Stratovania

Born to Ride - Mario and Luigi are trying to install a sink in the Dome Castle. Well, at least they call it a castle, even though it doesn't appear to be an actual seat of government, and doesn't look much different from the other dome houses. Maybe the Princess refused to live in a building that wasn't a castle. They use bamboo for the plumbing, but Yoshi eats it. So the brothers yell at him, and he runs off and meets up with a motorcycle gang called the Dino-Riders. There had been a line of toys and cartoon series called Dino-Riders a few years prior to this, and they were also dinosaurs on motorcycles, so I suspect that's where they got the name. There appear to be only three members, the leader Duke, the big dumb guy Rock, and the biker babe Lulu.

I have to wonder how they obtained their bikes when Mario just introduced the wheel to Dinosaur Land a few episodes ago, and also what they run on, but these issues are never addressed. The Dino-Riders think Yoshi is a wimp (gee, I wonder why), but when they find out he knows the Mario Brothers, they pretend to be his friends so that they can get their hands on the plumbers. Their intention is to give them to King Koopa (who, by the way, doesn't appear in this episode) for the reward money. Why would Bowser bother offering a reward when he's had the Marios imprisoned approximately fifteen billion times before, and they've always escaped?

Well, anyway, the Dino-Riders spring their trap at the Tar Pit Milk Bar, and offer the brothers something called Goomba Quiche as their last meal. Mind you, a quiche is a pie, and this food clearly isn't, but I guess I should be impressed that dinosaurs can cook at all. When Yoshi finds out he's been had, he takes one of the Dino-Riders' bikes to get the Princess, and the two of them free the Marios. What follows is a chase sequence with Mario and Luigi on one motorcycle, Yoshi and the Princess on another, Rock on a third, and Duke and Lulu on a fourth. (Lulu, by the way, spends the sequence doing her nails. Women! Especially talking dinosaur women!) There were only three bikes in previous sequences, so I'm not sure where the fourth one came from. Also, we see Yoshi push over one of the Dino-Riders' bikes to gain some time, but they pick up TWO toppled motorcycles. Sloppy animation, anyone? The chase scene is accompanied by a song that sounds enough like "Born to Be Wild" for the audience to recognize it, but far enough from it that they don't have to pay any royalties. Rock falls into a pit of flaming magma and the other two Dino-Riders crash into a wall of blocks, yet they're all okay about a minute later. To make a short story even shorter, the good guys get away through a warp pipe, and the Dino-Riders don't bother chasing them anymore. Then Yoshi plays a hilarious joke where it looks like he's eating the plumbing again, but it's actually just an unrelated piece of wood and the sink works just fine. Oh, Yoshi, you regular cut-up!

The Fractured Fantasy of Captain N - Well, here it is, the last episode of Captain N, and it resolves absolutely nothing. Another interesting thing about this one is that I believe it was the only animated version of Final Fantasy that existed for a while. Eventually the Japanese turned out some anime based on the series, as well as a movie that doesn't appear to have anything to do with the games beyond its name, but those were later. The plot of this Captain N episode is based on what I still tend to think of as Chapter 2, because that's how the ElfLand part was identified in the old Nintendo Power strategy guide. It starts with Princess Lana going to have lunch with the Prince of ElfLand, who's an old friend of hers, and taking along Kevin, Mega Man, and Kid Icarus. (I guess Simon's reputation preceded him, and he wasn't invited.) Kevin is jealous of the Prince for some reason that isn't fully explained, and this jealousy is exploited by Astos.

Yeah, that guy. The dark elf hypnotizes Kevin, causing his irises to disappear and his voice to become robotic. He uses a potion to put the Prince to sleep, then goes off with Astos to train his warriors. He uses his Power Pad and Zapper in this training, because the warriors all have Power Pads and Zappers of their own, and can hence imitate his movements. No, wait, they don't. Lana, Mega Man, and Kid Icarus meet up with the witch Matoya, who in this cartoon isn't blind.

Her crystal still exists, though, in the form of the Light Crystal, which can reveal people's true selves. It turns out that Astos stole it from the witch, so the heroes sneak into the villain's castle with the time-honored method of disguising themselves in uniforms that just happen to cover the entire body. Lana uses the Light Crystal to break the spell on Kevin, and it also reveals the true forms of Astos and his henchmen.

I think I see now why the soldiers insisted on wearing full-body armor. The four heroes escape from Astos' castle, but leave the villain himself alive and kicking. Matoya uses an herb to wake the Prince, and Kevin says he's learned his lesson and is no longer jealous.

As I said, this was the last Captain N, but there are other Super Mario World episodes. When the show first aired, these Mario cartoons were accompanied by shortened versions of Captain N episodes from the first two seasons. Since there was no point in including these in the box set, the entire rest of it is Mario.

Great, I'm being beset by trolls over on my WordPress. Look at the comments on this post, for example. Then there's this one, which is even more bizarre. At least Xmas Boy's comments relate to the posts, even if they're totally ridiculous. This Lynn person used a post about Chick Tracts to rant about radical Islam. What, does this mean stupid little comics are our last line of defense against Al Qaeda? The problem is, I'm bad at dealing with trolls, because I kind of encourage them. Instead of just leaving their comments alone, I figure I might be able to get them to see a different point of view, and if not at least an argument with them would be funny. And it IS somewhat funny in retrospect, but at the time it's rather stressful. Part of the problem is that, when they start making personal attacks, I begin to wonder if that really IS how people see me. I'm just too sensitive to being disliked, I suppose. Of course, there's no way to win with such people, which is what makes them trolls. There seems to be a sort of link between trolling and fundamentalism, and I don't even necessarily mean religious fundamentalism. About eight or nine years ago, I spent way more time than I should have arguing with some guy on an Oz e-mail list. To his credit, he was really quite enthusiastic about the topic. Despite this guy's proudly announcing he was an atheist, however, he had the same approach to the Oz books that Christian fundamentalists do to the Bible. His interpretation was the only right one, and certain quotes that he pulled out had to be taken entirely literally. It's so frustrating, because I WANT people to feel free to disagree with my posts. If you're not even open to any other views, however, why even bother commenting? Just to be annoying?

Okay, let's get off that topic for a little while, and turn to one that's less controversial, Nintendo cartoons! You know, because everyone agrees they're not very good.


King Scoopa Koopa - Oh, holy cannoli, it's a message episode. I don't mind when there are lessons in a show, but it really helps when they don't hit you over the head with them, like they do in this one. Bowser opens Scoopa Koopa's Fast Food, a restaurant that serves chickadactyl egg sandwiches (a chickadactyl, in case you couldn't guess, is a sort of a combination between a chicken and a pterodactyl, which appears only in this cartoon), papaya fries, and coconut shakes. Several dinosaurs work in the kitchen, with Dino-Rhinos doing the cooking. Not only is the food fattening and addictive, however, but the sandwiches slowly turn those who eat them into chickadactyls themselves. Since Mario doesn't like eggs and the Princess refuses to touch any of the food, they're both unaffected, and try to shut down the restaurant. The customers and employees give chase, with Mario and Peach having to use the Star Road to get away. Eventually, after an encounter with a Rip Van Fish, they end up in the cavern where Scoopa Koopa's dumps their garbage. Mario finds a Cape Feather, and uses its power to drive out King Koopa and his cooks. He then tells the cave people to go home and eat some vegetables. So there's your lesson, kids: fast food is bad for you, because it can turn you into a chicken. Too bad this was quite likely followed by a McDonald's commercial when it aired on television.

Battle of the Baseball Know-It-Alls - Hey, remember how insane it was when Larry Bird showed up in "In Pursuit of the Magic Hoop"? Well, here's another gratuitous appearance by a sports star, Bo Jackson, who had a Nintendo game around this time. Actually, Bo and the "Bo knows" catch phrase were all over the place when this show first aired. If I remember correctly, the show following this one was a cartoon called Pro Stars. I never watched it, but I know Bo was a character on there as well. I doubt he did his own voice in either show, though. Anyway, Bo is stuck into Captain N continuity as the captain of the Videoland All-Stars and an inhabitant of Baseball World, which is quite possibly the place where Princess Lana visits a Videoland version of Yankee Stadium back in "Mega Trouble for Megaland." Bo is playing a game against the N Team, and I actually mean the entire N Team for once in this season, although Lana and Game Boy are on the sidelines. This is also the only episode this season with Mother Brain making an appearance, and she looks even more off-model than the other characters.

Seriously, she doesn't even have her tentacles anymore. She and her goons rewire a warp to send Bo and the N Team inside Baseball World, where there's a cellar full of sentient and nasty baseball equipment that they have to fight. One point of interest in this rather stupid set-up is that Mega Man uses a buzzsaw to defeat some bats. I've always wondered if that was supposed to be the Metal Blade from Mega Man 2. Granted, it doesn't fly off in different directions, but it's probably close enough for this show. Meanwhile, Mother Brain takes control of the palace, and we get a somewhat amusing scene where King Hippo brushes his teeth with a toothbrush that he and Eggplant Wizard had been using to clean the floor. Lana manages to open a warp zone out of the Baseball World cellar, but since it leads from the bottom of a gulf to the ceiling of the palace, she tricks the Brain's henchmen into making a giant cake for the N Team to land on. Mother Brain, King Hippo, and Eggplant Wizard end up inside Baseball World, and that's the last we see of them. No, seriously. I have to suspect they escaped eventually, because it would have been pretty lame for that to be the ultimate fate of the show's main villains, but we never see this. I'm not sure why the makers of these cartoons were so adverse to season finalés, but there you go. Anyway, while the last thing this season needed was ANOTHER episode based on a sports game, I think the writers made more of an effort with this one than with the basketball one. Also, the presence of Mother Brain was a plus.

Okay, I started reviewing Captain N and the New Super Mario World over two years ago, and I'm ready to get back to the series now. So here's the third show summed up for your pleasure.

Send in the Clown - King Koopa has a circus at his Neon Castle, and invites all the cave people to attend. When Mario and company find out about it, they take the Star Road there, and attend the show. Despite his connection to circuses, Lemmy Koopa doesn't show up in this episode. Instead, the ringmaster is Big Mouth, the cartoon's version of Morton Koopa Jr., whose main character trait is that he never shuts up. While in the ringmaster role, he wears some kind of red pimp outfit.

After the show, the Rexes take off their clown costumes, and Mario shouts out, "Dinosaurs!" So he couldn't tell what they were before? Those red noses must have been really realistic.

The whole thing turns out to be a scheme to feed the cave people to the dinosaurs. Not one of Koopa's most elaborate schemes, but whatever. He traps Mario in a cage with some Dino-Rhinos, but the Princess throws him a Fire Flower that she just happens to have on hand. In fairness, she DID show this flower in the opening scene, so it fits the old rule about the gun being on the table in the first act. Mario burns up the rhinos, makes his escape, and runs through the castle to a song about the circus with only one verse that's repeated over and over again. How lazy can this show get? Well, Mario also isn't in his Fire Flower colors anymore, despite not having been hit by anything. Come on, I know it's cheap animation, but can't they even keep the COLORS consistent? Anyway, Mario gets a Cape Feather, and then fights Bowser in a shorter version of the final battle from the game. I guess it makes sense for the Clown Car to appear in a circus-themed episode. Mario wins, everyone returns to the Dome City, and Mario's team puts on a circus themselves. Not a whole lot to this one, really.

Return to Castlevania - This one is based on Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, which is actually a prequel to the first two games. So how does Captain N handle this? Well, it starts with Simon Belmont being honored for the deeds of his great-grandfather Trevor, who defeated the Count (for some reason, the show never calls him "Dracula," despite that obviously being who he's supposed to be) one hundred years previously. Apparently it was later decided that Castlevania III took place about 200 years prior to the first game (Trevor defeated Dracula in 1476, and Simon in 1691), but we can't fault the show's writers for not being aware of future changes to the story. The Poltergeist King, who plays a major role in the episode, is mentioned only in the English manual for the game. The King accuses Trevor of having stolen the glory from him, but it turns out Dracula has kidnapped the Poltergeist King, stolen his magic staff, and impersonated him in order to shame Simon. The Count appeared several times in the first season, but not at all in the second, and his clothing is less ridiculous this time around.

On the other hand, the show's portrayal of Alucard as a skateboarding slacker teen is pretty ridiculous.

Anyway, Kevin and Simon visit the graveyard where Trevor is buried, and an old wizard who was friends with the old Belmont somehow comes back to life. So who is this wizard supposed to be? Well, he'd pretty much have to be Sypha Belnades, the magician character in Castlevania III, except that this character is actually female. Once again, I think we have the English instruction book to blame, as it referred to Sypha as male.

Kevin, Simon, and pseudo-Sypha visit the Poltergeist King's domain in order to find out the truth, and it turns out the Count's transformation isn't water-soluble, leading the good guys to find out what's really going on. Alucard leads the heroes to his father's castle, but then switches sides again. The heroes beat the two vampires, which basically just means knocking them back into their coffins. While this episode doesn't fit with later Castlevania continuity, it was pretty good for its time, and one of the better ones of this season. The plot works, it manages to involve a prequel without having to resort to time travel or anything, and Simon is pretty funny.

I'm sure you know by now that cartoons based on video games were an important part of my formative years, which is probably why I'm so messed up now. And if you've watched any of these cartoons, you know how many odd changes were made from the actual games, especially in Captain N. Wanting to know whether these were simply the whims of clueless executives or matters with valid explanations, I once again consulted the Mushroom Guru. And I finally uncovered the Star Road that leads to the top, so no more tedious treks up Giant Snowy Mountain, or whatever that place is called!

Q: So, first of all, what's with King Hippo? Why did he change from flesh-colored to blue?
A: You'll notice that, in the game, he had a bandage over his belly, where he was weak. In an attempt to solve this problem, he drank an untested gypsy remedy, which turned his skin blue. It also contained a fair amount of estrogen, which is why his breast size increased.


Q: Princess Lana wasn't in any games, was she?
A: Actually, believe it or not, she was one of the villains in the game Super Glorious People's Devil Revolution Happy Fun Positive Thinking Jihad, which was never released due to its controversial mixture of philosophies, including communism, Satanism, pop psychology, and Islam. What's known of it is that it involves the main characters overthrowing the monarchy, and Princess Lana and her father King Charles are both bosses.


Q:Why was Captain N always claiming he remembered things from video games when they didn't actually happen in the games?
A: Well, people who play a lot of video games tend to dream about them. (Editor's Note: I know I do.) And heroes often have prophetic dreams. So Captain N, as both a gamer and a future hero, would occasionally dream about events from games that weren't actually in them, but were things he would later experience in Videoland. His memory tends to confuse the two, as happens sometimes. I still can't remember whether that yeti I saw the other day was a dream or reality.

Q: Why are the characters in the Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon always referring to Earth as the Real World? Wouldn't the Mushroom World be MORE real to them?
A: It's actually a reference to the explorer Russula Real, the first inhabitant of the Mushroom World to successfully warp to Earth and back.

Q: Why is King Koopa bald in the cartoons?
A: His hair burned off when he fell into the lava at the end of the first game. That's also why he's never shown breathing fire in the show. Doctor's orders, you know.


Q: Why didn't Wart appear on the show?
A: He had a LONG recovery period after being taken out with those vegetables. It was a few years before he was even able to move around on his own. And he was too big for Ostros, so he made a group of Shyguys push him around in a wheelchair.

Q: What's with the flying Birdos? They don't fly in the game!
A: Of course not! They're all guarding specific areas. What kind of guards would they be if they flew off and abandoned their posts?


Q: Why did the Koopalings have different names?
A: Aliases, to try to throw the police off their track. It didn't really work, though.

Q: Why does Link talk in the cartoons, but not in the games?
A: How would you like it if someone were saying, "Excuse me, Princess!" every five minutes? Eventually Zelda got fed up and cast a Mute spell on him.

Q: But isn't there more than one Link?
A: Yes, but they're all...linked. Get it? Seriously, it's due to the transmigration of souls.


That's all for this week. And if you haven't read my previous Mushroom Guru columns, here are Part 1 and Part 2.

I sometimes get the desire to play The Sims 2, but even though it's installed on my computer, I don't have up-to-date game data. I THINK I might still have it on my old hard drive, but I haven't yet gotten around to getting stuff from that old computer. Is there an easier way to do that than actually hooking up the entire computer? (Since no one answered this question the other times I asked it, I assume it'll be the same this time, but I figure I might as well give it one more shot.) It's probably not a good time to install it now anyway, since I'm working full-time this week, and have other stuff to do as well. Really, even playing another video game is more productive, since at least those tend to have actual goals. But anyway, I do think of the series every once in a while, especially when I see someone mention Bella, the main character (and I use that term loosely, as I hear she really doesn't HAVE much character beyond wanting a man) from Twilight. It always makes me think of Bella Goth from the games, who seems less likely to take crap from abusive supernatural creatures. She's a pre-made character in the original Sims, mysteriously disappeared as of The Sims 2 (most likely abducted by aliens), and apparently a kid in The Sims 3. No, she wasn't mysteriously de-aged, but I guess that game is a prequel of sorts if you play with the established characters. I have yet to try The Sims 3, and while I'd like to play it someday, I've heard you have less control over the Sims themselves in that one, which would probably take some getting used to.


Anyway, while Bella is officially married to Mortimer, neither bethje nor I kept her that way. Beth married her to Michael Bachelor, but later games reveal that they're actually siblings. Not that I blame Beth for this, since there was no way to know this at the time. In fact, it's likely the game developers hadn't even made it up yet. In my own first Sims game, she was married in turn to Erdrick and his roommate Kandar, both of whom are characters from Dragon Quest III. After Kandar and Bella got together and had a daughter named Maria, Erdrick married the daughter of Cecil from Final Fantasy IV, whom I also made into a Sim. The choice of these characters was not totally arbitrary, either. The end of DQ3 says that Erdrick mysteriously disappeared, and the first FF (the English translation, anyway) has his grave in Elfland. As for Cecil, he shows up in The Secret of Evermore, implying that both of these characters did some world-jumping. I'd actually made some plans for a story about Erdrick's adventures with the reformed Kandar, but I never got too far. Honestly, I was a little embarrassed about even writing it, but the idea tends to come to mind when I'm bored at work. Hey, at the IRS a few years ago, I developed a back story about Erdrick and Kandar eventually settling in Oz, and the N Team discovering the remnants of their old home years later. Yes, when I get into a certain frame of mind, I come up with crossovers between Oz books, video games, and old Saturday morning cartoons ABOUT video games. Sometimes I mix in classical mythology as well. It's probably all too ridiculously complicated for me to bother writing any of it down, and I doubt anyone who didn't have pretty much exactly the same interests as me would want to read it anyway. The Oz series and the early Dragon Quest games both have fairly small fanbases (in the English-speaking world, anyway), and perhaps the number of people familiar with both can be counted on one hand.


This post was kind of all over the place, wasn't it? Well, now you know a little more about how my mind works, I suppose.

The concept of a tree that supports the entire world and the heavens is a common one in mythology, appearing in legends from Mesoamerica to India. I guess people liked the idea of a cosmology that didn't leave the world's fate to a turtle. The best known mythological world tree, however, is the Norse ash tree Yggdrasil. The mythology surrounding this ash was quite complex, with the tree having three roots that reach down to the three different worlds of Asgard, Midgard, and Niflheim, each watered by a different well or spring (the one in Midgard being the well of Mimir, from which Odin drank in order to gain wisdom). There's an eagle nesting in the branches of Yggdrasil, a squirrel running up and down its trunk, and a serpent nibbling at the root in Niflheim. The tree is also where Odin sacrificed himself so that he could obtain knowledge.



The World Tree motif, with Yggdrasil as the main model, has made its way into several video games, one of them being Faxanadu.



Yeah, THAT game, which involves the hero climbing the World Tree from its roots to its branches, and also involves Elves and Dwarves from Norse mythology. We rented the game once when I was a kid, but we didn't get very far. We DID watch the Captain N episode based on the game, however, in which the King of the Elves was an Elvis impersonator.



Another video game series that involves the World Tree is Dragon Quest. As early as the second game, there's an item awkwardly called "Leaf of World Tree," which can be used to revive a fallen hero. In more recent games, the item is called an "Yggdrasil Leaf," making the connection to Norse mythology more obvious. This is part of the same renaming that has Wyvern Wings now referred to as Chimera Wings, which I don't really care for. Apparently they've always been Chimera Wings in Japan, but even though a Google Image Search found some pictures of mythological chimeras with wings, isn't "Wyvern" a better name for this sort of monster?



Getting back to the World Tree, though, you can find the Leaf in DQ2 on a tiny island that I believe is said to house every kind of tree in the world (although the eight-bit graphics don't really present this too well). I believe the only Leaf to be found in the upper world of DQ3 (which is an analog of our own) is in a large forest in the area corresponding to Siberia, and the Siberians DID have a World Tree myth, so maybe this isn't entirely coincidental. But the first DQ game that actually has a World Tree is the fourth. The base of the tree is in Elfville, and its leaves are free for the taking, but I believe you can only have one at a time. The Zenithian Sword is also hidden somewhere in the tree's branches. The World Tree is also significant in the Dragon Quest Monsters games, which include kingdoms like Great Log and Great Tree.

And while I'm on the subject, I feel I should also mention the Deku Tree and Maku Tree from the Zelda games, which aren't exactly World Trees, but have some similar characteristics.

I have to admit that I've always liked Erdrick, the legendary hero in the early Dragon Quest games. The first two mention him as a figure from the past, and you play as his descendants. Then, in Dragon Warrior III, you actually play as Erdrick, although you don't find this out until the end. Apparently, "Erdrick" was retconned into a name only bestowed on great heroes by the King of Alfegard. In Japanese, the name of the hero is "Loto" (sometimes spelled "Roto"), and I've seen the suggestion that Erdrick is the guy's given name, and Loto his honorific name. I really don't know why they'd change the name so much for the English translation, but I quite like the sound of "Erdrick." It's also the name of a street in northern Philadelphia, by the way.

In the first Final Fantasy game, there's a grave in Elfland that purports to be that of Erdrick, who died in his twenties. Since DW3 starts on his sixteenth birthday, it's certainly possible that this is the same person, and even allows a few more years for extra adventures. And for that matter, "Alfegard" more or less means "Elfland." Oddly enough, I've heard that the Japanese version of this gravestone mentions not Loto, but Link. I can't help thinking of a grand battle taking place there in the distant past, in which both Erdrick and Link were killed. Since it's almost certainly not the same Link in every Zelda game (unless constant time travel and memory loss are involved), it's possible that one of them died on the Final Fantasy world, right? Actually, Captain N had episodes that took place in the worlds of all three of those game series, so maybe the show isn't as far off base as everyone thinks.

There are plenty of other cross-references in video games. Some of them can simply be considered homages (like how the magic whistle in Super Mario Bros. 3 plays the same tune as the one in the original Legend of Zelda), but there are also enemies appearing in both the Mario and Zelda series. Is this a case of parallel evolution, or a sign of travel between worlds? Link and Samus Aran both make cameos in Super Mario RPG, and the enemy Culex is probably supposed to be from the Final Fantasy universe. And while I've never played any of them, I understand that the Kingdom Hearts games have FF characters interacting with Disney cartoons, of all people. So maybe my own often-considered idea of having some video game characters visit Oz isn't as ridiculous as it might sound (although it would probably be just as cheesy).

I'm going to a concert tonight. That should be fun, but the lack of sleep won't be.

Here are three more Captain N reviews, for your viewing pleasure.

( The Feud of Faxanadu )
( Having a Ball )
( The Trojan Dragon )