult classic movie "The Princess Bride", although the line is of course short and generic enough to be a regular exclamation, as well.

The fact that Bowser's emotions keep changing from sounding exasperated to motivated provides a certain "fake-out" effect where unless the player knows that there are 30 lines, it is hard to tell which one is going to be the last.

As I was recording these, I was starting to believe they were randomized (that is, until I checked each segment under different conditions to be sure), however, Bowser saying "Timing, baby!" on Life 18 and "Rhythm, baby!" on Life 19 shows that despite appearing to exhibit wildly different moods, there is continuity between the lines.

These messages seem to be building up to something, until Life 25, where Bowser says...

The mood changes back to a more relaxed one again. 

Starting with Life 30, the message "Gotta do it!" repeats forever until the segment is completed, referencing the fact that the player must get through it for the game to continue. 

In the end, this is a charming addition to this already original idea to change up the usual RPG gameplay, and I would personally like to see this done more often in other Mario games, as well. The joy of seeing another message from the playable character could counteract the frustration of losing a life and having to restart the level.

This concludes today's Bowser quotes. Until tomorrow!

Thank you very much for reading.