JFrombaugh
Goomba
As we all know, the Mario universe consists of several different sets of continuities.
While the various platformer games (from the original Super Mario Bros. to New Super Mario Bros. Wii, from Super Mario 64 to Super Mario Galaxy) are widely considered to be the heart and soul of the series, there are still several spinoffs that vary the setting/style of play enough to potentially qualify as being either "alternate canon" or "non-canon", depending on who you ask. These include the US version of Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario RPG, the Paper Mario series, the Mario & Luigi series, and Fortune Street (crossover with Itadaki Street and Dragon Quest).
Add the Mario Party series, the Mario Kart series and other sports games, quite a few early 1990s educational/puzzle computer games (Hotel Mario and Mario is Missing fall here), and several comics spawned by the various Mario platform games, each of which having added generously to the Mushroom Kingdoms mythology, events, and character interactions, and you have a deceptively complex fandom that stumps the uninitiated.
Not to mention the upcoming Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam game (which introduces Paper Mario fighting alongside the human Bros.), as well as the possibility that the old Super Show cartoons may be their own universe VS the games they were based on.
As this page (http://www.mariowiki.com/MarioWiki:Canonicity) discusses, because the goal of Super Mario Wiki is to accurately convey information about the series, not to confirm what "did and didn't happen" in the series' continuity, arguments about such things are purely speculative - technically speaking, the cartoons and spinoff games might not be any less "official" than the platformers, seeing as how Nintendo authorized the producers to use the Mario brand - but depending on how you, as a fan, look at the series as a whole, it might not be possible to integrate everything with regards to backstory or canon.
So my purpose of this thread is to ask...what do YOU consider to be canon and non-canon as far as the series goes? If you consider something to be "Alternate Canon" you can say so as well.
While the various platformer games (from the original Super Mario Bros. to New Super Mario Bros. Wii, from Super Mario 64 to Super Mario Galaxy) are widely considered to be the heart and soul of the series, there are still several spinoffs that vary the setting/style of play enough to potentially qualify as being either "alternate canon" or "non-canon", depending on who you ask. These include the US version of Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario RPG, the Paper Mario series, the Mario & Luigi series, and Fortune Street (crossover with Itadaki Street and Dragon Quest).
Add the Mario Party series, the Mario Kart series and other sports games, quite a few early 1990s educational/puzzle computer games (Hotel Mario and Mario is Missing fall here), and several comics spawned by the various Mario platform games, each of which having added generously to the Mushroom Kingdoms mythology, events, and character interactions, and you have a deceptively complex fandom that stumps the uninitiated.
Not to mention the upcoming Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam game (which introduces Paper Mario fighting alongside the human Bros.), as well as the possibility that the old Super Show cartoons may be their own universe VS the games they were based on.
As this page (http://www.mariowiki.com/MarioWiki:Canonicity) discusses, because the goal of Super Mario Wiki is to accurately convey information about the series, not to confirm what "did and didn't happen" in the series' continuity, arguments about such things are purely speculative - technically speaking, the cartoons and spinoff games might not be any less "official" than the platformers, seeing as how Nintendo authorized the producers to use the Mario brand - but depending on how you, as a fan, look at the series as a whole, it might not be possible to integrate everything with regards to backstory or canon.
So my purpose of this thread is to ask...what do YOU consider to be canon and non-canon as far as the series goes? If you consider something to be "Alternate Canon" you can say so as well.
