User blog:WikiSchm2000/The MarioMario54321 Review Marathon - Part 12

Mario Bloopers: Lavender Town (Part 1) (October 14, 2007) [Runtime: 4:34]

Prelude:

Lavender Town is perhaps one of the most infamous locations in all of Pokemon. Responsible for numerous creepypastas and false news of an illness causing kids to commit suicide, it’s not hard to see why those rumors would originate from an area like this. It has quite disturbing music and an unsettling location, a confirmation that Pokemon do indeed end up dying and going to the grave in that sort of world. The atmosphere of the place will likely never be forgotten by children growing up or to people nostalgically remembering the first generation of Pokemon on the Internet.

So, of course, this is the first topic of Pokemon that MarioMario54321 decides to make a video on. Yep, we’re finally breaking new ground in this video series! Not only are we getting out of the games officially featuring Mario, we’re getting away from the Nintendo 64 in general and launching ourselves straight into the GameBoy and GameBoy Color games! Thanks to the VisualBoyAdvance emulator, MM is easily able to record any GameBoy, GameBoy Color or GameBoy Advance games that he wants. And they’re...not as flexible as Mario 64, as you could imagine. Replacing textures isn’t quite as easy, which is why we don’t see this emulator being used too often for MM’s videos. And to be honest, I’m kind of grateful that we only get these games every once in a while.

So expect to stretch some of your imagination for this one, as we’re diving straight into Lavender Town once again! And this time, Mario’s going to be suffering along with us!

See this video first though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaQ6X2WS8hU&list=PLNPi6H0sXYaCHQG4Br4q5yZJp8uxhid2B&index=12

The Main Video:

We start off with MM nixing his intro completely and going back to the Windows Movie Maker way of intros. Although at the very least this isn’t a blue screen, I would have much preferred an actual intro like we had back in Mario v. Oiram 2. I don’t feel introduced to the characters or the general tone, although granted since this is mainly a Pokemon video perhaps the intro wouldn’t have fit much. I still would have put something, though.

We start with Mario….ugh, no I can’t contain my hatred for him at this moment. It feels like an absolute betrayal to be calling him by the name Mario, I just don’t feel he’s the real Mario really. But I don’t want to waste time calling him Evil Mario in these reviews so I guess I’m going to be a hypocrite and keep calling him by the name of a better man. So Mario is asked by Peach to get some medicine for her flu, of which the medicine is to be found in Lavender Town. Although, quick question here Princess: why do you need to go to Lavender Town specifically to get that cure?

If it’s the flu then surely you could get medicine literally anywhere right? Like, in any of your Toad Towns? Don’t you have cures stored in the castle for this exact scenario? My guess is that this is a foreign disease that MM brought and Peach is just calling it the ‘flu’ for whatever reason. And MM, realizing he’s screwed if Peach goes out of power, found out that the only place for a cure was in a place called Lavender Town. I’m assuming MM’s sending Mario instead of himself though because he’s a sick twisted film producer who wants those views, and he knows Mario’s going to screw up somehow out by himself.

But if they know of Pokemon now, what’s preventing the civilians from getting some for themselves? What’s preventing someone like Mario or MM or even Oiram from just gathering Pokeballs and catching Pokemon? Surely they would be super useful, right? Or maybe there’s a law dictating that Pokemon can’t come into Mushroom Kingdom borders, and if they’re found they’re shot to death or something. Considering how their hero acts I really wouldn’t be too surprised if they had that law in place.

So Mario drives east in his kart to go to Lavender Town. Meanwhile I’ve realized that Lakitu’s filming Mario despite what happened to Lakilulu in the last video, which means that I know that Mario is prone to murdering Lakitus now. Lakitu, good sir, you may want to try running away and finding another job real soon before Mario decides to slaughter you out of rage. You’re like one of the only characters I like, so trust me when I say the job isn’t worth it. Actually I’m surprised Mario’s even getting medicine for Peach too now that I think about it, although I guess she would be the one person he wouldn’t dare want in any sort of hurt. Maybe he does have a soft side after all...

With Lakitu feeling too good about his job security to feel much fear I guess, we see Mario entering Lavender Town.

And now that he’s in the town, he’s going straight for the medicine place, right? Because clearly Peach’s survival is of importance here and Mario’s not going to waste any time getting that cure, right? Well...no, Mario hears the music of the place and for whatever reason decides to go inside the large tower for some reason. Okay so maybe he’s not the best at directions or whatnot, but I’ll just accept Mario having some sort of direction disorder for now.

So Mario enters the tower and feels the music there is even worse, going up the floors and discovering literal gravestones in the tower. By this point it should be evident that Mario is not, in fact, in a medicine ward and is in some sort of graveyard tower. So you would think that he would stop his journey here and get the medicine instead at some other place, because clearly this tower can wait. But instead of doing that, Mario decides to try and reach the top because he wonders if there’s any treasure there.

...Yep. Mario forgets about Peach literally dying from an illness and forgoes trying to get medicine for her just to see if there’s treasure at the top of this tower. So even PEACH isn’t worth Mario’s time anymore. The one goal he has in most of the games, and he’s ignoring her for something else. Like, you can’t argue that he cares for literally anyone besides himself now! He’s clearly ignoring her for whatever the hell he’s doing right now! Nope, nope, nope. I’ve changed my mind. This isn’t Mario, I refuse to call him by that name. He’s now Evil Mario, because dear god he shares nothing in common with that bloke. Perhaps this guy’s the real Doppelganger of Mario, it would fit in with the actual definition of that word.

So Evil Mario climbs further up and up the tower, no doubt wasting precious valuable time for Peach as she succumbs more and more to her fatal disease. And along the way he ends up encountering Ghosts, which should immediately warn him not to get involved with this place anymore and to maybe turn back, but like the dumbass he is he keeps climbing. Also nice black text placement so that it gets hidden when we enter a Pokemon battle, MM. Not the best text color choice in my opinion.

Near the top he ends up encountering the Ghost Leader, upon whom Evil Mario finally asks if Lavender Town is a bad place.

I mean the existence of Ghosts doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, Evil Mario. These ghosts could be doing a cool book reading club or seances, heck this could be a cool ghoul resort for all you know! So now we know that Evil Mario’s horrendously racist towards ghosts. In this case it’s justified though, as the Ghost Leader simply answers ‘yes’ to this question and yeets Evil Mario out of the tower through a window. That probably didn’t kill Evil Mario because he should be at full health.

For whatever reason Moon Jump doesn’t work in this area though (hint: We’re not in SM64 or MK64), probably because of curses or something. So Evil Mario ends up hiding in a cave...for three years. I...WHAT? Three years? So after all of that trouble you decided not to find a medicine for Peach and you buggered off for THREE YEARS? You muppet, why would you be scared into hiding for three years? The real Mario wouldn’t be scared of something as silly as that thing, he’d jump up after like a day and keep fighting! That or he’d just let Luigi do the work since ghosts seems to be more his expertise anyways. He certainly wouldn’t hide in a cave for THREE BLOODY YEARS when Peach’s life is on the line!

So since Evil Mario utterly and completely failed at his job, they send out his brother to retrieve the cure and bring Evil Mario back. Although Luigi says that Peach is ‘you don’t want to know yet’, which spoilers means she’s dead.

So yeah, Evil Mario got so lazy that Peach is already dead. And given she was feeling the effects of the illness there’s no way in hell she would have solely depended on Evil Mario for the cure. I have faith in her intelligence, she was smart enough to work with Bowser to try and take him down after all. So if she’s really dying, why not send Luigi earlier to get the cure? Hell why not send Luigi over after a month since she’s completely sick? I doubt MM would have been able to interfere, and even though Luigi’s the most idiotic person in this kingdom he seems to be smart enough to start up music so I doubt he wouldn’t have agency to find this cure.

No, the only logical explanation for all of this was that Peach ended up dying within a month due to Mario’s ineptitude. And before she could send Luigi out, she ended up dying. Bowser immediately seized that opportunity and took over the kingdom, locking away Luigi in the process and reigning with an iron grip. Though he made the mistake soon of antagonizing the Penguin Village, which with their megaton lasers were easily able to rise up and fight against the Koopa King and conquer the Mushroom Kingdom for themselves. Luigi was still imprisoned of course, but one fateful day Luigi was able to break out of prison and escape from the confines of the castle. This must be Luigi’s drive, to find Evil Mario and set things right where they went wrong!

For whatever reason, though, MM decided not to record all of that interesting stuff and just cut to the part where Luigi drives off to Lavender Town for some reason. Dude, do you know how many people would want to see a Penguin v. Koopa war? I would have put that video on my favorites if it existed! So skipping over a way more interesting and important event, Luigi heads into town to find Evil Mario.

In the meanwhile, Evil Mario appreciates a hedge constructed of himself...which I think is delusional of him to be honest because lots of people look like his sprite. Plus I don’t imagine they would honor some scum like him. Regardless he finally seems to have gathered enough dynamite to blow up the tower and get medicine for...WAIT A MINUTE! You had that information on the front of your mind and you’re still focusing on that tower primarily? And it took you three years to get dynamite of all things? You evil scumbag idiot! You don’t care about Peach at all, you just wanted an excuse to go exploring somewhere else and find an excuse to murder more things that make you mad, isn’t that right?

Also he’s planning to blow up the tower? Didn’t he see all the people inside of there? Does that mean he’s going to blow up the whole tower with all those innocent people inside? ...oh what am I saying, of course that’s what he’d do. He’s pure evil incarnate, I can’t expect him to be doing anything good at this point. So Evil Mario recognizes that the music in this place isn’t so bad anymore, but that doesn’t stop him from his murderous tendencies. Also I should note that it's quite a faithful choice to MM to change the music depending on the game played, a nice touch to be sure. Before he can throw in the bomb, however, some fat civilian stops him dead in his tracks and informs him that it’s no longer a ghost tower but a radio tower.

Oh my god, someone actually acting rational and heroic in an MM production! Congratulations, random fat man, you’ve taken a stand and saved hundreds of lives in that tower! You’re my new main protagonist outside of Oiram and the Penguins now...which means you aren’t going to be seen ever again aren’t you? Evil Mario near the end of that conversation asks what sort of radio tower it is before realizing the man said it earlier, making Evil Mario actually spare his life. That’s...wow I don’t even know what to think. That fat guy actually stopped him from a revenge plan, that’s a first!

So feeling extremely merciful, Evil Mario checks out the place for himself and finds a guard to the lower floors in the radio tower. He tells Evil Mario that the ghosts are held down there...and rather uncharacteristically Evil Mario just lets that be for now. He forgets his revenge plan and finally buys medicine at the Mart…

…

SO YOU KNEW WHERE THAT MEDICINE WAS AND…

Nope, not even gonna bother. This is Evil Mario’s plan to overtake the throne isn’t it? He must have found out Peach’s suspicions and taken action for himself. Heck, he and MM could have been co-conspiring to bring the plague to her so that Evil Mario would have a new location for film shooting while simultaneously murdering the ruler at the same time. It’s the only explanation I have because there’s no way he waited for three years before getting that cure. Not even Evil Mario’s character would have honestly waited that long until this was his plan. We get confirmation at the end that Peach did indeed die before being left with a ‘To Be Continued…’

Oh man, and I thought the last video assassinated Mario’s character. This was the cake of it all, though, and I ended up eating the toppings last time. Literally I cannot accept this Mario as the true Mario anymore, that’s how badly they botched him. No trace of the Mario we know and love remains in this video. Only a hateful, revenge-filled, Princess assassinating monster of a man is left in his place. Luigi’s lack of agency and MM’s inability to do much of anything only cements my thoughts on how unlikeable and unrelatable the main cast is, to where some random guy is earning my respect faster. When the civilians are who I want to see more of than the main protagonists, you know you’ve screwed up somewhere.

The Extra Bonus Stuff:

Evil Mario - 42 lines [42] (Still not calling him Mario, he’s just not the same.)

Peach - 0 lines [0] (Okay she didn’t appear on-screen at all or even speak, which normally means I shouldn’t bother to put her on this list. But since something happens to her offscreen and because that event is so central to this plot I’m going to put her here as an actual character. This is probably the only time I’m doing it though.)

Lakitu - 0 lines [0] (The cameraman, but please save yourself while you still can. #JusticeForTheLaktius)

Lavender Town Civilians - 0 lines [0] (Did nothing really)

Lavender Town Ghosts - 0 lines [0] (Didn’t say anything surprisingly)

Ghost Leader - 4 lines [4] (A bad person apparently if we’re going to be accepting their own word. Also he’s our supposed ‘main antagonist’ but I’m rooting for them more than for Evil Mario.)

Luigi - 3 lines [3] (What were you doing for three years you lazy sleazeball)

Fat Lavender Town Civilian - 4 lines [4] (Actually did his duty for the community)

Green Radio Tower Guard - 1 line [1] (Also doing a service for the community)

Biggest Chad: The Fat Lavender Town Civilian - The ghost throwing Evil Mario out was cool and all, but this guy legit saved one hundred lives by quelling Mario’s rage. For that alone he’s the biggest hero in the series and most definitely a worthy candidate for the main protagonist role.

Biggest Loser: Peach - Okay this may have also had a hand in me counting Peach as an actual character in this video series too, just so that I could ‘award’ this to her. Like yeah her death sucked but she was perhaps the BIGGEST idiot in this entire video series. She legit relied on incompetent morons or psychopathic murderers to get her cure instead of anyone sensible. For the Mushroom Kingdom’s sake she could have even sent a Toad to get that cure instead. They know how to drive karts, they should be fine to send instead of solely relying on Evil Mario and holding back Luigi!

Favorite Quote: "Mario's been gone for 3 years. And Princess Peach is (youdontwannaknowyet)." - Luigi. (Just the sheer absurdity of MM censoring Peach's death and that censor being a blatant set of words strung together makes this a priceless line.)

Now that Peach is dead, how will Evil Mario’s reign over the kingdom turn out? And will he end up causing more bloodshed for the Penguins? Find out next time!