Console Wars author Blake Harris gave the internet another peek at the treasure trove of an historic Nintendo character guide recently. The main revelation this time is that the company insisted Wario "is not Mario's evil twin," but rather his "childhood friend." Wait a second. What?!?!
Ok, first: the relevant excerpt. Press The Buttons published some more pages from a 1993 Nintendo character guide—the same one that informed us of Yoshi's real name, among other things.
Here's the page on Wario:
We here at Kotaku aren't buying it. As Jason said when I first mentioned the apparent revelation: "Anyone who's played Super Mario Land 2 knows this is total horseshit."
I mean, think about it. The premise of that 1992 Game Boy game is that Wario has taken over Mario Land and moved into Mario's castle. He brainwashes the other citizens while Mario is away, which helps with the invasion. But still: how did he get into the castle? He had to get the key from somewhere. My bet is that he went to his parents—Mario's parents, whoever they may be—and asked for the spare key.
Mario is an Italian plumber who practically oozes cultural stereotypes from his pores. Do you really think his parents would just give their son's extra key to a "childhood friend?" Of course not. You've got to keep things in the family.
And on that note: why do you think that the crest on Mario's castle can swap so easily between an "M" and a "W?"
Would Mario really have made it so easy for his former "childhood friend" to just swap places with him? You let your friends crash at your place. Not trade places with you.
Also, just look at the two of them. Don't you see the brotherly similarities?
No? Ok, how about now?
Still nothing? Ok, one more shot:
Whatever. Wario is totally Mario's evil twin. If you ask me, the 1993 character guide was just the developer trying to cover its tracks after realizing they'd just handed over so much indisputable proof to all the Nintendo nerds out there.
Other revelations from the new manual pages include the fact that Nintendo once made a horrible pun at Kirby's expense:
And the fact that Mario's two favorite types of music are opera and "new-wave, high-techno Euro pop."
Huh. Who knew that gaming's leading man had even worse taste in music than I do?
If you haven't checked out Console Wars yet, you can read a very entertaining and informative chapter from the book right here. Or read our review here.
To contact the author of this post, write to yannick.lejacq@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq.