Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 8 (Patreon)

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

Today, we are going to look at what is either an extremely specific reference or, more likely, an interesting coincidence regarding the shoes of Toadette and some other characters.

Sometimes Funky, sometimes Outrageous; it's the Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

The Secret of Toadette's Shoes

Over the past 10 years, Nintendo's art department has seemingly made it their goal to release official artwork of characters in higher and higher resolution. While older artwork is rarely found in resolutions of more than 1200 pixels in any dimension, newer artwork is provided to the media as transparent PNG files that routinely measure 3000-5000 pixels on the side.

One consequence of this is that it is now easier than ever to see the most minute details of a character's model used for the artwork. Together with the increasing sophistication of the textures and bump maps used on the traditionally very simplistic Mario character models, this results in a peculiar effect where artwork looks innocuous at normal resolution but a multitude of unseen details are revealed if the highest-quality version of it is zoomed in.

This is Yellow Toad's official artwork for New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. At a glance, this is hardly different from all Toad artwork released since the current Toad design was introduced in Super Mario Sunshine. However, zooming in on Yellow Toad's shoes, we can see they have a photorealistic leather texture:

Now, there is some debate over whether these are in fact shoes or whether this is what the Toad species' feet look like. However, there is in fact proof that they are shoes, as there is one case where a Toad is seen without any:

In Paper Mario: Color Splash, a Toad is seen without shoes or most of the rest of his clothes, revealing that Toads have feet that seem to be, at least in that art style, the same color as the rest of their skin.

Now, let's take a look at some of Toadette's artwork for New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which is significant since it is not merely a remaster of New Super Mario Bros. U artwork, but actually completely new as she was introduced as a playable character in this version:

And now let's zoom in at her shoes in these pictures:

As you can see, while the leather texture appears to be the same as Yellow Toad's from a distance, a close-up reveals that the material is different, being covered in small bumps instead of wrinkles. I had already pointed this out on my public blogs before; however, there is more to this than just the fact that Toad's and Toadette's shoes are different.

It turns out that the bumpy texture has appeared once before on the official art of another character. This is the highest-resolution Goomba artwork currently released, originating from Mario Party: Star Rush:

And here is a close-up of the Goomba's shoes:

A very similar bumpy texture is present here, as well. 

With Goombas, it is much more uncertain whether what they are wearing is shoes or whether these are their feet. On one hand, Goombella from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door says this at one point:

On the other hand, Goombella may be special among Goombas as she may have been retroactively changed to wear more elaborate shoes, meaning that while she is wearing shoes, regular Goombas may not be:

This trophy of her seen in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, her most recent appearance, has left her original design completely intact outside of adding more visible soles to her shoes. Note that normal Goomba shoes/feet have the sole in the middle of the underside so it is not visible when seen from the side.

In addition, there is the text that is relevant to the connection to Toadette I am discussing here. In Super Mario Odyssey, Mario can "capture" enemies using Cappy, which allows him to take over their bodies temporarily. When Mario captures a Goomba for the first time in an icy area, Cappy exclaims the following:

What this means is that Goombas experience much lower traction on ice than Mario, so it is advantageous to capture a Goomba in an ice-covered area if they are available. So, now we have established that Goombas' shoes/feet have a very similar texture to Toadette's shoes, and that Goombas do not slip on ice. 

Let us go back to New Super Mario Bros. U, and ice. Here is what Mario looks like trying to turn around on an icy platform in that game:

Mario experiences a significant amount of slipping. Now compare this to Toadette:

Toadette, however, does not. In fact, Toadette controls almost the exact same on ice as she would on regular ground. Note that Yellow and Blue Toad, also playable in that game, have the same traction on ice as Mario, meaning that Toadette's is significantly different from not just Mario's, but also the Toads, despite being nearly identical in physique... except for the shoes.

Here is where the connection comes in. 

• Goombas and Toadette have the same shoe/foot texture, which does not appear in the official art of any other character. 
• Goombas and Toadette share the same property of not slipping on ice, which Cappy attributes directly to the qualities of Goomba feet.

There are two possibilities here. The first one, which is admittedly very outlandish and frivolous speculation but nevertheless an interesting thought, is that this is a deliberate reference put in by Nintendo visual designers. The harmless interpretation would be that the bumps represent some quality that allows the shoes/feet to not slip, as a kind of visual shorthand. The more sinister interpretation would be that the leather of Toadette's shoes is actually made from Goomba feet.

The second possibility, almost certainly the one that is actually the case, is that this is all just a coincidence and that nothing was intended to be connected. The only way to test this is to wait for additional official art of Goombas and/or Toadette, as well as their in-game physics, and if both the textures and the ice traction continues to be common between them, a case can be made for this being intentional.

As of the time of this writing, the most recent game with both Goombas and Toadette is Super Mario Maker 2, where Toadette experiences the same physics as all other characters through the necessity of being playable in a competitive four-player mode and thus needing to be identical in all mechanical aspects to the other characters. Goombas do not slip on ice as enemies are not affected by ice physics. The results are inconclusive but also point in the direction of this being a coincidence.

This concludes today's wild speculation. Until tomorrow!

Thank you very much for reading.