Super Mario Bros. Z
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| Super Mario Bros. Z | ||||||||||||||||
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 Behold, one of the greatest flash animated shows.
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Super Mario Bros. Z is a British fan-made flash-animated web series created by Mark Haynes. It is a crossover between the Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog franchises, while incorporating elements from the Dragon Ball Z series.
Plot
The story is centered in the Mushroom Kingdom where Sonic and Shadow were survivors of mass genocide in Mobius, their home land, by a humanoid robot called Mecha Sonic. By escaping their universe they met up with Mario and Luigi, later encountering Yoshi in a quest to stop this major threat and its perpetrator.
Why It Rocks
- The story is amazing for a 2006 Newgrounds flash series, as not only does it is a crossover with Mario and Sonic but also it is about Sonic and Shadow having to found the Chaos Emeralds before Mecha Sonic does because if Mecha Sonic found all of them, then it will be the end, making this series quite darker than most Mario and Sonic games (especially at Episode 6 or 8).
- The animation is awesome and impressive for a 2006 animated sprite animation, with it getting better as the series progressed.
- Very emotional scenes, such as Sonic explaining the events of what happened in Mobius and Shadow's flashback to Rouge the Bat dying.
- Shadow finally snapping when he has to put his and Sonic's own mission on hold to help the Mario Bros because of feeling the desperate need to avenge Rouge, then letting Sonic help the Mario Bros while Shadow continues his mission alone is one of the most powerful and saddest moments of the entire series.
- The five main characters are given deeper and more likable personalities than their canon counterparts, especially the characters from the Mario franchise.
- Mecha Sonic makes an excellent, intimidating villain due to his lust for destruction and disregard for innocent lives, proving to be a difficult, deadly obstacle in the path of the heroes, even making the viewers generally feel fear from Mecha Sonic's mere presence.
- In fact, here he's actually more powerful than in the actual games as much like Razorbeard from Rayman 2: The Great Escape, he will never stop from accomplish his objectives, and was even ready to kill Sonic and his friends, showing that here he's not playing around and is almost even more powerful than he was in Sonic Heroes.
- It is extremely faithful to both the Mario and Sonic franchise.
- Speaking of WIR#4, the characters are all well written, and while some are slightly flanderized, they aren't really truly unlikable (except Shadow on some occasions), here are a few exemples:
- Mario is once again a likable hero, always caring to his friends and he now had a great friendship with the Sonic and Shadow duo.
- Sonic is probably the most likable, being very honest to Mario, the hero who want to find all the chaos emeralds before Mecha Sonic does, and also even admit to Mario and Luigi that him and Shadow need their help.
- Shadow, while unlikable in many moments, he still had his moments of being a likable character and also had his moments of being heroic, though he would be gone for most of the episode 8 due to his attitude.
- Professor K.Tastrof is also likable as he help the Mario and Sonic gang in their adventures, that is, until the end of episode 6 where he would retire because of having enough.
- Yoshi is also a major hero here, even helping Mario and Luigi from not just keeping them when riding them, but also he actually fight, which make him more badass than ever.
- In fact, he even helped Mario and friends from his own tribe from attacking them, and even remain Mario existence when Chef Yoshi used to take care of him when he was just a baby.
- Wario and Waluigi, while they don't had a major role, are still as hilarous and try to get with Mario and Sonic for the emeralds but always fail.
- Despite the dark tone, the series still had a good sense of humors, such as the aforementioned scenes with Wario and Waluigi, or the Koopa Bros. who are even more hilarous than they were in the first Paper Mario.
- Make many references to other games such as Star Fox 64 (in episode 8 where the "Do a Barrel Roll" line appear), or even make many references to Sonic and of course Dragon Ball Z (especially with the way the characters fight).
- With the sprites being taken from other Mario and Sonic games, they even added a whole lot amount of references to other games of those franchise such as Paper Mario, Sonic Adventure (for the flying scene in the episode 8) and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, to name a few exemples.
- It also possibly reference Sonic X because of how Sonic and Shadow appear in the Mushroom Kingdom, and even because Eggman is with Bowser (even though his full appearance is not revealed).
- The Axem Rangers X sprites references those of both the Mega Man Zero games and Mega Man & Bass, especially that their designs are based on those sprites.
- It earned a short-lived 2015 revival, which was even better in terms of the story and the animation, which unsurprisingly it did gave a ton of fun to watch that revival.
- As you guessed, it cleverly parodies Dragon Ball Z, from the story to the fight scenes, this show that both the Super Mario and especially the Sonic franchises were perfect for a DBZ parodies.
- Surprisingly, some of the characters such as the Yoshi tribe and especially Professor K.Tastrof get a major role in this series (at least for the episode 6 for the former), even if they don't had the roles for the entire series.
- The title cards are great references to the ones from Dragon Ball Z.
- The fight scenes are incredibly well done and are some of the best from any sprite animated series and could remain an actual Dragon Ball Z episode but in sprite animation, which is also an incredibly good thing considering how epic the fight scenes of Dragon Ball Z are.
- Clever Mario franchise-related references, such as the moment where Mario is reading a note from Bowser which is animated like Hotel Mario except in actual sprite animation and it look way better than that game as well.
- The pacing for all the episodes is perfect, at such you will never get bored when the characters goes at their adventures, especially at episode 6.
- the episode 6 called "Brawl on a Vanishing Island" is considered by many to be not only the absolute best episode but also one of the greatest piece of sprite animation ever made, and for so many great reasons such as:
- The story with the Yoshi tribe that is just very well done and came out at the right time, leaving an emotional moment before the peak will start.
- The fights in episode 6 are easily the absolute best, especially the second ones with the villains as not only it is extremely epic but it is longer than the majority of the fights and also is so well paced that it may appear to be a quick fight but it is a long fight.
- Also you got both the Koopa Bros., Sonic, Shadow, Mario, Luigi and even Yoshi along with the Ranger X gang to fight, which mean that they are 14 to fight! Can you imagine how epic and amazingly great it is to watch ? Not to mention that it never end because after that suddently of nowhere, Mecha Sonic appear and fight the main characters too and it's give some of the most epic moments of the whole series, this combined with the great story of the episode itself make it the absolute best from the series.
- In addition, Mecha Sonic is absolutely amazing as a villain and doesn't play around at all as with the ways he beat the Rangers X and how he fight, along with the fact that he destroyed the island and if it wasn't for Shadow, then everyone would be dead (however the Koopa Bros. are dead as they were left), this show how much dangerous he is and how much of a villain he is, and just show that once again, he is even more powerful than he was in Sonic Heroes.
- Also you got both the Koopa Bros., Sonic, Shadow, Mario, Luigi and even Yoshi along with the Ranger X gang to fight, which mean that they are 14 to fight! Can you imagine how epic and amazingly great it is to watch ? Not to mention that it never end because after that suddently of nowhere, Mecha Sonic appear and fight the main characters too and it's give some of the most epic moments of the whole series, this combined with the great story of the episode itself make it the absolute best from the series.
- The sprites they taken from the games are great, and it's not just the characters themself, it's also the backgrounds as well, and this even count for the original characters.
- It even had one moment where it break fourth wall in episode 7 where they state that one of the quote was from the last episode, and Gombella say that it was from one year and a half and that peoples might not remember it, which is also hilarous.
- Amazing soundtrack that is taken from many games and even from the Dragon Ball Z show, some exemples include musics from Star Fox, Paper Mario, Super Mario Kart and Metroid Fusion.
- Aside from "Brawl on a Vanishing Island", each of the episodes are very well written, such as "Here Come The Koopa Bros." and their writting can remind you of the Dragon Ball franchise.
- It started a cult of other sprite animations, mostly originating from Newgrounds, showing that this web series is quite important to the sprite animator community.
- It overall show that even if your animated show is in sprite animation, it can still had a very well written story and had amazing animation that is on par with animes such as Dragon Ball.
Bad Qualities
- Due to Mark's depression, Nintendo getting the show's Patreon shut down and lack of motivation to continue the series, this has caused serious problems for the series and the fans.
- The original series is no longer canon.
- The reboot has been somewhat discontinued due to the Patreon page being shut down.
- Thankfully, as of May of 2021, the second episode of the reboot was released, meaning that the reboot was brought back after so many years which could be a sign that the reboot is still ongoing.
- Despite that the series is still very good, unfortunately it still had a ton of missed oportunity, such as:
- Having more Sonic characters added to the mix, such as Tails and Knuckles, even though it was stated that Mecha Sonic did kill them so that may explain why.
- More villains from the Mario franchise aside from Bowser could appear, such as Wart, or even some from the Donkey Kong games such as King K. Rool, although the latter did appear in the reboot opening but not in the actual series.
- For some reasons, Luigi doesn't use any of his combat techniques from the Luigi Mansion games, which could be dissapointing for some fans especially that in those games, he was braver and his way to capture ghosts could had worked for a few fight, even if it would not inspire the villains, it would inspire an object to throw it to the villains or anything like them.
- At times, it focus way too much on the characters talking and doesn't focus on the adventures, which is a shame because not only some of those scenes are almost fillers but also they can last for too long.
- The first episodes running time where not really that fitting because for exemple the first episode is only 11 minutes long, while the later episodes can range from 20 to more than 50 minutes, but however this was because of Newgrounds limit back then that the first episode is only 11 minutes long.
- Some dialogue from the earliest episode had many spelling errors, and some dialogue in general wasn't good, especially Sonic's, although however it was fixed in the remaster that was released in 2020.
- False advertising: King K. Rool and King Boo are shown in the reboot's opening, but they are nowhere to be seen in the series. Though this could be for the same reason mentioned in BQ#5-3.
- While the characters in general are well written, they rather had flaws:
- Shadow can be extremely unlikable at times, especially when he refused to help Sonic and friends from saving Peach, or even when he tell Sonic to not call him "Buddy" in a very aggresive way.
- In addition, he even brutally attacked Sonic twice for mmaking morals to him, when Sonic was clearly right to tell him what he should have not done.
- Mario sometime abuse Luigi and force him to be in the adventures, one exemple is when in one episode, Luigi get away in the house to sleep, only for Mario to get him back and forcing him, or even when he's too scared to fight, Mario does force him to fight.
- Luigi, while he's a good character, he is a lot more of a coward than how he was, especially when compared to Luigi Mansion, however it is somewhat understable because of how dangerous Mecha Sonic is.
- Shadow can be extremely unlikable at times, especially when he refused to help Sonic and friends from saving Peach, or even when he tell Sonic to not call him "Buddy" in a very aggresive way.
- The final episode of the original series ended on the unfinished ninth episode, leaving fans with an even bigger cliffhanger than Sonic SatAM, and even nowadays it still need to be resolved.
- Not to mention that the episode itself had some fillers, meaning that it did end the series on a rather mediocre note, with the saving grace of the episode being the fight scenes, and if they were not present, then this would had been a bad episode from the start.
- Howewer, fan made versions of episode 9 exist, meaning that they would give ideas of what an episode 9 would look like.
- While great, the sprites used in each episodes are inconsistent, for exemple, the first five episodes would use Yoshi Island sprite for Yoshi, but right in episode 6, they change it to the Yoshi's Island DS sprite, which was probably done to make the show animation look even better.
Reception
The show received extremely positive reviews by fans and is considered to be one of the greatest sprite animation show ever made, on IMDb it currently had a score of 8.7/10 for the 2006 series[1], a 8.8 for the 2015 revival[2], making them possibly the highest rated sprite animation show on the site.
Trivia
- Mark was originally going to use the Super Mario World sprites for Mario and Luigi but had though that the Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga sprites would fit more with the Sonic Battle sprites.[3]
- Haynes stated in 2013 about many changes he wanted to bring to the reboot such as replacing Mecha Sonic with Metallix, removing the Pipe Maze episode due to him deeming it filler, and removing Basilisx due to him merely hindering the progress of the plot.[4]
- However, Haynes has since changed his mind about Basilisx, and has confirmed that he will appear in the Smithy Saga as part of a new elite trio.[5]
- Haynes had considered changing the name of the reboot to "Super Mario Bros GT", "Super Mario Bros Z Kai", or "New Super Mario Bros Z", but decided against it due to fan-made "resurrection" projects of the same names already existing.
- Haynes confirmed that the third saga has been scrapped and the only definitive arcs moving forward are the Metallix and Smithy sagas until further notice.[6]
- Haynes has stated that the series does not strictly adhere to the established canon of either franchise. Instead, it selectively draws from various media and incorporates specific terminology that aligns with the story he aims to tell, taking some creative liberties with the source material. Haynes explained this decision by noting that Sonic's canon is "messy," and he preferred to incorporate elements of his own headcanon.
Videos
References
- ↑ https://m.imdb.com/fr/title/tt8706368/
- ↑ https://m.imdb.com/fr/title/tt8709812/
- ↑ https://twitter.com/AlvinSmbz/status/1237883795908395008?s=19
- ↑ http://alvin-earthworm-smbz.deviantart.com/art/Sprite-animation-practice-SMBZ-ep-1-remake-405291459
- ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20200121040123/https://twitter.com/AlvinSmbz/status/1219467374694404101
- ↑ https://discord.com/channels/673398228703641600/673403338586456064/1154520661084094485
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