Between Miyamoto and the Koopalings being Bowser's kids, NOE chose...

Mister Wu

Mister Wu

King Bowser
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Mister Wu
A funny detail already wrtitten in the talk page of the Koopalings in the Wiki, but still good for a funny discussion.

Before starting, let's contextualize this story a little:
We all know that Miyamoto officially acknowledged the retcon of the original relationship between Bowser and the Koopalings in the newer games in an interview to Game Informer in 2012:
[quote author=Shigeru Miyamoto]Our current story is that the seven Koopalings are not Bowser's children. Bowser's only child is Bowser Jr., and we do not know who the mother is.[/quote]
However NOJ was a bit too zealous and even modified the story of Super Mario Bros. 3 in the Encyclopedia Super Mario Bros. so that it is no longer explicitly told that the Koopalings are Bowser's children.

But what about NOE? Well, the first shot arrived with the new page of Super Mario Bros. 3, updated after it was released on Wii U Virtual Console:

http://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/NES/Super-Mario-Bros-3-279558.html

Mmmmhh, offspring, arent' they? But after all, this is pretty much the text that was before so maybe they just kept it and called it a day.

This was a bit more troublesome:
20swpj4.jpg

"Forgive us... father. I mean, of course... Master Bowser!"

But still, a single language, all the other use either Bowser instead of father or even just have Morton saying "M... Master Bowser" like the Japanese version.


And now this comes:
this week it has been announced that Super Mario Advance 4 was coming to the European Wii U Virtual Console. I knew something interesting could happen to the description of the game in the official site so I immediately copied the text that was on the UK page before the update:

[quote author=Nintendo UK]It's the best-selling video game of all time. It's acclaimed by gamers the world over as the best Mario game ever made. And now it's portable.

Super Mario Bros. 3 was a milestone in gaming upon its original release for the NES in 1990, and still holds the world record for game sales. Now it comes to Game Boy Advance with new features galore. Boasting vastly improved graphics and sounds over the NES original, plus never-before-seen special features, Super Mario Bros. 3: Super Mario Advance 4 will give everyone a chance to relive - or experience anew - a true Miyamoto masterpiece.

Strap yourself into the red or green dungarees of Mario or Luigi as they jump, bounce, slide, fly and swim their way across eight enormous worlds. Their mission? To battle the forces of Bowser and his troublemaking kids, who have turned all the local kings into animals.

What makes Super Mario Bros. 3 so special? Is it the pixel-perfect controls? Could it be the superb level design, packed with secrets and surprises? Or maybe it's the cool power-ups like the flying Tanooki Suit, sea-swimming Frog Suit, or the whirlwind-summoning Warp Whistle?

Super Mario Bros. 3 also includes the original Mario Bros. game for some multiplayer madness. Simply connect to any of the other three Super Mario Advance games and take part in fun frolics for up to four players.[/quote]

And now, what is the current text? Here it is (http://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Game-Boy-Advance/Super-Mario-Advance-4-Super-Mario-Bros-3-267398.html):

[quote author=Nintendo UK]Strap yourself into the red or green dungarees of Mario or Luigi as they jump, bounce, slide, fly and swim their way across eight enormous worlds. Their mission? To battle the forces of Bowser and his troublemaking kids, who have turned all the local kings into animals.

What makes Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 so special? Is it the pixel-perfect controls? Could it be the superb level design, packed with secrets and surprises? Or maybe it's the cool power-ups like the flying Tanooki Suit, sea-swimming Frog Suit, or the whirlwind-summoning Warp Whistle?

Boasting vastly improved graphics and sounds over the NES original, plus never-before-seen special features, Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 will give everyone a chance to relive - or experience anew - this classic game.[/quote]

So, they kept saying that the Koopalings are Bowser's kids and removed the reference to Miyamoto instead...

P.S.: I know, first of all SMB3 was codirected by Miyamoto and Tezuka so the sentence had to rephrased anyway, and I am almost sure that this wasn't a stab at Miyamoto, still it's quite funny to see this, because it's pretty much the only part of the text that was rewritten...
 
You know, Miyamoto wasn't the one who made the choice to retcon the koopalings status as Bowser's kids. He was just the one who said that was how the dev teams looked at it.

"Our current story is that the seven Koopalings are not Bowser's children. Bower's only child is Bowser Jr. and we don't know who the the mother is."

That is the exact quote. Nothing about it says that he forced this change.
 
You're right to point that out, I am pretty sure this retcon is actually the result of a team of designer and more in general, of people involved in IP management, which is quite a complex matter as it involves decisions on many fronts (such as which characters should be promoted and how, how they should be presented, having a constant contact with third party using you own characters so that they use it properly and so on..). Miyamoto was speaking on behalf of the whole team, and we don't know how much his involvement in this decision was, if any at all.
By the way, this also reveals that these decisions might have regional variations as well.

EDIT: I modified the original text so that it's clear that Miyamoto acknowledged, adding the proper quote; saying that only he is responsible of this retcon when we don't know anything about it is not correct.
 
maybe Satoru Shibata didn't take the retcon well
 
Even though it's confirmed that the Koopalings aren't related to Bowser, I'd still think of them as Bowser's "stepchildren".
 
Or they were his adopted/foster kids and then he disowned them once he got himself a natural son.

Mcmadness said:
You know, Miyamoto wasn't the one who made the choice to retcon the koopalings status as Bowser's kids. He was just the one who said that was how the dev teams looked at it.

"Our current story is that the seven Koopalings are not Bowser's children. Bower's only child is Bowser Jr. and we don't know who the the mother is."

That is the exact quote. Nothing about it says that he forced this change.
Click to expand...
I'd still bet it was his idea originally, even if everyone else went along with it, like with PM:SS and whatnot.
 
Walkazo said:
Or they were his adopted/foster kids
Click to expand...
I think if NOJ were to remove the retcon, they probably would go that way.
NOE is more "extreme" and still keeps that "offspring" and translations thereof, and if you were asking yourself this, yes, Nintendo of Germany uses a translation of the "offspring" term just because they want to be at the forefront yet again...
Walkazo said:
and then he disowned them once he got himself a natural son.
Click to expand...
Interestingly, this is what the added details in the lines of the European versions of Paper Jam want to suggest (except that the Koopalings themselves are considered natural children), at least implicitly except in the case of the German version that went a bit too far and definitely is supporting this hypothesis through Morton's reveal and Bowser Jr. that says "my dad" in front of Roy.
If Color Splash will have talking Koopalings with a decent number of lines (wishful thinking at the moment...) I think I will do the same comparison done for Paper Jam to see if even in this case they add details to the lines that tell us something about their familiy relationships!
 
I don't have Paper Jam, but I think OP is looking too much into a line that to me seems to be a throwaway joke not meant to be taken seriously.
 
why don't nintendo just kill off the koopalings. i think they are just pointless