"Ahem! Today... I'll tell you the story of the lost book of prophecies. This prophetic book was a mysterious tome full of stories of future events. Of course, many people desired this book, wishing to glimpse their futures. But no person, after obtaining this amazing book, ever found happiness. The reason? The book held frightful secrets not meant for people's eyes. The book came to be called the Dark Prognosticus and was sealed away. This... is the tale of the forgotten book's last owner. It is a tale of love..."
The third installment in the Paper Mario series of RPGs, Super Paper Mario mixes it up a bit by being...well, totally different from its predecessors. Instead of being a turn-based RPG with action elements like the first two games, Super Paper Mario is a side-scrolling platformer with RPG elements. One of the most interesting features of the game is the ability to switch between 2D and 3D view at will - a lot of puzzles can only be solved in 3D, and switching to 3D will often show enemies and items that you couldn't see (or interact with) before.The plot is noticeably darker than the previous entries. Mario and Luigi hear that Princess Peach has been kidnapped (again) and go off the Bowser's Castle. Except that he didn't do it. At that moment, a strange guy named Count Bleck appears with Peach and takes Bowser, the Koopa Troop, and Luigi to his stronghold, Castle Bleck. Mario is left out cold until he is awoken by Tippi, a Pixl. She brings him to the town of Flipside. Meanwhile, Bleck forces a marriage between Bowser and Peach, summoning the Chaos Heart and causing a rift called The Void to appear. Mario must fight Bleck and his strange Five-Bad Band to save the multiverse.For characters, see the series Character Sheet.
Action Girl: Princess Peach, believe it or not, after getting rescued in the second chapter, decides that it's time to stop getting kidnapped, go out there, and kick some ass.
Anti-Villain: Count Bleck, who - despite wanting to unmake the world - genuinely cares for his henchmen, and is driven by the loss of his love rather than actual evil (even helping the heroes near the end after being reunited with her).
Apocalypse How: Count Bleck's plan is to bring about a class Z.
Applied Mathematics: The first few levels feature "joke" equations in the background, made up of random numbers and mathematical symbols combined with famous Mario icons such as the Fire Flower and mushrooms.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In Chapter 7-2, when you encounter Bowser, he complains that he's hungry, among other things.
Ash Face: Subverted; after tricking you into opening an exploding chest, Mimi complains when this doesn't happen.
Batman Gambit: Dimentio needs the heroes to retrieve the Pure Hearts and use them to beat Count Bleck in order to steal the Chaos Heart and remake the universe. If the heroes fail, Dimentio cannot get the Chaos Heart and would end up getting erased from existence just like everyone and anything else.
Beware the Silly Ones: Francis can be deadly if you don't take him seriously as a boss because of his character. But you just know you can't take him seriously.
Be Careful What You Wish For: When you begin the game Luigi is talking to Mario saying that he wants some "KERBLOOEY" events to happen. Needless to say they end up meeting Count Bleck who plans on ending all of existence. And later on in the story the game has plenty of Wham Moments, starting in Chapter 6 when the entire world of Sammer's Kingdom gets destroyed. And then there's Luigi, himself.
She basically spins her head like in The Exorcist, only instead of turning around sideways, her head turns vertically.
It certainly doesn't help that the end result is a Gonkified version of her with giant spider legs coming out of her upside-down head. Plus there's the whole cracking neck thing...
Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: When Timpani almost dies from being doomed to wander all the dimensions forever, she gets transformed by Merlon into the butterfly-shaped Pixl we all know and love.
You can also vehemently refuse to wear a helmet in space, resulting in another Non-Standard Game Over.
And also if you refuse to look for Nimbi when Jaydes asks.
In a different vein, the interaction with Carrie the Pixl in Fort Francis has her asking you what you thought of Francis. She'll agree completely with you no matter what you said.
Carrie: So what you're saying is, Francis is awesome and irresistible. A stallion basically. I was thinking the exact same thing!
Calling the Old Man Out : It's implied that Blumiere's first act as Count Bleck was to kill his father. It's also implied that he wiped out the Tribe of Darkness.
Don't forget the part where Luvbi discovers her true identity as a Pure Heart. She believes that Grambi and Jaydes's overprotectiveness was not out of love, and that they did not let her enjoy life, knowing that her time was short.
The Chessmaster: When it comes to Mario characters, Dimentio is the best of this trope of the bunch.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Kammy. She was a major character in the first two games, but is absent from this one with no explanation. This might have been done because giving her a role alongside the now playable Bowser would be awkward.
Cloudcuckoolander: The Pixls (except for Tippi). They don't have many lines, but what little dialogue they do have is extremely bizarre.
Although, given the fact that some of them have been locked up for 1,500 years, it's somewhat understandable that they wouldn't be fully sane.
Thoreau: I express concern when the Ancients stuffed me in that chest 1,500 years ago. But now I see my worries were unfounded!
Although, even the ones like Barry and Dottie that weren't imprisoned anywhere (we don't know how Dottie got in the Floro Caverns, and Barry was just kinda wandering around the Bitlands) are a little strange (although, they may be the most normal).
Collision Damage: Being based on traditional Mario platform games than turn-based RPGs, it plays this straight with pretty noticeable knock back, making places like Chapter 3-3 more unbearably annoying than they already are.
Complaining about Shows You Don't Watchinvoked: Mocked with one of the True or False questions Francis's door gives to Peach before entering Francis's room, and provides the page picture.
Said purple Speech Bubbles were previously used by the Shadow Queen, an ancient demon who served as the Final Boss in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
Dangerously Genre Savvy: A Koopa in World 3, who upon seeing Mario actually collects a Mega Star to power himself up and chase down Mario.
Not So Invincible After All: Too bad for him there's a 2nd Mega Star block in the area...and that yourSuper Mode is just a little more invincible than his.
Deep South: Specifically, Louisiana. Taken to the extreme that Mario actually becomes a slave on Mimi's estate.
Defeat Means Friendship: Subverted more than once with Bowser, who joins due to reasons completely different from the defeat, and clearly states the first time that he is only doing it for his own benefit, not that of the heroes. Specifically, so he can take his castle back AND ensure there's a world that he can actually take over in the first place. Acts as a nod to another game in the series.
Designated Girl Fight: Peach and Mimi face off in the last chapter of Super Paper Mario.
Disc One Nuke: It's possible to clear the first Pit of 100 Trials and get the optional Pixl, Dashell, before you finish Chapter 2.
Not sure that counts because it only makes you run a lot faster.
Much more devastating is the number of levels you will gain from completing the pit. You'll have far more hit points and attack power than you should have by chapter 2. Of course, this is more of an example of level grinding than disc one nukage.
Disney Death: Damn near every heroic character by the end.
Duel Boss: In Chapter 3, there's Mario vs. Bowser. Chapter 8 brings us Bowser vs. O'Chunks, Peach vs. Mimi, and Luigi vs. Dimentio, all followed with both opponents suffering Disney Deaths.
E = MC Hammer: The background of Lineland features floating mathematical equations consisting of random symbols and various Mario icons such as Fire Flowers and mushrooms.
Even Evil Has Standards: This is Bowser's reaction to seeing what happens to worlds consumed by the Void.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Dimentio used the Heroes to get the Pure Hearts, and allowed them to use them on Count Bleck so that he could get the Chaos Heart easily. He honestly thought that the heroes using the Pure Hearts meant that they were gone for good. He ended up legitimately shocked when, due to Bleck/Blumiere, Tippi/Timpani, O'Chunks, and Mimi's love for one another, the Pure Hearts had returned and stripped him of his invincibility.
Evil Detecting Dog: After you free it, the guard dog creature in Merlee's Mansion immediately proceeds to chase after Mimi. His reaction to seeing "Merlee" for the first time in the chapter is also a nice bit of foreshadowing.
Exact Words: The prophecy only said that the Man in Green would harness the Chaos Heart to destroy the universe. It never said anything about the Man in Green doing so willingly...
Expy: Dimentio is basically the Mario version of Final Fantasy VI's Kefka Palazzo.
Count Bleck is Count Dracula
Red and Green are clearly based on Mario and Luigi.
Dimentio seems to take a similar role of Beldam from the previous game, having a bigger plan in their agenda and ultimately betraying their boss in the end. In this way, Count Bleck is similar to Lord Grodus. However, Dimentio doesn't reform.
Fairytale Wedding Dress: Peach's, even though it was just a white version of her usual dress.
She actually complains about it.
Fake King: The first time you meet King Sammer, he's real. The second time, it's actually Mimi impersonating him.
Fake Weakness: Mimi tries shapeshifting into Merlee and asking Mario his weaknesses...in a place where Merlee has no business being. She'll put power-ups and helpful items out if you tell her you're weak to them.
Fartillery: O'Chunks uses this as his exit in the first three encounters, but he actually uses this as an attack against Bowser as Super O'Chunks.
In Super Paper Mario, this is possibly how the Cherbils attack. If you use Tippi to tell you about the creatures, she says "some say the gas comes from its mouth. Others say it comes from... elsewhere." Due to the creature's appearance (basically a set of eyes and a large pair of cheeks), it's difficult to tell which end it's coming from.
Free Sample Plot Coupon: Mario gets the first Pure Heart handed to him before the player even officially has control of him. Hilariously, you can avert But Thou Must by refusing multiple times to accept the item, eventually leading to the giver just giving up and a Non Standard Game Over before the game even begins.
Genre Blind: When Toad mentions at the beginning that Peach is kidnapped, Luigi ponders who would do such a thing before deducing it must be Bowser. At this point in the series history, it shouldn't take more than 1/64th of a second to figure that out. Of course, it doesn't help it's also one of the few times it's not him.
Handwave: The game doesn't even bother coming up with a decent reason for why Luvbi comes back.
Simple. She wished on herself.
A logical explanation is that they loved Luvbi when she was a Pure Heart, so perhaps they just created a new one.
The other possibility is that just like how the Pure Hearts are recreated twice during the ending, Grambi and Jaydes's love for Luvbi created a new White Pure Heart that also took on Luvbi as a form.
Heel Face Turn: Most of the main villains, including Count Bleck, team up to help you stop Dimentio.
Inn Between The Worlds: Flipside and Flopside, which are said to exist between dimensions.
Innocent Innuendo: A lot of what Squirps says, like wanting to be squeezed and twisted into small spaces and also twice asking the player if they were in love with him (whether it was Mario, Peach, or Bowser didn't matter).
In the End, You Are on Your Own: Subverted when Mario gets separated from his teammates one by one in Chapter 8, but they come back together to assist him in the final boss fight.
Invincibility Power-Up: The Super Star turns the character into a giant 8-bit version of themselves.
It Makes Sense in Context: "Look, nobody likes having their butterfly kidnapped by a geek, but it's dangerous!"
Appropriately enough, the theme of the final boss, Super Dimentio, who is a fusion of Dimentio, the Chaos Heart and Luigi, is a mixture of their individual leitmotifs.
Living Crashpad: Bowser and O'Chunks were last seen holding up a Descending Ceiling. The camera cuts to Mario and his friends in another room, and we hear the ceiling come down, suggesting Bowser and O'Chunks were crushed. Later, we see Princess Peach and Mimi fall down a hole in the floor, into their apparent doom. Eventually, Bowser and Peach return unscathed during the battle with Count Bleck.
Tippi: You're all here... But how?
Bowser: I fell through the floor before I got flattened by the ceiling.
Peach: I fell through, too, and landed right on Bowser! It was a surprisingly soft landing...
Loners Are Freaks: Francis. He gets incredibly nervous once Peach shows up.
Lost Aesop: The ending of the game basically said, "Prophecies are meaningless, now let's eat!"
For those who don't get it... Count Bleck finally sees the error of his ways, and helps the heroes save the world by restoring power to the Pure Hearts, and then, after Dimentio is defeated, marries his true love, Timpani, to stop the Big Bad's last resort, and undoes the Chaos Heart's damage. Unfortunately, this kills them in the process.
Except The Stinger reveals a shot of what appears to be a couple standing in a meadow, one of whom is wearing a top hat, which suggests that it's Count Bleck/Lord Blumiere and Timpani. Whether their location is another world or something else entirely, though, is up for debate.
Also, Tippi could be seen as one of these. If she didn't have amnesia and had just been able to tell people who she was a lot sooner, there's a good chance that none of this would have happened in the first place. Then, when Count Bleck finally DOES find out that Tippi is Timpani, it's enough to make him glad that you beat him in his boss fight, do a Heel Face Turn, and come up with the plan to REALLY save the worlds. Yes, the reason for all the trouble in SPM can be boiled down to the Quest for Identity of an Exposition Fairy.
Meaningful Name: Nastasia, which means "She shall rise again". She survives an apparently fatal attack.
Especially brilliant, in that most players merely see a play on words between the word "nasty" and the name "Natashia", suggesting that it's just a name for a villain.
Also Luvbi (as in "love" - hearts), who transforms into a Pure Heart.
Mirror Boss: The boss(es) of the Pit of 100 Trials in Flopside are like this.
Mirror World: Flopside is a mirror image of Flipside.
Moe Anthropomorphism: A canon example: Luvbi is a Pure Heart in the form of a Nimbi.
What's more, the Void grows larger as the game progresses, and if you revisit an older level, you may see the Void in the background when it wasn't visible before. (Revisit World 1-1 after the Void has grown a couple times to see this effect.)
Moon Logic Puzzle: At one point in Chapter 5, you progress to a series of floating blocks. The only way to make the pipe appear to get to the next area is to it the blocks in order in a long, complicated sequence. The only way to know the sequence (without using an external source) is to talk to one of the villagers, whom you have to say please to five times (by repeatedly typing the word "please") before he gives you the very long pattern. Definitely a Guide Dang It for those who don't bother to Talk to Everyone.
My Greatest Failure: Not explicitly shown, but the Violent Glaswegian O'Chunks used to be a military commander, until a betrayal cost him the lives of all his men.
Mythology Gag: The Pal Pills are very similar to a brigade of miniature Marios who briefly appeared in the Super Mario Worldcartoon episode "Rock TV". They also use the 8-bit Mario sprites, complete with death animation.
That's not the only one. These types of gags make up much of the game's humor, to the point where listing all of them would make this page even longer than it already is.
Never Say "Die": Whenever death is mentioned, it's referred to as a Game Over. This is actually played for laughs, rather than censorship. At one point, your whole party visits the after life and gets a chance to speak with the dead, all of whom have died in ways you'd expect to die in a Mario game. When your party is ready to leave the after life, they even get a literal continue.
Actually, during the Final Boss battle, Dimentio says "dies" when relating to Count Bleck.
And the queen of the afterlife says that she has power over life and death. It seems more like the word "life" is simply interchangeable with "game".
Interestingly, it seems that the afterlife in the games is laid along the same lines as in Greek Mythology.
No Hero Discount: Bestovius outright asks you why you, as the hero, should be able to learn his world-saving technique for free. (You can if you resist paying for long enough.)
Mimi: But... But... That explosion didn't even turn you black with soot! That totally didn't even hurt you at all! This stinks!
No Sneak Attacks: Averted; at one point, Dimentio DOES appear in Merlon's house as the heroes are delivering the petrified Pure Heart, and, after a brief dialogue, kills them without giving them a chance to fight. However, he only did this to send them to the afterlife so they could get the eighth Pure Heart, as well as to reunite Mario and Luigi, as part of his grand Batman Gambit.
Nostalgia Level: A room in chapter 3-1 is identical to level 1-2 from the original Super Mario Bros, complete with warp zone.
Not Me This Time: Peach is kidnapped at the beginning. Immediately, Mario and Luigi go to Bowser's castle to rescue her. However, it turns out that Bowser was in the middle of a rallying speech in preparation for invading Peach's castle and did not actually do anything yet.
The Not Secret: Merlon claims that only he and Nolrem know about Flipside and Flopside existing within their own towns. There are a few NPCs who mention the opposite town and mention having been to the opposite town. Also, it's mentioned that Bestovius only teaches his flipping technique to the hero. Several NPCs make reference to going places they can't possibly go without flipping, and many Mooks can flip as well.
Number of the Beast: Well, sort of referenced. They used 667 instead of 666 for one of Dorguy's questions referencing the unlucky numbers.
"Shayde B buys 667 pens for 13 coins and buys 108 notebooks for 42 coins each.
He was actually a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds from the start, as the reason why he even attempted to summon the Chaos Heart in the first place is because the love of his life was believed to have been killed, and spent a lot of time trying to search dimensions for her, never finding her.
Overly-Long Gag: Super Paper Mario loves these, least of all being the repeated block-hitting and hamster-wheel running in Merlee's Mansion.
"Um... Um... Um..."
PaperThin Disguise: No one on Mario's side ever knows who Mr. L really is. Not even Mario himself, who only finds him "familiar".
Parental Marriage Veto: Blumiere's father to Timpani and Blumiere. Of the 'she's the wrong race' type. This involved banishing Timpani to the edges of the universe, as well as damn near killing her. Let's just say it didn't turn out well for the father.
To the point where if a cutscene calls for more than one playable character to be on camera, the others have to appear or disappear Behind the Black. A notable instance takes place during the Overthere Stair level — in the cutscene where Peach returns to your party, whichever character you are using (Mario, Luigi, or Bowser) feeds her a black apple to wake her up, which tastes disgusting. Her Wild Take knocks the single character off camera, then Mario, Luigi, and Bowser all walk back on camera. After a while of discussion, Luvbi interrupts, and the camera moves to get her in frame, conveniently leaving Mario, Luigi, and Bowser out of the shot again. Peach remains on camera for the rest of the cutscene, and when gameplay returns, Mario, Luigi, and Bowser are no longer standing there — you're controlling Peach now, but you can switch back to one of the others.
Party Scattering: Dimentio sends Mario and gang to the Underwhere, the Mario-verse equivalent of Hades. Mario wakes up alone and has to team up with Luigi before they can escape, then go back and reunite with Bowser and Peach so they can advance the plot.
Perky Female Minion: Inverted; Nastasia is gloomy and Count Bleck is perky. Played straight by Mimi.
Press Start To Game Over: You can end the game right at the beginning by repeatedly refusing to help Merlon.
Product Placement: The recipe computers look like Nintendo DS, and the cards needed to expand their list of suggested recipes resemble DS game cards. One item in the Chain of Deals is also apparently a Nintendo DS.
Also, all Nintendo consoles can be seen in Fort Francis. Even the Virtual Boy.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Your partners are the lady who's typically your Damsel in Distress, the giant monster who's typically your arch-nemesis, and your typical sidekick, who bears a striking resemblance to one of the Big Bad's minions. And you have about a dozen Fairy Companions, all of whom have their own eccentricities from thinking a princess in a pink dress is worth lots of girth to constantly singing in a French accent.
Replacement Goldfish: Tiptron for Tippi, despite a mild identity crisis on whether she really is Tippi or was created by Francis. Trust me, you will want to buy Tiptron — still heartbreaking to see the circles at the ends of her antennae, though.
Rousing Speech: Debatable, but when Dashell is obtained, he gives quite the rousing speech, including the line "You! Must! Treasure! Life! You've got to! Got to! GOT TO!"
RPG Elements: This game is a platformer with RPG elements like attack stats and health. This is the inverse of the other Paper Mario games, which are RPGs with platform elements.
Sdrawkcab Name: Nolrem, the Flopside counterpart of Merlon.
Secret Diary: Dimentio quotes Mimi's and asks if she was dreaming about "pools of gems and hunky pool boys." Mimi turns into Bowser as she yells at Dimentio for reading her diary, in a Continuity Nod to the first Paper Mario.
Sequel Escalation: The previous game merely involved Saving the World; this game has you traveling across dimensions to save the multiverse.
Serious Business: It's implied left and right that Francis lost friends over arguments about their favorite shows.
Shaped Like Itself: This game gives us the "Dark Dark Boo", a dark version of an already dark enemy.
Shipper on Deck: Luvbi spends at least half of her screentime speculating about relationships between the characters.
This is arguably an example of Fridge Brilliance, since Luvbi is actually one of the Pure Hearts and would thus be made completely out of love, so it is absolutely logical and perhaps even expected for her to be interested in the love affairs of others.
Something Completely Different: Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door are both RPGs with turn based combat and other typical RPG elements. Super Paper Mario, on the other hand, features real time combat and is more of an adventure game with several RPG elements. Only time will tell whether another Super Paper Mario game will come and make it its own series.
Straw Fan: Francis is the absolute epitome of this trope.
Stupidity Is the Only Option: In 2-3, you wind up having to pay off a 1,000,000 Rubee debt for breaking Mimi's vase at the very beginning of the level. You could just ignore the vase, thus never bringing up the debt in the first place... but the game won't let you leave the area this way, so you have no choice but to break it.*
in that, without going through the level, you wouldn't be able to get Slim, who is needed for the rest of the game.]]
And another when Mimi!Merlon makes you hit a block, opening a pit beneath you that you fall into, despite her dialogue heavily hinting that something is amiss.
No way is this not deliberate though. If you refuse enough times, she even lampshades it, explaining how event flags work and how you need to fall for the trap to progress the game.
Except for a small pool of polluted water in the Cromag village.Which [[Foreshadowing foreshadows the true motive behind the Floro Sapiens' invasion]]
Super Speed: The secret pixl, Dashell, allows your character to run much faster. Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach can be seen to outrun a sound wave without Dashell, though Bowser is just barely slower.
Surprise Creepy: Especially if you're coming from one of the other games in the series.
More like Francis himself. They even parody the fact that the Internet itself is a cat-person with Fort Francis being full of cats (Either that or parodying Catgirls).
Rumor has it that review copies of the game replaced this with something to the effect of, "I will give a game a lower score because I think my readers won't like it." This is a dig at GameInformer's review of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.
A Sammer Guy deep within the Duel of 100 is a dig against Real Is Brown.
Talks like a Simile: Dimentio. His talent for weird similes that still somehow make sense is rivaled only by his prowess in dimensional magic.
"And so I arrive, like a sudden windstorm at a kindergarten picnic!"
Theme Song Reveal: There's a clever one hidden rather well: Count Bleck's theme is the "Memory" theme played in ragtime and transposed to a different key.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Very possible to pull off. The basic Goomba has one single hit point. There is an item that temporarily doubles your attack. There is a Pixl that doubles your attack with a butt-stomp. There is a card that globally doubles your attack. By leveling up and obtaining certain power-ups, you can reach a maximum of 198 attack for Bowser (the other characters cap at 99). Finally, you can hold a maximum of 99 cards of an enemy, and each card multiplies the damage you deal to it. So in conclusion, with the maximum circumstances, you can give a poor weak Goomba a total damage of 2 x 2 x 2 x 198 x 100 (99 cards = 100x damage). This sums up to a brutal 158,400 points of damage.
Your whole party is seemingly given a Game Over, and end up in The Underwhere. Luckily, the Queen is pretty friendly and gives you a Continue when it's revealed that you aren't really dead and shouldn't be there.
And then the door to Chapter 7 brings you right BACK into the Underwhere, because that's where the final Pure Heart is located. And then you get back. So it's a double dose of this trope in the same game. Although the second trip was via dimension-hopping both ways, not death.
Treacherous Spirit Chase: In the final chapter, Mimi appears before you disguised as Merlon and Merlee, both of which are so ridiculously obvious that if you keep talking to her, she'll lampshade the Stupidity Is the Only Option of this situation, as Mario falling for her extremely obvious trap is the only way to progress.
True Companions: Perversely enough, Count Bleck and his henchmen.
Totally Radical: The Floro Sapiens, once you get to know 'em. Their hippy-like speech patterns may be a bit of a Stealth Pun - they're flower children!
Unwinnable by Design: Early in the game, when asked to help out, you can ignore it, by choosing the "No" option three times. You'll get a game over, and since there hasn't been a Save Point yet, have to start over at the very beginning. Before you even take control of Mario.
Hit the Whacka eight times, and he dies for good. By the way, he was the Last of His Kind.
Not exactly. Maybe in the Paper Mario series, but about a million of them appear in Mario Party 6 on the snowflake place.
Afterwards you can find a woman in his place waiting for him. She figures out he's gone and cries "Bring back my Whackaaaaaa". As if you needed to feel even worse.
And if you talk to him in between the whacks leading up, he apparently becomes more and more incoherent and confused. So not only do you kill him, but you give him brain damage leading up to it as well.
Try reading all this dialogue, I guarantee you will feel like a monster, the poor thing loses its sense of self. Damn you recipes...
Do you know what? You don't even NEED to whack Whacka at all in Super Paper Mario. Do you know why? Because you can buy Whacka Bumps in the Flipside Arcade.
Makes you wonder where the Arcade gets those Bumps...
Wedding Day: The game opens with Peach being forcibly wed to Bowser. Amusingly, he insists on referring to himself as her husband for the rest of the game, and even sort ofacts like it, lending credence to the theory that he's in love with her.
When Bowser sacrifices himself in Count Bleck's castle, Peach turns around to look at him one more time before she goes. It may not just be Bowser.
Wham Episode: A twofer in Sammer's Kingdom succumbing to the void, making the Pure Heart useless, followed by Dimentio sending the party to the Underwhere.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: Chapter 7 is full of it, such as the forbidden apple that brings trouble when eaten, the chapter boss being a former Nimbi who was exiled to the Underwhere, the Nimbis' battle with the Skellobits, and the fact that the daughter of a seemingly deistic figure sacrifices herself to save the universe.
In Sammer's Kingdom, you might notice lycoris flowers growing along the path. In legends, they're often believed to grow when people who meet shall never see each other again. Pretty epic foreshadowing for The End of the World as We Know It.
What Happened to the Mouse?: In Chapter 1, Tippi instantly recognizes Dimentio when they first meet him. How Tippi knew him or why she recognized him was never explained or mentioned again afterward.
Where I Was Born And Razed: It is implied that, after the heartbreak of Blumiere/Count Bleck's love, Timpani/Tippi, being exiled to multiple dimensions by his father and presumably killed, that Blumiere ended up wiping out his race, the Tribe of Darkness.
White Void Room: Sammer's Kingdom becomes a blank white expanse after being consumed by the void, only leaving behind small bits of debris.
Wild Teen Party: It is implied that the remaining unbrainwashed members of the Koopa Troop intended to throw one of these while guarding Bowser's fort in the Bitlands when he joins Mario and Peach.
Hang on. Rubees? Breaking a vase? Either I'm seeing things, or this is some kind of vague vengeance for all those times I've played The Legend of Zelda...
Probably is. Considering that in Zelda games, you generally can't get over 999 rupees, it's also a reference to such gags in Zelda where a quest will ask for impossible amounts. SPM takes it further, though, in that it is actually possible to get 1 million rubees and pay for the vase instead of the 'correct' way of solving the puzzle.
Your Soul Is Mine: Catch Cards capture an enemy's soul and turn them into Cards. The more Cards one has of a species, the more power Mario (and the other heroes) have in their attacks on them. This includes Koopas and other creatures we know are fully sentient. What the Hell, Mario?
Making it worse is the fact that many players use capture cards to make huge fortunes by capturing vast numbers of Amazee Dayzees with them, which are also fully sentient. It's no wonder that the species is so rare, You Monster!
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