The Best Nintendo Character Facts on YouTube

[Music] did you know in the original designs for the legend of zelda ganon was referred to as bull demon king and hakai hakai comes from the japanese translation of the 16th century chinese novel journey to the west the name is derived from the immortal character chohokai in the novel chohukai was banished from heaven and transformed into a hideous half-human half-pig monster which likely inspired ganon's appearance the name ganon is of irish origin and means fair-skinned or fair-haired it's not known if ganon's name is based on this irish origin and seems like an odd choice considering his design while the name is canonically spelled in the zelda series as g-a-n-o-n it was originally spelled with two ends in the middle like canon this misspelling was present in the original legend of zelda as well as the famicom disk system version of zelda 2. the name was fixed in the north american nes release of zelda 2 and has been spelled correctly in every game since although ganon doesn't take part in zelda 2 itself he's shown on the game over screen which threatens the return of ganon in the japanese game this screen used a roar sound effect but the english version uses a laugh this laughing sound is actually a reused sample from punch out where it was used for soda popinski [Music] the legend of zelda a link to the past was the first game to make mention of ganon's human form ganondorf the localization team also took the liberty of giving him the full name of ganondorf dragmire they also gave him the title of man drag ganon which apparently means ganon of the enchanted thieves these names are only mentioned in the north american instruction manual and aren't considered a part of the zelda canon ganondorf made his first physical appearance in the legend of zelda ocarina of time a game which has some interesting secrets ganondorf's laugh in ocarina is the same sound effect as the forest temple's post sisters the sound is just sped up or slowed down for each instance after his defeat in twilight princess ganondorf has a brief monologue about the triforce throughout history this monologue was originally much longer the final build of the game only includes two lines but there are a total of seven lines that can be found in the game's data ganondorf also appeared as the final boss and wind waker wielding a pair of twin swords with hylian engravings when translated the engravings read honmono a japanese word which means genuine or the real thing this is perhaps in reference to an earlier boss fight against ganondorf's doppelganger phantom ganon interestingly phantom ganon's sword is also engraved and the hylian translates as zubora gabora zubora and gabora are the names of the two blacksmiths from majora's mask ganondorf himself does not appear in majora's mask however in the 3ds remake two horse dolls can be found in romani's room one of them is based on ipona while the other appears to be based on ganondorf's horse from ocarina of time ganondorf was also set to appear in oracle of ages and seasons for the game boy color ultimately only ganon's beast form made it into the games as a secret boss all that publicly remains of his human form is a piece of concept art despite being a serious threat throughout most of the series ganon falls victim to several silly tricks and exploits in zelda games while fighting ganon's alter-ego agonym it's possible to deflect his fireballs with a bug catching net possibly as a nod to this trick the bug catching net can also be used to deflect demise's fireballs and skyward sword in ocarina of time the fireballs thrown by ganondorf and phantom ganon can be deflected by swinging an empty bottle a trick that was also carried over to wind waker in twilight princess ganondorf has a weakness to another unusual item the fishing rod pulling out the rod during and casting a line will distract him long enough for link to attack during the development of ocarina of time director and producer shigeru miyamoto had no idea how large they'd be able to make the game's world in an iwata asks interview miyamoto explained that in order to conserve memory he initially planned the entire game to be set within ganon's castle the castle would serve as a hub world to enter other areas much like princess peach's castle in super mario 64. and in a worst case scenario link might not have left the castle at all miyamoto elaborated at first i didn't mind making the game complete within a single building as long as i got to make link in 3d in other words it might have turned out like zelda 2 the adventure of link partially because of that i started making it with the idea that ganon's castle might be enough one relic of this idea is the fight against phantom ganon where the villain rides a horse in and out of paintings miyamoto believes the fight to be a glimpse of his original idea and would use it to illustrate the concept for colleagues for the final boss in ocarina of time one early concept was to make ganon a literal giant the player would be forced to climb ganon's massive body and attack his weak points the idea was scrapped for two reasons the nintendo 64's limited power would have struggled to render the villain ganon would also be so large that it'd be impossible for players to see his whole body however this unused concept of fighting a giant enemy and scaling its body was brought back for super mario galaxy the idea was repurposed and led to the creation of the boss megaleg ganon has made several appearances outside of the zelda games one franchise is the super smash brothers series where ganondorf was actually a last second addition to melee according to series creator masahiro sakurai ganondorf was a very lucky character to get in to be honest i had no plans to bring ganondorf to smash but because of his various convenient circumstances he was able to join the fight i received his model and his traits were very clearly defined the body proportions matched captain falcon and above else his popularity was high ganon also made a cameo appearance in the animal crossing new leaf update ganon's birthday and new leaf is february 21st this is the day the legend of zelda was first released in japan back in 1986 [Music] did you know red the main playable character from the first generation of pokemon games was originally known as satoshi in japan however this wasn't the character's first name thanks to the pokemon fan site helixchamber.com information from prototypes of the original pokemon games have been published this includes graphics and a name for the game's playable character yuichi multiple sprites for yuichi have been found including his intro animation from full to overworld sprite interestingly yuichi's full sprite depicts them with a whip similar to the team rocket members in the original games the prototype data also reveals a previously unseen early back sprite for red as a quick aside there's also unused sprites for red in the fire red and leaf green remakes the player was originally intended to ride a lapras during their surfing animation instead of the simple blob the player rides in the final game in the final build of the japanese game the character was implied to be named satoshi this was an homage to satoshi tajiri the creator of the pokemon franchise and co-founder of game freak this is also reflected in the japanese versions of the original games which include the name satoshi among the default player names similarly the protagonist of the anime series was also named satoshi in japan but was renamed ash ketchum overseas satoshi was subsequently localized as ash in the names list by the time pokemon red and blue reach western shores despite their similarities red and ash ketchum are not the same character while there is early concept art of ash wearing a hat very similar to reds this was ultimately changed in ash's final design and the two would continue to drift further apart in the following years one especially noteworthy difference between them is that unlike ash red has visibly aged over his appearances in the video games most notably being portrayed as an adult in pokemon sun and moon this version of red has its own little easter egg as well red shirt in sun and moon reads 96 which is likely a reference to 1996 the year that pokemon red and green first released in japan the character wouldn't be officially named red until the release of pokemon gold and silver in 1999 where players could fight red in a climactic final battle at the peak of mount silva this battle holds a number of distinctions such as being one of the highest leveled trainer battles throughout the entire series this is especially true in the pokemon heart gold and soul silver remakes in fact reds level 88 pikachu is the highest level pokemon owned by an npc that a player can normally face in mainline pokemon games another interesting fact is that each member of red's pokemon team consisting of pikachu charizard blastoise venusaur snorlax and either espeon in the second generation games or lapras in the remakes reflects a part of red's journey through pokemon yellow the connection with yellow is further supported by the fact that red sprite and pokemon gold silver and crystal is a mirrored and slightly altered version of his sprite in yellow furthermore the snorlax that originally blocked route 16 in the first generation games is missing entirely from the second gen titles and their remakes this has led some fans to speculate that red captured this missing snorlax explaining its appearance on his team meanwhile although espeon obviously can't be obtained in the original games a pokeball containing espeon's pre-evolved form eevee can be found in celadon city nevertheless espeon was ultimately replaced by lapras in the remakes possibly to round out red's team with exclusively first generation pokemon however fans have recently found evidence that red may have been planned to have a bigger role in these second gen games this evidence comes from an early prototype build of pokemon gold and silver known as the space world 1997 demo this prototype of gold and silver was showcased back at nintendo's 1997 space world trade show a full two years before the game's initial release although the demo was thought to be lost for over two decades on may 26 2018 an anonymous user uploaded it to the pokemon reverse engineering tools discord channel thanks to the efforts of a dedicated fan group known as team space world the demos long hidden secrets have been revealed among them is the discovery that players can't name their character in the demo and instead the trainer is always named satoshi red's canon name at the time while this could suggest that the main character of pokemon gold and silver was originally intended to be the same trainer from the first generation games team spacewald has found evidence to the contrary it turns out the spaceworld 1997 demo was a carefully curated slice of the game that included many aspects that were touched up or completely altered specifically for the show however by editing a single bite of the game's rom it's possible to see the actual build of pokemon gold and silver game freak had at that time pulling back the curtains on even more surprises did you know gaming reached out to samuel obscure mesner one of team space world's leading hackers and translators for an explanation mesner stated the fact that the player can't name their character was thrown together specifically for the space world demo if you disable demo mode you get to name your trainer as usual the default names you can choose from for the player are gold satoshi and jack and for the rival they are silver shigeru and john my educated guess for why they chose satoshi and shigeru for the demo is that they wanted to ride the hype of the anime which had been airing for a few months at the time on top of that there's definite evidence that the player character in the early gen 2 wasn't meant to be the same trainer as in gen 1. this evidence can be found when the rom is edited when players walk into the tall grass at the start of the game they are stopped by their rival blue and taken back to the lab after the player receives their starter pokemon blue hands them a pokedex saying i used to want to be the world's best pokemon trainer when i got too arrogant there was one who showed me humility somehow you remind me of him thanks to him i was able to mend my ways if that isn't enough a debug mode can be accessed in the space world 1997 demo by pressing select on the title screen this debug mode includes a number of unique differences that set it apart from the other versions of the demo the player's default name is set as koji whereas their rival's name is red this may be in reference to koji nishino a designer at game freak who was also the inspiration for the pokemon snorlax mesner told us this could mean that at an even earlier stage in pokemon gold and silver's development red was slated to be the rival however it's more likely that the programmers just chose some arbitrary names secrets have also been found in the debug modes of other pokemon games too even those that reach store shelves for example the debug mode of the english versions of pokemon red blue and yellow changes the player's default name to ninten and the rival's name to sony a reference to nintendo's bitter rivalry with sony's playstation at the time those aren't the only hidden player names in the original japanese games when debug mode is enabled in pokemon red and green versions the player is named yamaguchi this pays homage to wataru yamaguchi who received a special thank you in the game's credits meanwhile the player's rival is named ishihara referencing sunikazu ishihara who is now the president of the pokemon company in the japanese blue the player is named gefuri an abbreviated play on game freak and the rival is called kuricha a nod to the game's co-developers creatures inc red's reputation as a silent protagonist has become something of a staple within the series often only responding with ellipses when spoken to in encounters from the 2nd gen games and onwards despite this there's evidence that red has in fact spoken in a pokemon game before one example of this can be found in the original games in saffron city where the player meets a character known as copycat speaking to copycat reveals a peculiar conversation where red says hi do you like pokemon uh no i just asked you huh you're strange then the copycat says hmm quit mimicking but that's my favorite hobby the distinction between the player character's dialogue and copycats indicates that red did indeed speak moreover copycat needs something to mimic in the first place [Music] did you know mewtwo's first video game appearance in north america wasn't actually in a pokemon game you two first appeared in one of the game boy camera's photo albums and an image alongside charizard venusaur and blastoise the game boy camera had several built-in games and unlockable pictures and was released almost four months prior to pokemon red and pokemon blue in the united states thanks to mewtwo's popularity it also appeared in several games outside of the pokemon franchise most notably the super smash brothers series although mewtwo first entered in super smash brothers melee the character was planned to appear in smash on the nintendo 64 but was cut early on due to a combination of budget and time constraints however mewtwo was one of the most requested pokemon fighters for smash brothers which practically guaranteed him a spot in melee interestingly mewtwo was teased in the original e3 trailer for melee mewtwo's shadow ball attack is shown hitting donkey kong over six months before mewtwo's character reveal in the japanese version of melee and smash for the nintendo 3ds and wii u mewtwo speaks using actual language instead of simple grunts after a match for example mewtwo can be heard saying which means fool the pokemon also says which translates to there is no way i can lose and in mewtwo's final victory message it says this means why am i here referencing mitu's existential confusion in pokemon the first movie speaking of victory screens mewtwo has a unique victory fanfare in the data for super smash bros brawl as well as a wii remote character selection sound this suggests that mewtwo was partially developed during the game's production and was planned to appear as a playable character although mewtwo finally returned for smash brothers for the nintendo 3ds and wii u one new element of the pokemon's character was left out it was briefly discussed which of mewtwo's mega evolutions would appear in the wii u and 3ds games as mewtwo's final smash but smash brothers creator masahiro sakurai quickly came to a conclusion he decided to include mega mewtwo y as megami2x was all about physical offense which clashed with sakurai's concept of mewtwo and smash sakurai told nintendo dream from a gameplay perspective i guess it could work to have him summon all his strength and deliver a powerful punch to his opponents but that's not the type of character mewtwo is in smash veteran pokemon developer junichi masuda has also stated that mewtwo has two mega evolutions instead of one so that players could utilize more strategies with mewtwo and it would also encourage trading pokemon that mewtwo was based on mew also appears in the smash bros franchise via the pokeball items and new's chance of appearing from a pokeball in each of the smash brothers games reflects how many pokemon there are when each game was released in the original super smash brothers mew has a 1 in 151 chance of appearing and in melee he has a chance of 1 in 251 and finally mew's chance of appearing in brawl is one in 493 the word mew was also the first pokemon related term to be trademarked its application for trademarking was submitted in 1990 five years before even the trademark for pocket monsters was submitted mew was a little-known secret when pokemon red and green were first released in japan even nintendo was not initially aware that programmer shigeki morimoto had put mew into the game after the team removed the debug code in the original pokemon games they had a small amount of free space left which moymoto used to add mew in secret this small covert act had a huge impact on the pokemon series as mew's inclusion became the stuff of schoolyard legend and helped spread awareness of pokemon through word of mouth mew and mewtwo have a clear connection and it's obvious that mewtwo's name stems from it being an altered copy of mew however mew's name seems to have multiple possible origins it may come from the japanese word myo meaning strange since mew has a cat-like appearance its name may also come from the onomatopoeia of a cat's meow as well as signifying its relationship to mew mewtwo's name could also be a play on the word mutant as the two words are phonetically similar mew's relationship with mewtwo could also be based on a debunked biological idea called recapitulation theory recapitulation theory suggests that when an animal develops from an embryo to an adult it goes through phases that resemble previous stages in its evolution mewtwo is seen as the next evolution of mew and looks like a stronger fully developed creature mew on the other hand looks almost defenseless and greatly resembles an embryo it's pink rounded with a large head and a tail even animals that don't have tails when fully grown like humans have developmental tails as they form in the womb yuu has also been seen within spheres resembling an amniotic sac a kind of bag that encases a fetus until shortly before birth mew is even said to contain the dna of and be an ancestor to all pokemon this connection between mew mewtwo evolution and embryos is very reminiscent of recapitulation theory mewtwo has multiple official origin stories across the different pokemon canons in pokemon games it's said that metoo's birthday is february 6th it's also stated that mew was impregnated with mewtwo a modified clone which is contrary to other depictions of mewtwo being created and grown in a laboratory an interesting difference between regions is that the original japanese games imply that mewtwo was created by a single scientist the japanese games used the singular personal pronoun watashi in the pokemon mentioned diary entries whereas the english games used the plural wii one origin story in the pokemon adventures manga aims to explain mewtwo's creation in more detail in the manga team rocket scientists didn't collect enough of mew's cells to complete the body of mewtwo one of these scientists the gym leader blaine then used some of his own cells so that mewtwo is able to become complete this means that mewtwo is effectively part human besides mew there's another pokemon that has relation to mewtwo the pokemon musical pokemon live was a licensed for kids creation produced by four kids executive producer norman j grossfield the show featured a new pokemon exclusive to the musical called mecca mewtwo though it is not part of the mainstream pokemon canon like mewtwo and the pokemon anime mekamutu was created by scientists working for giovanni the pokemon is unique in that it can learn any move and can amplify that move's power and by the end of pokemon live mekimutu has learned every move from the original pokemon games mechamu two is also ten feet tall seven feet wide eight feet deep and weighs 4 587 pounds over twice as heavy as the heaviest official pokemon the pokemon even received its own promotional trading card given out to attendees of the musical though it's not recognized by the official pokemon trading card game [Music] did you know when nintendo was preparing to release super mario brothers creator shigeru miyamoto wanted a professional manga artist to draw the game's box art time was running short however and miyamoto had no choice but to draw it himself while he knew exactly what mario should look like he hadn't done many sketches of bowser and struggled to come up with a solid design for the villain miyamoto was a big fan of toei animation at the time and based bowser's design on the ox king from the 1960 adaption of journey to the west this explains bowser's unusual appearance on the box art of the original super mario brothers character designer and animator yoichi kottabe was later hired to create new illustrations of the mario cast and when kotabe came to draw bowser the super mario brothers cover art was all he had to go on takashi tezuka a game designer at nintendo later insisted that bowser should be a turtle this was due to bowser's connection with the koopa troopa enemies through discussions with nintendo staff kotabe eventually produced the final design of bowser when miyamoto saw the finished product he exclaimed wow i can really make bowser look cool now the new design was helpful when creating the 3d model for bowser on mario 64 as kotabe already drew models in a sense he would visualize characters in his mind's eye and draw them from various angles for other artists to reference while trying to come up with a name for the character the developers considered three possibilities koopa uk and bibinba all of which are japanese names for korean dishes in japan bowser's full title is daimao koopa which roughly translates as great demon king koopa while he's almost exclusively known as king koopa in japan there were a few times the name bowser was used in japanese media in super mario sunshine which featured english voice acting in all regions princess peach refers to bowser jr as bowser's son additionally in mario kart wii the bike known as the flame runner in the english release was called the super bowser in japan meanwhile the instruction manual for the north american version of super mario bros referred to bowser as a sorcerer king in addition to the king of koopas in the italian dub of the super mario cartoon series he was called ry attila presumably after attila the hun there are many secrets relating to bowser and mario games at the end of each world in super mario bros mario has a showdown with what appears to be bowser however if the player defeats any of the first seven bosses using fireballs their true identities are revealed these villains are actually regular enemies disguised as bowser bowser's super mario bros sprite also holds an interesting secret character sprites on the original nintendo generally use just four colors three colors as well as a transparent color bowser however appears to use four full colors the black used for his metal arm and wristbands is actually transparent and the black background is filling in that space if the game is hacked to place bowser in a level with a background that isn't black bowser's arms are disconnected from his body after defeating the manager of smithy's factory and super mario rpg bowser composes a haiku that reads like the moon over the day my genius and brawn are lost on these fools in the japanese version of the game this was completely different rather than a haiku bowser composes a free verse poem that reads why does everyone say mario mario my heart is very sad in the japanese version of super mario kart both peach and bowser's victory screen show them drinking champagne in the international release this was changed to have bowser holding the bottle and peach throwing it in the air bowser's shell from double dash was planned to return in mario kart ds but was cut for unknown reasons bowser's seven underlings the koopalings made their first appearance in super mario bros 3. however they were nameless in the japanese game giving them names was a task which fell to nintendo of america product analyst dave brooks in an interview with kotaku brooks explained that he'd worked as a dj for several years and music was at the forefront of his mind while naming the kids ludwig von koopa was named after classical composer ludwig von beethoven because of his hair roy was named after singer-songwriter roy orbison who often wore glasses wendy okupa and iggy koopa were named after rock singers wendy o williams and iggy pop respectively morton koopa jr was named after the talk show host morton downey jr because he looked like a loudmouth and lemmy was named after motorhead frontman lemmy kilmeister because he had crazy eyes and seemed like a loose cannon as for the final koopaling brooks stated and then there was larry there's no real world equivalent he's not larry mullen jr from u2 or larry king he just looked like a larry despite being initially introduced as bowser's children nintendo has since contradicted this in an interview with game informer miyamoto stated our current story is that the seven koopalings are not bowser's children bowser's only child is bowser jr and we don't know who the mother was although not related to bowser the koopalings were confirmed as siblings by the american website for new super mario bros u aside from his many appearances in the mario series bowser has cameos or references in other games the super nintendo port of sim city included bowser as a giant monster that shows up to wreak havoc on a player city bayonetta 2 and the wii u port of the original bayonetta feature special costumes based on princess peach and princess daisy wearing these replaces bayonetta's regular wicked weave attacks with punches and kicks from bowser himself in the 1998 game gekks into the gecko gex references bowser by name in one of his lines i guess bowser's on vacation although the game was released on both nintendo 64 and playstation the quote only seems to be present in the playstation version as numerous lines had to be cut from the nintendo 64 version in order to fit the game onto a cartridge bowser made an appearance alongside several other classic video game villains in the disney movie wreck-it ralph while nintendo was open to the idea of having bowser in the movie they were also very specific about how he was depicted when test footage was sent to nintendo for review one of their first comments was about the way bowser drank his coffee they also insisted bowser must be taller than zane geeth and m bison from capcom's street fighter series to date bowser has appeared in more than a hundred different games although high this number is less than half of how many games mario has appeared in that said there's one game bowser appeared in that mario did not new super luigi you [Music] did you know although princess peach was originally created by nintendo veteran shigeru miyamoto the design we know today was created by an entirely different artist animator and character designer yoichikotabe was asked by miyamoto to redesign peach miyamoto wanted her to look stubborn yet cute and for her eyes to look a little cat-like this process ultimately led to peach's current design of a short-sleeved dress and blonde hair kotave was also commissioned to enhance the design of both mario and bowser although kotave left nintendo in 2007 he'd return to design peach's letters in super mario 3d land in japan the princess has always been known as peach when super mario brothers was released in the west however she was named princess toadstool this would be her official english name for almost a decade the first game to give her the name peach outside of japan was yoshi safari a first person rail shooter on the super nintendo the name was most likely changed so it would fit inside the yoshi's safari dialog boxes and it was reverted back to toadstool in subsequent mario games three years later the release of super mario 64 resolved the discrepancy by using both names for the character and from then on she was officially called peach in all regions compared to her appearance in official artwork peach's early in-game sprites looked quite different one example is the original super mario brothers where she wore a white dress and had red hair this was due to the limitations of the nes's picture processing unit which had a limited color palette and can only render four colors per sprite tile the first time peach had blonde hair in the game itself was in nes open tournament golf and it was the only game on the nes to do so the 1986 animated movie the great mission to rescue princess peach is notable for being the first time that peach was given a voice provided by pop singer mami yamase other actors who have voiced peach include samantha kelly nintendo of america localization manager leslie swann and jen taylor who's also known for her role as cortana in the halo series princess peach has been in more video games than any other female character in history having made appearances in over 80 titles to date during the development of mario tennis for the nintendo 64 the designers at camelot came up with an idea for a new character tentatively named warupichi to serve as a rival counterpart to princess peach in the same vein as wario and waluigi however this idea was shot down by shigeru miyamoto in an interview with kotaku punch out wii's producer kensuke tanabe revealed that he originally wanted to include princess peach as a guest character however she was dropped due to the possible negative reaction of violence against women another game where peach was considered as a playable character during development is new super mario bros wii when asked why she wasn't playable in the game miyamoto replied i thought it'd be nice to have her as a playable character but the toad characters had a closer physique to a mario character than peach does and if one of the four had a dress we'd have to come up with some special programming to manage how the skirt is handled in the gameplay and that's really the only reason why peach isn't playable of course if we had wario in there we'd have to program a way to make him fart peach finally got her break with super mario 3d world according to the game's producer koichi hayashida peach wasn't originally planned as a playable character at the start of development she was intended to be the damsel in distress character as she is in other mario titles the idea of her being playable was brought up by the game's producer yoshiaki koizumi koizumi told polygon i feel like mario games have done lots of representation of male characters over the years so it's actually really nice to be able to have a female playable character in the game i think she adds a lot to the sense of competition when you get in multiplayer you can have different people choosing different characters based on their personality or whoever they like and princess peach is just really a lot of fun to play [Music] the first game to focus solely on peach was super princess peach for the ds according to miyamoto it was important to nintendo that peach was portrayed as optimistic and empowered in the game he went on to say that peach has never seen herself as protected by mario our image of her is one of strength many of the game's developers come from homes where the mother wears the boots super princess peach has several unused objects and enemies that appear to be heavily inspired by yoshi's island these include rolling chomp blocks two types of booze and sprites of goonies taken straight from super mario advance 3. there's also two unused types of goombas that seem to be based on the glad and calm emotions also present in the data but not used in the final are the seven koopalings only their art exists but they're fully animated and would likely have been bosses there's also a total of 11 stages not used in the final game they include a test stage with warp pipes leading to other unused stages a level with a pair of doors and a floor that freezes when the sad vibe is used a stage full of blocks enemies and coins that sends the player to world zero when completed and a level containing so many sad goombas that it causes the game to lag and the graphics to glitch out super princess peach was developed by tozei a japanese video game company that specializes in outsourced projects since being founded in 1979 jose has worked on over 1 000 games most of which they've never been officially credited for tozei's company policy is to never have a vision and only follow their clients instructions the only exception to this rule is the legendary starfee series which jose shares ownership of with nintendo the data for super princess peach contains unused 3d models and textures that appear to be based on the legendary starfie games these graphics are present in the data for densetsuno staffy4 where they are also unused the developers also snuck a more obvious reference to starfy into super princess peach the starfish enemy bears a heavy resemblance to starfy the main character of the legendary starfie games the starfish's in-game description states that it's rumored to be the prince of a kingdom which is also an allusion to starfy's backstory as the prince of the puff-top kingdom [Music] did you know wario first appeared in the 1992 gameboy title super mario land 2 6 golden coins the game was developed by nintendo's rnd1 team who made metroid and kid icarus r d1 avoided working on franchises they didn't have a hand in creating and found it much easier to invest in characters they had made themselves this leads to them creating wario to act as super mario land 2's antagonist wario was an exaggerated opposite of mario and the team believed he helped symbolize their situation the character proved to be very popular and even took over the mario land series of games which became wario land in wario land 2 wario can undergo special transformations when hit by enemy attacks one such enemy is a penguin that throws balls getting hit by these balls will cause wario to turn red and stagger around uncontrollably until doused with water which seemed to make little sense however in the original japanese version of the game the penguins threw mugs of beer rather than balls wario was intoxicated by the beer when hit but this was censored in the west the wario land series went on hiatus for around seven years but saw a revival on the wii with the release of wario and shaken the game's producers takahiro harada and atsunobu ibisa wanted to make the ultimate 2d game with shake it everything in the title was hand drawn with no repeated backgrounds the amount of animation necessary for this was gargantuan a single action for a character required about 30 frames leading to 2 000 individual frames for wario's movements alone and a further 6 000 for the game's enemies according to program director koichi yagi the scenery by itself would have filled up the nintendo gamecube [Music] the wario games have an odd history of being released either very early or very late in a system's life cycle wario's woods is both the last officially licensed game for the nes in north america and the only nes game to receive an esrb rating due to the ratings board being established in 1994 wario land 2 is the last first party nintendo game to be released for the game boy conversely the warioware game's touched snapped and smooth moves were launched titles for the nintendo ds dsi and wii respectively the inspiration for warioware came when series director goro abe and his team were working on a nintendo 64 disc drive game called mario artist polygon studio an art program where the player could create and animate their own polygonal 3d models the program included a mode where the player would have to complete several quick mini-games in rapid succession this mode inspired several team members of r d1 who wanted to base an entire game around the concept they began work on the idea without telling their supervisor arbitrarily choosing wario as its star because wario was always doing stupid things and was really idiotic when the team members eventually came clean the project was approved and warioware inc mega micro games was released for the game boy advance in explaining the game's concept ave stated with the first warioware game it wasn't so much the specific character of the game that marked it out but rather that nintendo was quite a different company back then both inside and outside of the company there was a distinct image that we only produced nintendo style games warioware was born out of a desire to depart from the norm with that particular kind of fun that you only get when you make something different when nintendo decided to release warioware touched as a launch title for the ds the team was already deep in development on warioware twisted for the game boy advance in order to get touched off the ground a new team was assembled however almost every member of the team was a newcomer to the series and they struggled to capture the humor of a warioware game this prompted series producer and metroid co-creator yoshio sakamoto to step in when work untwisted was complete the regular warioware team also helped to ensure touched humor was in line with the rest of the series and that the game was finished in time for the ds's launch the game's release however generated some controversy one of the unlockable in-game extras was a record that played ashley's song and the player could spin this record on the touchscreen to control the song speed according to some if the record was spun fast enough it would produce a voice saying i have granted kids to hell nintendo refuted these claims explaining the supposed lyrics were derived from the verse eye of newt i cast a hex on you grandma's wig this will make you big kitten spit soon your pants won't fit by speeding the song up only certain syllables were played resulting in the misheard lyrics eye of grande this kitsu pan in the japanese version of ashley's song she casts the spell when read backwards the spell says umedo in uwario is junanuba wan or roughly maiden wario is number one made in wario being the japanese name for the warioware series warioware snapped another game in the series released as a downloadable game difficulties with reliably incorporating the camera into the gameplay almost forced nintendo to release the game on a cartridge with unusual peripherals according to intelligent systems employee takusugioka if there were a ravine and characters couldn't cross you could use a silhouette of your finger as a bridge to allow them to cross but when we started testing it out we learned the camera was having difficulty detecting the hand so we laid a black mat underneath so shadows wouldn't form and distort the detection but then someone with a dark suntan wouldn't be detected so he made a finger sleeve for the player's index finger anyone regardless of variations in skin tone would be able to play we were seriously considering selling the game together with the finger sleeve and black matte the main draw in mario wears smooth moves with its different forms or ways for the player to hold the wii remote during gameplay while working on the in-game descriptions for the forums abe and sakamoto discussed how to make them sound more over the top at that moment a canadian member of the team walked by their window and sakamoto spontaneously asked him to record some lines of japanese dialogue the voice of a non-native speaker ended up being exactly the feel they were looking for and his voiceover was used in the final release unlike the wii the wii u didn't feature a warioware launch title instead a team of developers including abe was tasked with creating a number of small games to come pre-installed on the wii u to show off the gamepad's unique functionality the team came up with so many ideas that they decided to produce a standalone title instead however the ideas were so different from each other that they had difficulty tying them together thematically about a year into development the team decided to use warioware characters to provide a unifying narrative for the collection and the project became game and wario the creative freedoms that developers had with wario allowed them to give him more personality one example can be found in wario world for the gamecube the game is known for its grading paw screen music where wario endlessly sings a mocking tune however if the player withstands wario's song for a full 50 minutes he will actually apologize to them did you know waluigi was created out of necessity during the development of mario tennis on the nintendo 64 most of the game's roster was made up of animals and non-humans adding to this every character had a partner for doubles like marin luigi or yoshi and birdo this wasn't the case for wario however who didn't have a similar character to pair with camelot designer fumihide aoki then came up with the idea to make a rival for luigi and nintendo veteran shigeru miyamoto was brought on for additional consultation several names were brainstormed for the new character with names like wa eg jeroji and jananji eventually the team decided on the name waluigi though the name may sound somewhat lazy to western fans seeming like the wa prefix was just attached to luigi's name it's actually rooted in japanese etymology the name is a combination of the luigi name and the word waori meaning bad literally translating out to bad luigi it may also take inspiration from the word ruiji meaning similar the name is also an anagram of the japanese word ichiwaru which can translate to several terms for rude behavior including cruel ill-tempered and malicious watery can also translate out to words like hateful poor and inferior all of which are traits of waluigi's character an upside down l symbol is used in greek as the uppercase letter gamma but also appears in cyrillic writing interestingly while luigi was the fourth brother added to the mario quartet and the upside-down l symbol is the fourth letter of the cyrillic alphabet much like how wario has exaggerated traits of mario like his round portly physique waluigi would be comparable with luigi's design this was pushed to the extreme with his taller and slimmer features as well as him being the same age as luigi mario tennis also reintroduced daisy to the mario series as camelot wanted luigi to have a partner similar to the pairing of mario and peach during while luigi's creation there were talks of female pairings for him and wario one of which was a wari style peach character named warupichi however miyamoto quickly rejected those ideas saying he didn't even want to see what their girlfriends might look like waluigi's design was then refined by yoichikotabe a nintendo artist who primarily worked on the mario series finalizing many of the mario characters current designs the design is also believed to have roots in the character form and spike from the 1985 game wrecking crew though spike's original look bears very little resemblance to waluigi now he received a redesign in wrecking crew 98 sporting a look similar to wario and by extension waluigi in mario kart ds waluigi's gold mantis cart resembles spike's excavator from the japan-only title mobile golf and in ddr mario mix waluigi's destruction dance theme is a remix with a bonus theme from the original wrecking crew where mario competes with foreman spike mario tennis power tour on the game boy advance marks the only time where wario isn't playable but waluigi is waluigi has always been tied to wario but their actual relationship is unclear during the release of the original mario tennis nintendo's website claimed the two were siblings with wario being the older brother this would make sense as it would perfectly parallel the mario brothers as luigi is the younger and taller of the two the claim was further backed up in the game's prima guide and through a few sources at nintendo of europe this includes europe's site for mario kart ds and in a series of articles on the main nintendo europe site titled wario's warehouse which commonly shed light on the two's lives when wario writes in the first person he refers to waluigi as his brother on two separate occasions and in smash brothers melee and brawl waluigi's trophy state their relationship is a mystery nintendo's current stance on the matter is that the two don't appear to be brothers according to waluigi's bio on the japanese website in an interview with the voice of wario and waluigi charles marnette he said he doesn't believe they're related instead thinking that they were just two nice evil guys who simply found each other marinette has also said that where wario's defining trait is jealousy waluigi's self-pity is the cornerstone of his character in mario 10 64 his main reason for disliking luigi is because of how well-liked luigi is and wishing to beat him and take his place it's also been suggested that waluigi has a crush on princess daisy while evidence is limited it was first hinted at in mario party 4's official guide book and it's been shown daisy does not return his emotions when paired up in mario party 5 and 6 one of their team names is awkward date and in the mario baseball games the two share bad chemistry together in fortune street when daisy lands on one of waluigi's average price shops she feels disgusted she had to stop on a spot owned by waluigi and on lower priced shops she'll say it looks disappointing but given while luigi owns it she's not surprised in the slightest it's been shown that no one in the mushroom kingdom thinks very highly of luigi though he's appeared in over 50 games he's the only member of the regular mario cast to never starred in a game of his own or have any kind of role in the mainline mario series nintendo themselves has acknowledged waluigi's lack of significance multiple times in super mario odyssey the description for the wild luigi suit states this outfit makes you want to lurk in the shadows waiting for a turn in the spotlight and his hat description states hardly anyone ever wears it waluigi was an unlockable character in mario tennis for the gameboy color which was only accessible via the transfer pack add-on because of this it's impossible to play as waluigi in the virtual console release of the game along with wario bowser and yoshi while luigi strangely does not appear in mario kart 7 even though his stage waluigi pinball does this is his only absence in the series since his debut in double dash as the most recent super smash brothers game smash ultimate waluigi is the only member of the mario quartet not to be playable again appearing as an assist trophy during development of the fourth smash waluigi was shown to be an assist trophy through the smash director masahiro sakurai's pick of the day sakurai made a note of this with the accompanying quote just because you try hard doesn't mean you'll make it into the battle while luigi also has a spot in the nintendo monopoly board game where characters represent monopoly properties being in the place of monopolies mediterranean avenue and old kent road waluigi is the least profitable space in the entire game costing only 60 dollars despite nintendo's jabbing of waluigi they've at least honored him in some form and the nintendo america headquarters in redmond washington many of the headquarters rooms are named after core nintendo characters such as mario and link with room 2011 being named after waluigi himself [Music] did you know similar to how cranky kong was an aged up take on the original donkey kong diddy began as a redesign of donkey kong jr in 2015 rare designer greg male shared pictures from a book titled donkey kong and the golden bananas over twitter showing some early concepts for donkey kong country one page shows diddy while he was still proposed as an update to junior but nintendo felt this redesign was too different to what came before they asked rare to either keep junior's old look or to make this new design an entirely new character rare felt the design fit their update to donkey kong's world and made him a new kong after a few naming attempts they settled on the name diddy a slang term for small in some parts of the uk diddy's final design was done by rare artist kevin bayless who he reached out to for further details bayless wanted a friendlier looking design in contrast to donkey kong's more ill-tempered look he also gave diddy a tail so he could grab onto objects or even use it as a spring diddy's shirt and hat were added to make him stand out from the greens and browns of the backgrounds and were colored red to match up with dk's tie the clothing idea also came from a series of uk commercials for tea brand pg tips where chimpanzees were dressed in various clothes the chimps were provided by twycross zoo located very close to rare and is also where the team gained inspiration for other dk characters diddy was made to serve as a second hit for the player one that wouldn't get in the way for country the team wanted the game's screen to be as clutter free as possible taking inspiration from mario's changing in size male said diddy represented a visual health bar as well as making the player not feel alone on their journey as the series progressed player 2 became more integral to the gameplay than just soaking up a hit during development of donkey kong country 2 many names were brainstormed for its potential title possible names ranged from diddy kong country and kremlings the new batch to diddy kong in space even though he's not and diddy's quest for a decent name for his game the final title became diddy's conquest a pun on the term conquest that also referenced diddy stepping into the limelight many fans mistakenly refer to it as diddy kong's quest though early footage of the game shows it did take on that title for a short time diddy's character design was still receiving some tweaks even at this point nintendo veteran shigeru miyamoto and some of his staff sent sketches of logo ideas for diddy and dixie's hats though rare used none of them instead they inscribed the nintendo logo on diddy's hat and gave a rare pin to dixie though dixie's pin disappeared after rare was sold to microsoft the nintendo branding has stuck with diddy to this day this game also marked the debut of the yellow star pattern on diddy's shirt though these changes wouldn't be seen in game until the nintendo 64 era speaking of the n64 diddy kong racing wasn't a ditty centered game until very late in development in the months leading to its release the game was known as pro m64 an indirect update to the rc pro-am series that featured timber the tiger in the lead role banjo-kazooie was planned to be rare's big holiday title for 1997 but was delayed to the following summer to reach its full potential this left rare in a bit of a bind suddenly pro-am was their christmas game and they weren't sure if the brand was strong enough to grab people's attention the team decided to rebrand the game using diddy kong though nintendo gave them the choice to pick either diddy or donkey kong for the lead role in an interview with nintendo life artist lee musgrave said nintendo enjoyed the fact that we chose diddy kong over donkey kong i think that it was us trying to build on the fact that diddy was ours and dk was theirs the team then changed a few things around to attach it to the new ip better with musgrave admitting it was a bit of a rush job having little competition in its release window diddy kong racing was the center of attention for nintendo's marketing it sold nearly 5 million copies and stands as one of the top 10 best-selling games for the n64 there were several attempts to create a follow-up to diddy kong racing with each one failing to release as intended if at all following rare sale to microsoft diddy kong pilot was retooled to banjo pilot and donkey kong racing was cancelled out right later around april 2004 studio climax created a gamecube pitch called diddy kong racing adventure a project that wasn't publicly known until november 2016 when gaming archivist andrew borman obtained the prototype and published a video on it like the original it would have featured an adventure mode complete with boss battles and multiple vehicle choices a roster 14 was planned and climax hoped to use the existing cast plus characters from banjo-kazooie and conquer in the event a character was unavailable a kong family member would take their place each character would have also had their own special moves such as timber unleashing a sonic wave roar attack and tiptup using a ring of turtle shells other proposed features included weather plus day and night settings several multiplayer modes and the ability to change vehicles mid-race an idea similar to donkey kong racing's animal mechanic the prototype was shown to nintendo but they passed on it one likely reason is that the rights to diddy kong racing are split between nintendo and rare and it may have been seen as too much of a legal hassle diddy made his debut in the mario series with mario golf toadstool tour he only started appearing in non-rare nintendo games after the two companies parted ways further showing that despite nintendo's ownership diddy was treated as a rare property before then donkey kong jr would appear in spin-off games and it may have stayed that way had rare not left early icons for mario kart double dash reveal that junior was planned for the game before diddy took his place diddy also didn't have his own trophy in super smash brothers melee whereas junior did as well as dixie kong and king k rool diddy would later become part of the smash series starting with brawl making him the first and only western character to be playable as of smash wii u and 3ds during rare's time with donkey kong programmer chris sutherland provided the voice for diddy his samples were reused in several later games with the most recent being mario golf world tour for 3ds where they were used alongside diddy's current voice katsumi suzuki diddy kong is also playable in more donkey kong country games than donkey kong himself has been did you know the kremlings weren't originally made for donkey kong country they were instead created for an unreleased rare title called johnny blastoff and the kremling armada this was a pirate-themed point-and-click adventure game with a tropical setting not much work was done on the title but several of its elements made their way into donkey kong country it was previously thought that the kremlings were originally made for a battletoads game though in 2015 rare veteran greg males who served as a designer for both battletoads and donkey kong clarified that battletoads only served as inspiration for their look starting in september that same year males began to share development material from donkey kong country giving more insight on the kremlings mayo said he had a soft spot for making bad guys that are slightly pathetic and that crocodiles were a prime candidate for comical villains even so k rool and the kremlings went through a few revisions before this idea was fully realized during the game's pre-production stage they took on a more serious military theme with some kremling soldiers using weapons like grenades bazookas bayonets and throwing knives this concept was ultimately dropped though some elements still appear in the final game namely with the enemy's clump and crusha at this time the kremling leader was known as crud sporting a more intimidating design by rare artist james ryman according to a naming sheet dating back to march 8 1994 the character later took on the name commander k rule it's possible this name was even alluded to in the final game's fake credits where k-rool is credited under the title of commander k-rool's final design was done by greg males brother steve males with greg himself supplying the final name as well as the layout for his boss fight while k rool's name is an obvious pun on the word cruel it's never been stated as to what the k initials stood for greg had said the k doesn't stand for anything and was just to form the pun he also said it was a way of making the character seem more important than he actually was and it seemed like something k-rool would do to his name to inflate his own ego he also jokingly claimed that had he spent more than five minutes thinking of a name he might have come up with something better steve males recalled that during donkey kong country's development there were a few hiccups implementing k-rool into the game in a twitter post he poked fun at rare programmer chris sutherland who complained about k-rool being too big k-rool's size meant that each frame of animation ate up a lot of memory funnily enough sutherland would go on to provide the voice for k-rool for donkey kong 64 a few years later and his samples were later reused for the country ports on game boy advance a recurring theme for k-rool is his attempts at stealing the kong's banana horde though his motivations have never been very clear greg said the game's team never gave much thought about why he'd want to steal the horde and it was simply used as an excuse for the kongs to go after him the question was even posed to rare directly on their website where fans could send in questions and comments to be replied by lee loveday a veteran writer at rare who also wrote dialogue for the country games in an addition of the rare blog scribes published on august 25th 1999 a fan asked why k rool would want to steal the horde and loveday gave two possible reasons loveday said it was either because k rool loves bananas or because he wants donkey kong to starve to death so he can then occupy his cozy treehouse the former theory is backed up in donkey kong country's instruction manual which says the kremlings stole the bananas for their tastiness and nutritional value however this was later refuted in the game dk jungle climber where k rool states that he hates bananas with a passion k rool has successfully stolen the banana horde a total of three times once in donkey kong country once in dk 64 and once in the game boy title donkey kong land what makes this attempt the most interesting is the fact that it was staged between k-rool and cranky kong as noted in the instruction manual the game's story has cranky make a bet with donkey and diddy saying that after their first victory against k-rool he's certain they couldn't do it again on a less powerful 8-bit console after they take the bait cranky calls up k-rool and arranges for him to steal the horde overnight [Music] king k rool's design has gone through several changes over the years in earlier games his chest and underbelly had a golden texture and designer steve males confirmed this was meant to be armor though in most games starting with 2005's dk king of swing it was changed to appear more like flesh k rool's tail also fluctuates from game to game as well sometimes being long to being extremely short to occasionally not being there at all cairo is also well known for changing his persona every now and then throughout the original country trilogy he went under three different aliases king k rool in the first game captain k rool in the second and baron k ruinstein in the third in donkey kong 64 cranky mentions in the game's manual that k rool gave up on disguises this time around though for his boss fight he adopts the ring name king krusha k rule the captain disguise is also referenced in this game as pictures of captain k rool appear in some of the sunken ships in the gloomy galleon level as well as in a few cabins in crystal caves and the museum found in creepy castle this disguise was also a source of some notable misinformation in smash brothers brawl k rool's trophy description states captain k rool isn't an alter ego of the king but rather a different character altogether said to be k rool's brother with the japanese version specifying the captain as the older of the two rumors claimed this was because k rool's disguises are treated as separate characters in japan but that isn't the case in the gameboy advance version of donkey kong country 2 the game's intro cutscene confirms the two are one in the same false family connections to k rule have been made before this incident in the japanese version of dk 64 the character k lumsy is said to be k-rool's younger brother yet they have no relation in any other version of the game at the end of country 3 k rool claims to be married he says that his chaos robot had been assembled from his wife's best pots and pans and after being destroyed says my wife's going to kill me some fans questioned whether the line should be considered canon though in december 1999 loveday confirmed this line was only a joke he said it was just a one-off reference to the british comedy duo vic and bob more specifically from their show the smell of reeves and mortimer where the line was one of the characters catchphrases funnily enough donkey kong's depiction of k-rool shows him with a ring on his middle finger possibly in reference to this line [Music] after his appearance in mario super sluggers for wii in 2008 k rool took a long leave of absence from the gaming landscape when donkey kong country returns was first shown off in 2010 one of the questions on people's minds was if the kremlings and their leader would return as well when gaming outlet ign spoke to developer retro studios about returns they simply said there would be no crocodiles in the game in an interview with game trailers during that year's e3 producer kensuke tanabe explained the reason behind their exclusion tanabe said this is something we actually talked about fairly early on with miyamoto-san and we were getting together and were like what are we gonna do about king k rool is he coming back and we thought about it and said well does he really need to why don't we just come up with something completely new and this time make sure there are no crocodiles in there with the game sequel tropical freeze in 2014 another new set of enemies were introduced in the snowmads led by lord frederick fans were quick to compare this character with k-rool as his boss fight is essentially an homage to both the character and several fights across the original country trilogy frederick's charge and jump attacks are similar to k rules from country 1 and his attack where he fires ice dragons from his horn parallels captain k rool's blunder bus from country 2 alongside k-rool's cannonball attack and the segments where the player attacks him from the background is similar to the rematch against baron k rulenstein in country 3. it was clear that k-rool was still on the minds of certain circles within nintendo though the character would remain unused for the next few years outside of minor cameos and references in smash brothers for wii u and 3ds he appears as a trophy and as a costume for the me brawler and in mario odyssey's new donk city many locales are named after various donkey kong characters with one of the streets being named k rool avenue the king made his grand return as a playable fighter in 2018 smash brothers ultimate marking his first physical appearance in a decade k-rool is the third character in the smash roster to have been created outside japan following in line with rare's own diddy kong and retro studios is dark samus smash director masahiro sakurai said his inclusion was due to his immense popularity in the super smash brothers fighter ballot during this window of voting fans used the hashtags bring back k rule and croc the vote to have their passion for the character heard far and wide after the announcement of k-rool's return the twitter handle kremling campaigner begun another fan driven project a letter signed by thousands of fans was sent to nintendo in the hopes it would reach sakurai thanking him for his devotion to the character the letter was sent at the end of august 2018 and later that november nintendo themselves replied the letter said it meant the world to see the love for k rool and though sakurai was too busy to directly respond nintendo assured fans he shared the same love for the character that they had shown ultimate is also the first game where k-rool's name is spoken verbally being pronounced as k-rool in english and in japanese as king cruel the only other notable time the name was spoken in official media was in the donkey kong country animated series in the first episode the name is pronounced both k-rool and k-rule before k-rool was dropped entirely for the rest of the series a twitter user had asked greg males his thoughts on k-rool's interpretation in the cartoon to which greg replied let's just say i'm not a fan you

Channel: DYKG Clips

Views: 300,824

Keywords: nintendo characters, nintendo, ganon, ganondorf, zelda, the legend of zelda, red, mewtwo, pokemon, bowser, princess peach, wario, waluigi, mario, super mario, diddy kong, king k. rool, donkey kong

Id: 2Hf64t0QNaE

Length: 61min 45sec (3705 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020