Pokun wrote:
I mean what do you do with a mushroom? Put it in your pants? It's food! The flower doesn't really look like an edible herb though and you don't normally eat stars (although the star bits in Super Mario Galaxy apparently tastes like konpeito). For the leaf I get the feeling you'd put it on your head to transform, and the feather doesn't look very tasty either and is probably used in another way.
Well, it's food in the real world. But in the games, all of these things are magical items.
You touch a Fire Flower and your clothes change colors and you can shoot fireballs.
You touch a Super Star and start blinking and become invincible.
You touch a leaf and you grow a raccoon tail with which you can fly.
You touch a feather and a flying cape suddenly teleports onto your neck.
After having so many objects of so many different types (a plant, a symbolic rendition of a planet/sun, a piece from a tree, a piece from a bird's dress), why should the one object that coincidentally happens to be something eatable in real life, why should this be the one object that Mario literally has to eat to activate his power, even though every other object is implied to work by simply coming into contact with it?
Besides, the ironic thing is: The Super Mushroom resembles the very real-life mushroom that stands as the symbol for mushrooms that you should
not eat: The fly agaric.
Pokun wrote:
But no matter if mushrooms are eaten or not, I don't believe all items give Mario powers by being touched just because that's what you do in the game. In most games you pick up items or instantly use them by just colliding with their sprite, so it makes sense if that applies to Mario games as well. He probably needs to wear them or use them in some way to transform.
Well, the thing is: In Mario games, the item usually doesn't reseble the superpower. There are exceptions, like the various suits in SMB3 (raccoon, hammer and frog suit). But other than that:
A fire flower isn't a flower with a mouth, so that you can imagine Mario using the flower like a gun.
The feather doesn't make you fly in a way so that you can imagine that Mario needs to wave the feather around like a bird moves its wings. The feather is just an icon and the actual object that you gain is a piece of cloth, i.e. something completely different.
Likewise, you don't find raccoon ears and a tail. You find a leaf that makes the tail magically appear.
So, unlike in other games, the items aren't really something that you apply and "use". In "Zelda", sure, you buy a bow and suddenly, you can shoot arrows, even if the sprite only shows the arrow itself. And a bottle of potion is obviously something to drink.
But in the Mario games, you have a magical object that gives you a completely different object as your actual superpower:
Flower --> Fireballs
Leaf --> Tail
Feather --> Cape
The powerup itself isn't actually the one that gets used. The powerup is the one that transforms Mario himself into another form.
That's why there's no real point in trying to come up with ways how the items are actually applied. They are magic. Their special ability isn't accomplished by
using the item, the special ability is accomplished by the item having transformed Mario into a stronger form.
That's why the most likely explanation is that Mario simply touches each item for the transformation to occur. Since the items are so abstract, there's no need to assume: "The Super Mushroom has to be eaten, the Super Star is used as an earring, the feather needs to be put under your gloves."
But then again: If there's no real explanation of how Mario actually
uses a Fire Flower or a feather, but if the most straightforward explanation is that Mario touches the item and then transforms, why should this one item that happens to resemble an eatable real world object be something that Mario actually eats? Why should the Super Mushroom be the one big exception?
Pokun wrote:
Just because the player can tell the difference between poisonous and normal mushrooms doesn't mean anything to the gameplay. I mean logic doesn't always apply if it comes in the way of gameplay.
Sure, but it's not necessary that this remains an illogical detail. You simply have to drop the idea that Mario eats the mushrooms and it suddenly makes sense: Just like the Goombas have the touch of death, so does the poison mushroom. It's put into the question mark blocks to trap Mario into a corner or to let him accidentally jump against or fall onto it.
Having the mushrooms being the only items that Mario needs to eat, you just introduced a plot issue with the poison mushrooms: How would you, for example, show its effect in a cartoon based on the game?
And as I said: "Donkey Kong 94" has a cutscene that literally shows how Mario gets hit by a Super Mushroom after thinking it's a poisoned mushroom. That's not gameplay anymore, that's story. He clearly isn't eating it there, yet it transforms him.
Also, those poison mushrooms are even thrown at him as obstacles, which makes the eating idea even less likely:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpY3KI5FQTQ&t=4m15sPokun wrote:
The only reason the mushrooms are taken in Smash Bros by touching them is most likely because they mimic the way the same items are taken in their original games.
But that's just conjecture. Let me ask you this:
"Super Smash Bros." has Simon Belmont now. If they include a wall meat item into the game, would Simon
a) simply touch it to mimic the way the item is taken in its original games
or
b) eat the meat because it's clearly supposed to be something that he eats?
Pokun wrote:
I think both coins and beanstalks that leads to coin-heavens would be fine rewards given by rescued denizens, I don't see why coins needs to be magical or unique to blocks to apply for this.
I'm not sure if it's one way or the other. Coins lie around anyway. They are not exclusive to blocks. That's why I think if you find them in blocks, it's just a natural occurence.
Likewise, the beanstalks are actual passageways to secret locations, based on old fairytales.
But my main reason to believe that coins aren't items from the transformed mushrooms is because the manual only mentions the mushrooms in regards to the powerups. Coins are mentioned one chapter earlier.
Pokun wrote:
But yeah since transformed denizens only exists in the first game, I think it's safe to assume that floating blocks containing power-up items, coins and beanstalks are naturaly existing in the world, even if it's ret-conned. But the whole point about mushroom people being transformed into bricks is to explain the existence of the blocks. Wouldn't that explanation be moot if blocks already existed in the world?
Well, yeah, the explanation is surely moot. In light of the other games, "Super Mario Bros." would also work if we scrapped the whole transformation stuff and simply assumed that Bowser just captured the princess and that's it.
But now that it is in the manual (and was even repeated in "All-Stars"), it is canon, even if "transformed mushrooms that give you items" is redundant to the fact that blocks containing items also exist natively.
But it actually fits with the rest of the stories: In all the classic "Super Mario Bros." games, besides capturing the princess, Bowser always did a second, magical thing:
SMB1: Transforming all mushroom people into blocks (and horsehair plants).
SMB3: Transforming the seven kings into animals.
SMW: Trapping Yoshi into an egg and, interestingly, trapping the egg into a question mark block. (I.e. using a mechanism that is already existing in the world for his advantage.)
In one of the newer games, I have even seen question mark blocks that, when bumped against, actually reveal a complete Toad who then walks along the way. So, Nintendo still acknowledges this storyline detail.