Topic: Why does the Mushroom Kingdom look different in each new Mario adventure?

[tendoboy1984]

Mario has been traveling through the Mushroom Kingdom for over 25 years, but each trek is different than the last. Shouldn't Mario be familiar with all the levels and worlds by now?

[lolmonade]

Do you notice how Princess Peach is always wearing the same outfit?
 
That's because she spends all of her royal fortune on remodeling the Mushroom Kingdom every few years.
 
 

[Ceric]

Do you notice how Princess Peach is always wearing the same outfit?
 
That's because she spends all of her royal fortune on remodeling the Mushroom Kingdom every few years.

Its actually an ingenious ploy to keep the Mushroom Kingdom citizenship constantly engaged so they cannot sit down and really think about how their Kingdom is being ran.  Effective but costly.  Though she can always lean on Mario the Taxman to help her get some coin.

[lolmonade]

Do you notice how Princess Peach is always wearing the same outfit?
 
That's because she spends all of her royal fortune on remodeling the Mushroom Kingdom every few years.

Its actually an ingenious ploy to keep the Mushroom Kingdom citizenship constantly engaged so they cannot sit down and really think about how their Kingdom is being ran.  Effective but costly.  Though she can always lean on Mario the Taxman to help her get some coin.

Except they inordinately tax the Koopas and all their underlings, bringing about resentement that boils over and every 4 years or so results in revolt against the monarchy.  Self-Appointed King-Koopa Bowser leads the overtaxed and unrepresented koopas, goombas, & multitude of other underclass races against the privilged Peach, Mario, Luigi, and toadstool race.

[Fatty The Hutt]

Why does the Mushroom Kingdom look different in each new Mario adventure?

Because you touch yourself in the bathroom!

[ShyGuy]

Hypertime.

[Ian Sane]

Nintendo is so indifferent to keeping timelines and canon straight I'm surprised they remember the character is named "Mario" and didn't accidently start calling him "Maro" at some point.  The negative answer is that Nintendo doesn't care enough to make it consistent.  But the positive answer is that this allows us to get new levels every time.  If they were sticklers for making this stuff the same then we would get tired of covering the same areas every time or Mario would have to go to some different country in every game.

For an in-universe explaination, a Magikoopa did it.  Duh!

[Khushrenada]

What are you talking about? Every "New Super Mario Bros. ____" looks the same.

[Pixelated Pixies]

What are you talking about? Every "New Super Mario Bros. ____" looks the same.

Damn. I was too slow.

[Ceric]

Do you notice how Princess Peach is always wearing the same outfit?
 
That's because she spends all of her royal fortune on remodeling the Mushroom Kingdom every few years.

Its actually an ingenious ploy to keep the Mushroom Kingdom citizenship constantly engaged so they cannot sit down and really think about how their Kingdom is being ran.  Effective but costly.  Though she can always lean on Mario the Taxman to help her get some coin.

Except they inordinately tax the Koopas and all their underlings, bringing about resentement that boils over and every 4 years or so results in revolt against the monarchy.  Self-Appointed King-Koopa Bowser leads the overtaxed and unrepresented koopas, goombas, & multitude of other underclass races against the privilged Peach, Mario, Luigi, and toadstool race.

Exactly.  Thats why different enemies give you coins when you defeat them.  No one escapes the Moustached Tax Man.

[Sarail]

Do you notice how Princess Peach is always wearing the same outfit?
 
That's because she spends all of her royal fortune on remodeling the Mushroom Kingdom every few years.

Its actually an ingenious ploy to keep the Mushroom Kingdom citizenship constantly engaged so they cannot sit down and really think about how their Kingdom is being ran.  Effective but costly.  Though she can always lean on Mario the Taxman to help her get some coin.

Except they inordinately tax the Koopas and all their underlings, bringing about resentement that boils over and every 4 years or so results in revolt against the monarchy.  Self-Appointed King-Koopa Bowser leads the overtaxed and unrepresented koopas, goombas, & multitude of other underclass races against the privilged Peach, Mario, Luigi, and toadstool race.

There's a game here. I just know it...

[nickmitch]

Because it's all just retellings of the same story! Each time with a different hook or gimmick. It's all just been one big show, and we're the audience.

[pokepal148]

it goes something like this

[lolmonade]

Do you notice how Princess Peach is always wearing the same outfit?
 
That's because she spends all of her royal fortune on remodeling the Mushroom Kingdom every few years.

Its actually an ingenious ploy to keep the Mushroom Kingdom citizenship constantly engaged so they cannot sit down and really think about how their Kingdom is being ran.  Effective but costly.  Though she can always lean on Mario the Taxman to help her get some coin.

Except they inordinately tax the Koopas and all their underlings, bringing about resentement that boils over and every 4 years or so results in revolt against the monarchy.  Self-Appointed King-Koopa Bowser leads the overtaxed and unrepresented koopas, goombas, & multitude of other underclass races against the privilged Peach, Mario, Luigi, and toadstool race.

Exactly.  Thats why different enemies give you coins when you defeat them.  No one escapes the Moustached Tax Man.

Why do you think he wears red?  Socialist!

[azeke]

Why do you think he wears red?  Socialist!

[Ceric]

Why do you think he wears red?  Socialist!

<announcer>He's One Man against the Tax Dodging Republic Army but, when that one Man is Mario thats all the Man you Need.</announcer>

[lolmonade]

Why do you think he wears red?  Socialist!

Big freaking Stalinio picture.

<announcer>He's One Man against the Tax Dodging Republic Army but, when that one Man is Mario thats all you the Man you Need.</announcer>

Coming this summer: New Super Mario: Hammer and Sickle

[tendoboy1984]

it goes something like this

Is that official art? That must have been hell for one person to draw.

[TJ Spyke]

it goes something like this

Is that official art? That must have been hell for one person to draw.

Wouldnt be that hard, just take the official maps from different games and put them in one poster (like the map of Dinosaur Land is right from the official strategy guide).

[Ian Sane]

Thinking about it now, Mario going over the same Mushroom Kingdom again and again is a relatively recent idea.  SMB and the Lost Levels takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom but the titles from the same time frame do not.

SMB 2 - Subcon
SML - Sarasaland
SMB 3 - The expanded Mushroom World, suggesting that the Kingdom is just a small piece
SMW - Dinosaur Land, where the main characters are on vacation
SML 2 - Mario Land, some sort of kingdom where Mario is king.  Stupid and doesn't fit well with the rest of the series but it still isn't the Mushroom Kingdom
Yoshi's Island - Uh, Yoshi's Island, duh, which is an area in SMW but this game is a prequel which could explain why it does not quite resemble the area from SMW
SM64 - This one is clearly in the Mushroom Kingdom, though it is entirely in Peach's castle, which was not visited in SMB so there isn't really a continuity error.
SMS - Isle Delphino on vacation
SMG - Fuckin' OUTER SPACE

Super Mario RPG made the Mushroom Kingdom into one area of a bigger world, which lets it work reasonably well with the platformers (and at that point no civilian area of the Kingdom had been visited so a town with NPCs was new territory).  Paper Mario didn't make any effort to fit the other games though.  I think that whole thing takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom.

Anyway there seemed to be some effort on Nintendo's part to move Mario around to new areas in different games and a lot of the inconsistencies are when different devs work on it (EAD was consistent with other EAD games, Intelligent Systems with there's, etc.) The idea of Mario platformers just taking place in the same Mushroom Kingdom again and again is, surprise, a modern idea introduced by the NSMB series.

[TJ Spyke]

What makes you think Sarasaland and the worlds of SMB3 aren't part of the Mushroom Kingdom?

[Ian Sane]

Well Sarasaland has its own princess and SMB3 is in the Mushroom World and "world" kind of suggests that it's bigger.  The Mushroom Kingdom isn't intergalactic.

[Ceric]

What makes you think Sarasaland and the worlds of SMB3 aren't part of the Mushroom Kingdom?

I would think on SMB3 because you are in the lands of a Different Ruler with a Castle.

[TJ Spyke]

What makes you think Sarasaland and the worlds of SMB3 aren't part of the Mushroom Kingdom?

I would think on SMB3 because you are in the lands of a Different Ruler with a Castle.

In the real world though, in the past there have been empires that had multiple kings. I am just trying to come up with a plausible explanation.

[Ian Sane]

I would think the simplist explanation is that the Mushroom World is either a large country or literally the entire world that the Mario characters live in and that the Mushroom Kingdom is one of many kingdoms within it.  Like New York City is part of New York State.

SMB 3 says Mushroom World, not Mushroom Kingdom, so I would just assume there would be some differentiation.  Surely if it took place in the Mushroom Kingdom they would have just said "the lands of the Mushroom Kingdom".  Assuming that each royal family has their own kingdom is a much more logical assumption than to assume some big empire where each royal family answers to some greater kingdom that rules over all of them.
 
This whole discussion demonstrates how annoying it is that Nintendo is so disinterested in having some sort of consistent canon.  What other company just throws this stuff out without any real explanation and leaves their fans to guess what's what?  If I was a game designer the world building would be part of the appeal and I sure as hell would try to make sure it all made sense.