During the development process Mario Kart Worldthe team making it faced important and potentially existential questions. Does Mario actually eat mushrooms? Meaning: Mario Universe Super Mushroom I ate itor simply touched Mario (and Luigi) to infuse the superpower?
The answer to that question may seem obvious to you, but I wonder if even 20-year Nintendo veteran Shintaro Jikumaru really understands the mushroom distribution mechanism of Mushroom Kingdom. With Jikumaru Mario Kart World Producer Yabuki Kosuke did due diligence on the issue and turned to Nintendo Executive Tezka for answers. Tezuka served as the original assistant director Super Mario Brosand since then, he’s produced or directed dozens of Mario games, so if anyone knows, it’s him.
Mario Kart World Devs raised the question in the first place as Jikumaru was inspired to add food to the new open world Mario Kart. That required game designers to implement food-eating animations.
“Why did we think that characters don’t have a drive-through system to eat while they drive? Yabuki explained. “But that’s totally ridiculous.”
Addition of burgers (and other local foods that cause changes in the wardrobe)) Mario Kart World Yabuki and Jikumal forced them to face facts about the rules of the Super Mario Universe. In a new question in an interview with developers at Nintendo, they explain:
Yabuki: Then the question came up: “Does Mario actually eat mushrooms?” (laughs)
Jikumaru: So, in the middle of development, we went to Tezka and said, “Is Mario actually eating those mushrooms?”
Yabuki: That’s right. And Tezka replies, “Yeah, he is.”
Longtime Mario fans are probably referring to games like the Mario & Luigi series. Super Mario Bros MovieIt’s clear that Mario will eat mushrooms to unlock the effect, touch Items like fire flowers and superstars to gain their power. Still, you can thank it Mario Kart WorldCreators want to be thorough and hope that there is some degree of contradiction in the dozens of power-ups of Mario games. in Mario Kart 8 Deluxefor example, when Mario uses a super mushroom in a race, he does not show that he will eat it. Instead, it implies that the mushrooms will be given to the cart itself, like some kind of NOS injection.
But the questions about the power-ups of Super Mario that Mario eats and what he simply touched might be for discussion. And there are many other unknowns too. Consider:
Maybe if I’ve been interviewed with Takahashi from Tezka (very unlikely after this story), I can say there will be dozens of questions for him that make him more and more annoyed.
