User blog:WikiSchm2000/The MarioMario54321 Review Marathon - Part 16

Mario Bloopers: Mario’s Tower (November 4, 2007) [Runtime: 9:46]

Prelude:

Before we start this new video, I have to apologize for not being accurate for Evil Mario’s current kill count. I ended up forgetting Bowser back in the Top 10 Worst Things video and Marowak’s death again, which should bring our count up by 2. Mario Victim Count: 30. Alright, with those accounted for, let’s get started with the actual review.

If you’re hoping that we’ve gone past the ‘Morally Awful Mario Era’ portion of the MM lore, you’re pretty much mistaken. And if you think we’re done with the Pokemon content either, you’re also quite wrong. Good old MM doesn’t seem to be done with showing off stories in the Pokemon world, deciding to make another story mainly based in that world. Though given that we’ve exhausted Lavender Town and I don’t think he wants to play all of Gen 2 or 3 to get to the bonus dungeon, MM had to get a bit creative for this one. Thus, Mario’s Tower, a three-part series, was born. Well, technically there’s two parts and a deleted scene, but the deleted scene might as well be part 3 so I’m not counting it as a separate thing. With that being said, let’s get started with our third outing into the Pokemon world!

See this video first though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qzhtk-ENSI&list=PLNPi6H0sXYaCHQG4Br4q5yZJp8uxhid2B&index=16

The Main Video:

We start with a new intro, which already is a massive improvement over the Lavender Town videos by virtue of it simply existing. Unfortunately we’re not back to the same quality as the first intro, though, with the intro consisting only of gameplay footage of Mario traversing through all Bowser’s courses with the footage sped way up. It would be fine if the footage wasn’t also tampered with by making most of it into the style of the ‘Take on Me’ music video with the footage looking like sketches.

Nor does it help that there’s no indication of Mario Kart 64, Smash Bros. or Pokemon content save for a Gen 1 song in the intro. The only real good thing is the MM appearance at the end, but that’s it. Really I don’t see why we didn’t keep the first intro, that was fine enough.

Soon we’re on to the actual video, though, with Evil Mario walking right out of Peach’s castle. The narration states that Luigi has struck oil and was paid great amounts for the oil. Wait, is that what Luigi’s doing in the background of these videos? Digging for rare materials to get some cash? Because if that’s the case, that’s really telling of what’s going on in the background of these videos. Perhaps Luigi needs this cash to pay for all the health insurance or doctor visits whenever he inevitably gets injured in these videos?

Well, we know that with this cash he at least bought two separate towers for himself and for his brother. Overjoyed by this revelation, Evil Mario grabs his kart and prepares to drive off to see his tower. He states that Luigi ended up giving him the taller of the two towers and outright hopes that Luigi wasn’t jealous of him getting the bigger tower. Which, given the record of the series, must mean that Luigi was jealous of Evil Mario’s tower and did something awful to it.

Although to be honest, I wonder why Luigi would even give perhaps the greatest villain of the Mushroom Kingdom a tower in the first place, much less the taller one? I guess he just feared what would happen if he didn’t give Evil Mario the taller one and decided not to get brutalized again. That would be a rather sensible thing to say to your brother, but I don’t know...given that Luigi was so against Evil Mario in the previous videos I don’t buy that he actually would do something that nice for him. Plus since Evil Mario outright activated his negative karma prediction powers with that previous line, I think that Luigi ended up lying to him somehow.

Evil Mario soon goes into a Gen 2 town (I don’t know the name because I don’t know Gen 2, sorry) and remarks on Luigi’s tower being past the woods, going into what he believes to be his tower.

Once he enters, however, he soon finds out that there’s no happiness to be found there. Just fat guys. The tower looks completely trashed, with rocks and the fat men everywhere. Not only that, but there’s clear holes on the floor, no second floor, a rocky basement and Evil Mario comments that it seems a bit burnt.

Okay, I guess Luigi did lie about this being the better tower. It doesn’t even have more than one floor, and it doesn’t even function as a tower! The only good thing here is that Luigi’s provided some manservants for Evil Mario to presumably let out his rage on, but Evil Mario doesn’t end up doing so.

Anyways, Luigi, I hope you’ve gotten satisfaction from doing this and that your tower is quite high because you’ve very much just set off Evil Mario’s wrath right about now. Granted, Luigi does seem to be prepared at least because there’s quite a bit of flashing once Mario reaches the basement, which I speculate are from the three legendary Gen 2 Pokemon dogs...wait, I mean the three random cat statues. Yeah, sure, random cat statues. Anyways I speculate this flashing was meant to give Evil Mario enough seizures so that he would accidentally collapse and die.

But, surviving Luigi’s trap, Evil Mario goes outside and learns that the tower was burnt down by a flaming bird. Thinking Luigi to have picked that tower intentionally to spite him, Evil Mario of course tries to go to his new tower to murder him. Although in fairness he just says he wants to talk with Luigi, but I think we all know what he really means by ‘talk’. Along the way he ends up encountering a monk guarding the path, with MM informing us to ignore part of the game dialogue and change it up a bit.

I’m not sure I’m a fan of relying on game dialogue for conversations in these videos, because quite honestly they take away from the experience a bit. To get past said monk, Evil Mario just uses his physics-breaking powers to move past him.

Getting to the tower, Evil Mario is confronted with another monk who ends up blocking the only stairway up towards the upper floors, meaning that even Evil Mario’s physics-breaking powers won’t work. And not only that, but when Evil Mario demands to get past, the monk outright refuses to budge, even threatening to get him arrested if he remains on Luigi’s property! Okay, that’s brave of the monk and all, but I will be honest when I say that Luigi probably made a dumb decision here. That monk surely is going to die for blocking Evil Mario, isn’t he? Well...surprisingly no, actually. Evil Mario just walks off and leaves him alone.

Wait, he spared someone’s life? But...but that’s impossible! That’s literally impossible for him to do! Everyone else so far hasn't been spared unless they’ve groveled to him, and this monk quite literally defied him and lived! No, I refuse to believe that Evil Mario could simply spare his life. Luigi must have found two ultra-powerful Monks, or outfitted them with megaton lasers to incinerate Evil Mario if he defies them. Okay, never mind, I guess Luigi might have actually put some thought into this if he actually gave them lasers powerful enough to get them leverage over Evil Mario.

Determined to get to the top, Evil Mario breaks through physics to attempt climbing the tower. But, somehow accounting for that, Luigi’s tower suddenly cuts midway before Evil Mario can even see a top.

Really you’re not supposed to get that high in the game, but in-story this means that Luigi’s tower is literally Evil Mario-proof. I like that Evil Mario’s actually met with backlash from other people and isn’t just allowed to do whatever he wants, it’s refreshing after how much he got away with last time.

Feeling lost and being utterly defeated by Luigi’s defenses, Evil Mario ends up sulking back to his tower, which is now flashing right on the first floor. He regrets and pouts until night, and to be honest there is a legitimate attempt to make you feel sorry for Evil Mario. Clearly he was burdened with something in ruins, and he simply wants to understand why Luigi would do that to him. But it falls so flat because of what he’s done in the past videos that I don’t really feel sorry for him at all, he completely deserves this. After so long of walking around (apparently for hours even though in-game it’s only for a minute really) Evil Mario finally does what I expected him to do, yelling about how Luigi’s going to pay. So, Luigi’s gonna die I guess.

Angrily he storms off towards Luigi’s Tower, Tin Tower, trying to get past the monks in the meanwhile. By simply mentioning that he’s Luigi’s brother, the first monk ends up letting him through. He passes it off as Luigi letting Evil Mario in at any time, but I think that it’s simply because he’s wetting himself in fear of this demon. Ah, never mind! I guess they didn’t have megaton lasers after all, they were just hired as faux guards to seem tough and intimidating for Luigi. Silly me, I should have known those Penguins wouldn’t be keen on sharing their advanced technology.

The other monk somehow overhears who Evil Mario really is, too losing his courage and getting out of the way before Evil Mario could possibly kill him. He talks to Evil Mario (offscreen because he isn’t actually there in the Pokemon game I bet) and tells him that he’s free to now climb the tower. He’s offscreen but MM decides to make Evil Mario at least walk a bit away from his goal to converse with the monk, which is a bit of an appreciated detail. Before starting his climb, though, Evil Mario says that he can turn off the revenge music. Which...okay it’s revenge music, but it’s not the Bad Revenge music so I don’t really care.

The next session entirely consists of a playthrough with Evil Mario going through Tin Tower. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t like the gameplay sections of either Lavender Town or the parts in Cerulean Cave. In fact, it’s part of the curse that comes from focusing on a Pokemon world type of story. And I think the brunt of those problems are highlighted right here where a whole three minutes of the video is dedicated towards Evil Mario climbing a tower with nothing interesting happening. This really didn’t need to be in the video, I think a cutaway to the top would have been far more effective.

So Evil Mario ends up wandering around the tower for hours, which is definitely how long it feels when watching Pokemon gameplay footage.

Not only that, but the flashes seem to be in Luigi’s tower too, which means that I guess they aren’t supposed to be as fatal as I thought they’d be. But given that Evil Mario doesn’t complain until the end I’m guessing that the flashes are far less severe than in the burnt tower. Soon Evil Mario gets bored and requests for Scatman music, which at least makes the boredom a slight bit more tolerable. Because to be fair if this is going to be a filler scene, I at least want groovy music to go along with it so I can focus on the song instead. Scatman Counter: 8.

Finally getting to the top, Evil Mario ends up seeing Ho-Oh and questions what it is. We don’t get to find out before the part ends, leaving us on a bit of a cliffhanger. Oh, and you’ll notice here that MM has misspelled ‘supposed’ with ‘sopposed’. I’m not sure why but that’s his most commonly misspelled word, so that’s getting a counter. Sopposed Counter: 1.

And that was the first part of Mario’s Tower! I’ll be honest, it’s probably the best of the Pokemon-centric stories so far. Only by technicality, though, there’s still some major filler flaws near the end. But for the story itself, Evil Mario seems to have calmed down a slight bit. Plus, the story seems a slight bit more original than Lavender Town and it doesn’t quite insult the intelligence of the audience as much either. That could change in the next parts, but for now I’m just preparing to see Luigi get murdered.

The Extra Bonus Stuff:

Evil Mario - 55 lines [55] (He’s in almost all of this video to be fair.)

Luigi - 0 lines [0] (Like Peach in Lavender Town, a ghost character who only serves to put the plot forwards.)

Town Civilians - 0 lines [0] (They exist.)

Fat Guy #1 - 1 line [1] (Somehow he’s fine chilling in a ruined tower.)

Fat Guy #2 - 1 line [1] (Somehow he’s fine being owned by another human being, isn’t that slavery?)

Monk #1 - 2 lines [2] (Ah yes, the guy attempted to imitate Gandalf.)

Monk #2 - 5 lines [5] (Was pretty verbal about Evil Mario leaving.)

Ho-Oh - 0 lines [0] (The bird only showed up at the cliffhanger ending, plus it’s a Pokemon.)

Biggest Chad: Luigi - The guy finally put up proper anti-Evil Mario defenses. Too bad it didn’t mean much in the end, but at least he tried. The 2nd monk would have gotten this spot had he not cowered out after hearing of Evil Mario’s identity and if Luigi didn’t end up hiring him as security.

Biggest Loser: Fat Guy #1 - Says that the burnt tower is a bad place but doesn’t bother to leave it, okay buddy.

Favorite Quote: “Bummer.” - Monk #2 (Such a deadpan response to Evil Mario wanting to get through lol)

And that’s it. Next time we’ll be seeing the encounter between Evil Mario and Luigi in Mario’s Tower! ...well not his tower, Luigi’s Tower actually, but in the series called Mario’s Tower!