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Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 7:36 am
by tokumaru
tepples wrote:Could the Saint Seiya license have likewise been yanked late in development?
IDK... AFAIK, Bandai had the license for all Saint Seiya toys, and they were the ones making Saint Seiya video games. Even the Famicom Jump games that have cameos by various Jump Comics characters (including Seiya) were published by Bandai.

I guess the people who made Dragon Fighter were just fans of shonen armor anime, and were heavily "inspired" by Dragon Shiryu.

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 7:44 am
by DRW
tepples wrote:Could the Saint Seiya license have likewise been yanked late in development?
I find it much more likely that they did what they always do: Getting "inspired" by works left and right.

Like "Contra", which is pretty much "Aliens" set in the location of the first "Predator".
Or "Layla" which is "Dirty Pair - Project Eden".
"Arumana no Kiseki" --> "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom".

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 3:35 pm
by 93143
DRW wrote:the whole "Cranky = the original Donkey Kong" plot
http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/co ... eneration/

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 3:40 pm
by DRW
:mrgreen: Yeah, that one was good.

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2017 9:32 am
by Pokun
DRW wrote:
Pokun wrote:I remember reading that a Rare employee saying that he had designed Super Donkey with the intention of him being a grown up Jr.
[...]
Also Diddy was first supposed to be DK Jr at first, but Nintendo wouldn't allow a complete redesign so they had to make him an original character.
That's what I always find so suspicious with these rumors:
On the one hand, Donkey Kong was designed to be a grown-up Junior.
On the other hand, Diddy was supposed to be Junior.
When they designed Diddy they probably hadn't decided that Donkey wasn't the same as the old Donkey yet.

This actually leads to another misconception of mine. When DKC was announced and I saw artwork for Diddy Kong for the first time, I first thought he was Jr. But then I noticed he wasn't a gorilla anymore and had grown a tail.
DRW wrote:
Pokun wrote:I read through my DKC manual for mentions of Cranky being his grandfather but I couldn't find any, so I assumed it's possible Cranky is his father.
From the game:
"It's about time you visited your frail, old Grandpa!"
"And what have you brought for your old Grandpa?"
"Well, you've amazed your old Grandpa by getting this far!"
"So, you've finally come to get some game play advice from your old Grandpa!"

This also makes much more sense: Donkey Kong Jr. was the hero of his own old-school game, even rescuing the old Donkey Kong/Cranky. So it doesn't make much sense for Cranky to always complain to him that the new games are crap and that the new Donkey Kong wouldn't last in those games. This fits much better for the grandson who was never in an old-school game.

About whether Nintendo retconned it to be a single Donkey Kong: I wasn't aware of the references in the baseball and the "Brawl" game, so maybe I was wrong with my assumption. Or maybe they just don't care.
I found a PDF of the manual (US version) online and reread it. It does say Cranky is his grandfather several times, and on one page it refers Cranky as his pappy. Isn't pappy what you would call a father? Seems confusion was going on within Rare from the start.

Anyway Rare later retconned it and asked people to ignore all the instances where it says Cranky is his grandfather. So Rare's official stance seems to be that he is a grown up Jr, and it seems that Nintendo supports this (although they ignore that fact in some games). But yeah I agree with you that it doesn't make sense for Jr, who was also a hero back then, to be ignorant of those old games. On the other hand Super Donkey is already supposed to be a video game star before the game begins and Diddy admires him for it. Donkey sets him to guard his banana hoard to train him in becoming a hero. That sounds like Super Donkey would have appeared in games before it. There's so many plot holes that there's no wonder why even Rare was confused.
What I don't understand: Which game is canon now? "Donkey Kong" for the arcade or "Donkey Kong" for the Game Boy? If it's the Game Boy version, does that mean that "Donkey Kong Jr." never happened? The idea of Mario putting Donkey Kong into a cage doesn't fit with the Game Boy game's storyline.
The storylines doesn't get tied together very well at all. Mario, who was a carpenter, also had monkey (and a whole zoo of crocodiles and birds) and abused him (see Donkey Kong Circus G&W) and Donkey kidnapped his girlfriend to get back at him for a bit (although he intended to release her eventually). He saves his girlfriend and locks up Donkey Kong again, until Jr comes and rescues him. Then Donkey goes on a rampage in Stanly's green house. How does that tie together with any later Mario or Donkey Kong game? Then also in every game Mario has different jobs (carpenter, plumber, wrecking crew member, doctor, bottle factory worker, cement factory worker, boxing and tennis referee, toy factory owner and probably a lot more I forgot) and is also doing all kinds of sports. In the Super Mario Land series he has his own land and castle.

Nintendo said at one point to see Mario and other characters as actors in games, rather than the exact same character.
A meta-game setting is often used in these games, and the fourth wall is frequently broken. Especially the DKC games are always referring to things like animation frames as it was a natural thing. Like when Cranky challenges Donkey to go on an adventure so that it becomes a game, and in the DKC2 manual he says that he don't want to die in a game that scrolls.

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:15 am
by Drew Sebastino
Well, the one misconception that I had at the top of my head is that I used to think Marth and Roy spoke gibberish in Super Smash Bros Melee, and that they were made as characters just for the game.

And yes, any the story for the Donkey Kong games is all over the place. I'd love to know how Donkey Kong Island went from how it was in DKC, to DK64, and then to DKCR in less than 20 years.

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2017 12:58 pm
by psycopathicteen
I used to think video game systems were virtually omnipotent and the only limitations were color and resolution.

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2017 4:22 pm
by Fisher
I remember that back in the day when I first saw a Zelda game I tought it was related to the character Zelda Scott from the very popular (here in Brazil) series "Armação Ilimitada".
I ended up discovering it was completelly unrelated. :oops:

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2017 5:19 am
by DRW
Pokun wrote:I found a PDF of the manual (US version) online and reread it. It does say Cranky is his grandfather several times, and on one page it refers Cranky as his pappy. Isn't pappy what you would call a father? Seems confusion was going on within Rare from the start.
I assume "pappy" is a term for a grandfather. I mean, they're not that stupid, confusing the relationship between the two right from the start in the very document.
Pokun wrote:So Rare's official stance seems to be that he is a grown up Jr, and it seems that Nintendo supports this
Isn't Nintendo's current official statement that Cranky is the grandfather?
Pokun wrote:On the other hand Super Donkey is already supposed to be a video game star before the game begins and Diddy admires him for it.
Yeah, they say "famous video game ape" in the manual intro for some reason. In the very document that also says he's only the grandson. Maybe they are that stupid.
However, they also call him a "totally new character" on page 12, after saying that he's not the old Donkey Kong. So, they definitely didn't intend him to be Jr.
And then on page 14, they say Diddy wants to be a video game hero just like Donkey.
AAAH!
Pokun wrote:The storylines doesn't get tied together very well at all. [...] How does that tie together with any later Mario or Donkey Kong game?
The old games are not that problematic. Where exactly do you see an issue here? The games from DK over MB to SMB could all happen in the same continuity.
Pokun wrote:Nintendo said at one point to see Mario and other characters as actors in games, rather than the exact same character.
Yeah, that was originally the intention. The Mario in "Punch Out" is obviously not the princess-saving plumber from the "Super Mario Bros." games, but just the actor playing another role (even though all of these roles are called Mario, but the same is true for Charlie Sheen).

However, "Super Mario Land" definitely plays in the same continuity as "Super Mario Bros." That's the same role: Super Mario, the princess saver.
The Mario from "Donkey Kong" was tied into that continuity. He might have had the potential to be a character from another continuity, but it's pretty clear now that Mario Jumpman really is supposed to be the same Mario as Super Mario, not just another role by the same actor.

The whole different jobs of old-school games could be Mario the actor playing different roles. However, the character in the modern sports games is again definitely supposed to be the singular role of Super Mario. Which is still not a problem. The adventures are singular events. This doesn't contradict the idea that he holds a whole bunch of sports tournaments. (Apart from the question why the bad guys are frequently invited.)

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2017 11:20 am
by Pokun
DRW wrote:
Pokun wrote:So Rare's official stance seems to be that he is a grown up Jr, and it seems that Nintendo supports this
Isn't Nintendo's current official statement that Cranky is the grandfather?
I understood it from reading that wiki page that he is Junior. And there where lots of confusion (and possibly disagreement) between Nintendo, Rare and probably even within Rare which is why the manual is so confusing. And since Nintendo removed Junior from the audience in some stadium track in Mario Kart Wii, it makes me think they didn't want to have two Juniors of different age at two different places at once.
I haven't really checked up on sources and stuff though, so I could be wrong.
The old games are not that problematic. Where exactly do you see an issue here? The games from DK over MB to SMB could all happen in the same continuity.
Oh in my opinion there are no problems at all. I fully accept the fact that the storyline in Mario games isn't carefully designed to always make sense. I don't even see a problem by viewing them all as the same old Mario. Miyamoto tried to make Mario a video game mascot by sticking in his face everywhere in every game he could, no matter if it would make sense story-wise or not, and he succeeded with it. My point with my post was to point out that there are far more serious plot holes than just those in Donkey Kong '94. I didn't just point out old games, but about every Mario game I could think of.

Personally I love the developers' humour when they make the characters break the forth wall and know fully well that they are video game characters or what not, even in the most serious of games. Mysteries just makes the games much more interesting than if everything was perfectly logical.

What I don't like though is when Nintendo are changing a lot of stuff for apparently no reason. First they say Mario's and Luigi's family name is Mario but then that sounded silly so they suddenly decided they have no family name. Then they say Mario is no longer officially a plumber (ignoring the fact that he always had all kinds of professions). Do they really think I'd buy that?

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2017 12:49 pm
by DRW
Pokun wrote:I understood it from reading that wiki page that he is Junior.
Wiki pages don't count when it comes to conroversial stuff like that, unless they can quote official sources. After all, the people who write that stuff are poeple like you an me. I could go there right now and edit it.

Here's a little task: Go to a wiki page about "Street Fighter" and tell me who won the "Street Fighter II" tournament. Afterwards, I'll show you something.
Pokun wrote:And since Nintendo removed Junior from the audience in some stadium track in Mario Kart Wii, it makes me think they didn't want to have two Juniors of different age at two different places at once.
It could also mean that they removed him because it doesn't make sense to have a young Junior when his own son is shown as an adult. Having a young Junior in modern games make no sense either way, so this isn't an indication about anything.

Oh, and by the way: What could we conclude from this?
DK.jpg
DK.jpg (25.47 KiB) Viewed 3309 times
Probably nothing since the game also has Mario and Baby Mario. And that one "Yoshi's Island" sequel has Baby Mario and Baby Donkey Kong with a tie. Which would mean again that modern day Donkey Kong really is the original arcade Donkey Kong, with Junior being DKC DK's son and Cranky being a separate character altogether.

This plot is so fucked-up.
Pokun wrote:Oh in my opinion there are no problems at all. I fully accept the fact that the storyline in Mario games isn't carefully designed to always make sense.
In my opinion, the storylines up until "Super Mario World" do make sense. Since the plots are so basic, there's not much to not make sense:

Donkey Kong kidnaps Pauline. (The whole stuff about Mario mistreating him was never in the game itself, only in some additional manuals etc., so we can simply declare this and the stupid circus Game & Watch game as non-canon.) Mario defeats him.
And locks him up. Junior rescues his father. They escape and go back to their homeworld. (Maybe with a stop in Stanley's greenhouse.)
Two years later, the Mario Brothers become plumbers.
Two years later, Bowser kidnaps the Princess and Mario and Luigi rescue her.
Another three years later, Mario and his friends free the dream world of Subcon from Wart by entering that world through dreaming.
In the same years, Bowser and his new children attack. Mario defeats them and they retreat to Dinosaur Island.
Where they kidnap the Princess again when Mario, Luigi and Princess Toadstool make vacation there.

You see? The simplicity of the storylines means that you don't even have to "not think about it too much". These are all stories that could be episodes in Mario's life, without any contradiction to begin with.

It all goes downhill with "Super Mario Land 2" where Mario suddenly owns a castle on his private island for some reason.
Then the stupid story with them being brought by the stork. (I always thought Mario is supposed to be the everyman, not some mythical creature that doesn't get born, but that gets delivered by a stork. Mario is not a fucking Smurf.)
Then the "Donkey Kong" extended remake that totally disregards the game "Donkey Kong Jr." and seems to imply that "Super Mario Bros." plays right after "Donkey Kong".
And then the fourth wall breaking in "Donkey Kong Country".
And so on.
Pokun wrote:What I don't like though is when Nintendo are changing a lot of stuff for apparently no reason. First they say Mario's and Luigi's family name is Mario but then that sounded silly so they suddenly decided they have no family name.
Wasn't that only from the movie?
Pokun wrote:Then they say Mario is no longer officially a plumber (ignoring the fact that he always had all kinds of professions).
What? Are they nuts?

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:19 pm
by Pokun
This is what I meant with not taking it too seriously (Miyamoto doesn't seem to be a very serious person in the first place). You ran into all kinds of problems and you already disregarded some media about Mario being Donkey's owner because it didn't fit in your timeline. I could easily stitch together a timeline that fits every game, but if you get into detail it will probably be hard to make it stay within reasonable limits that people can agree with (unlike those game theories with "Mario Jumpman's" strange blood relations and other craziness).
Wiki pages don't count when it comes to conroversial stuff like that, unless they can quote official sources.
So that's why I reserve myself by saying I haven't followed up on the sources. But some of this deduction do come from official sources like interviews with Rare developers. The guy who designed Donkey intended him to be a grown-up Junior, and Rare begged people to ignore the fact that Cranky was referred to his grandfather in earlier DKC games. And by looking at games nowdays it seems plausible that Nintendo just accepted it in the end. Of course if one would write an article about this, one would have to be careful and only use material with proper sources instead of wiki articles.

I forgot that modern Mario Kart games all have baby versions of characters though, and that kind of makes it vague to point out that Nintendo might have accepted Rare's canon by the removal of Jr from Waluigi Stadium.

And yeah Mario Tennis is one of those games that ignores the DKC series.

Wasn't that only from the movie?
I remember reading this regarding their family name many years ago, and the article at that time claimed that it "had been confirmed by Mr Miyamoto himself". Later Mr Iwata (RIP) went out with saying that they have no family name.

Update: I did some googling and found this:
“This is an old story, but Hollywood did a film version of the Mario Bros. many years back. There was a scene in the script where they needed a last name for the characters. Somebody suggested that, because they were the Mario Bros., their last name should be Mario. So, they made him “Mario Mario.” I heard this and laughed rather loudly. Of course, this was ultimately included in the film. Based on the film, that’s [how] their names ended up. But, just like Mickey Mouse doesn’t really have a last name, Mario is really just Mario and Luigi is really just Luigi.” - Shigeru Miyamoto - 2012
Sounds like it was mostly just the movie and people misquoted him or something, who knows. BTW I always thought Mickey's family name was Mouse?
What? Are they nuts?
Try googling it. Mario got sacked (it wouldn't surprise me if this was just also some stupid misquote or something though).

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:42 pm
by DRW
Pokun wrote:The guy who designed Donkey intended him to be a grown-up Junior, and Rare begged people to ignore the fact that Cranky was referred to his grandfather in earlier DKC games.
Well, there you got it: Intentions don't mean anything unless they actually get into the work itself.
By the time the first DKC game was released, the designer's intention was totally overruled by the actual canon: The new Donkey Kong is the old Donkey Kong's grandson.
Only later was the old intention re-established, but had they not done this, then the designer's intention wouldn't have played a role.
(They originally intended Krusty the Clown to actually be Homer, which is why they practically look alike. This never got into the show itself, so just because they originally had that thought when they designed the character doesn't mean that Krusty is literally Homer Simpson.)
Pokun wrote:And by looking at games nowdays it seems plausible that Nintendo just accepted it in the end.
By looking at games nowadays, I still assume that Nintendo considers modern day Donkey Kong to be identical to the arcade Donkey Kong, i.e. making no real distinction between the two anymore, with Cranky being a separate character and DKJ being the son of the DK with the tie.
Do you have any indication from modern games either that Cranky is Donkey's father instead of grandfather or that DK is supposed to be a grown-up Junior instead of Junior's father or Junior's son?
As far as I know, the Nintendo 64 game was the last time that Donkey Kong was supposed to be Cranky's son instead of grandson.

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:52 pm
by DRW
Addition: The way Cranky in the "Donkey Kong Country Returns" manual refers to himself as a hero back in the day, telling what he would have done in certain game situation that you'll find yourself in, seems to imply that Brawl in the Family was right and today's Cranky Kong is not the Donkey Kong of the arcade game, but an old version of the "Donkey Kong Country" Donkey Kong.
Cranky.png
--> Not something that refers to the arcade game, but to "Donkey Kong Country".

http://m1.nintendo.net/docvc/RVL/EUR/SF8P/SF8P_E.pdf

Re: Self-made misconceptions that you believed about games

Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 3:59 pm
by tepples
Pokun wrote:BTW I always thought Mickey's family name was Mouse?
Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit would support this theory, as Jessica is no more a rabbit than Eddie.