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Let’s not beat around the bush. Recently Super Mario has made strides in being upgraded to Low 2-C and in light of that I am here to ask to re-examine the state of Super Mario. Simply put, I feel like Super Mario isn’t consistent enough to warrant that rating, as there are events in games that depict the main cast being quite affected by attacks that do not match the supposed upgraded Mario stats. Now, this shouldn’t affect everyone, as Rosalina doesn’t seem to have contradictions, Megabug, Dream Stone and Chaos & Pure Hearts don’t have contradictions either but say Wario is quite contradicted in his feats by being hurt by thing clearly not in Low 2-C range.
Now, as I do have seen some of the discussions on this topic, there are few things I’ll address here at start:
“We already went through the debunks, those debunks weren’t good”
Indeed, previous thread had debunks that weren’t accepted, and with that the upgrades were allowed as good to go.
I’ll bring up some of these.
https://vsbattles.com/threads/mario-crt-low-2-c-upgrade.117568/
It was mentioned that there is difference in drawing power from outside force and literally absorbing the power. Bowser was deemed latter. As well as the fact even the tiniest fraction of Low 2-C is still Low 2-C.
Mentioned but generally this wasn’t followed on.
Was not followed up on.
He doesn’t scale to the heat, but still retains the stats. This got extensive arguments, but it was decided heat resistance is separate from stats.
So, of these 4 subjects, 2 debunks were generally not really followed up on and just ignored, but the other 2 arguments were heavily discussed and got rejected. This still leaves 2 problems that weren’t discussed and weren’t really followed up on. No one wanted to further discuss Black Jewel and Sammer Kingdom apparently being rejected, rather discussion was spent on going through why Grand Stars & Bowser scaling things were fine. This is rather odd, as Low 2-C is a powerful Tier, so I expected Mario to get more careful examination.
While I will go through these feats with some doubt, as I personally do find most of them have some flaws, I will still mostly accept them to be fair. After all, these were already accepted. At the end of this text, they actually turn out to not be helpful enough.
Since I have my own analysis on more possible debunks as well, if I were to be in wrong with these, I would appreciate it if you explained. Technically I am not native English speakers, and this text might have typos due to its slightly bigger size.
And reason for going through possible debunks and/or flaws on older accepted feats is, that it seems that old thread was heavily arguing on single games feats. The problem is, other games contradict these accepted feats.
Sure, the accepted feats are fine to a degree, that wouldn’t be the core issue. The real issue is these feats are accepted in Vacuum, and multiple games that showcase contradictions are flat-out not mentioned at all. If you just go “there are 7 Low 2-C feats for Mario”, that seems clear-cut. However, if the scenario is actually “there are 7 Low 2-C feats for Mario but also more contradictions”, that’s a problem. And it’s a reason why I started this text.
If we go into the even older thread, since there was upgrade attempt prior to last one, there actually was even a debunk for Wario’s Black Jewel feat:
https://vsbattles.com/threads/low-2-c-mario-in-the-final.110950/page-12#post-3506958
Yet in newer thread this debunk wasn’t mentioned at all. The ignorance of contradicting feats and debunks seems off. Maybe debunk got affected? It seems debunker was a staff member who retired. If the old staff member was flawed, I could understand it, but as far as I understand, that doesn’t seem to be the case. If anything, this just looks like a staff member retiring allowed previously denied things to slip through cracks. I’d understand if debunks were debunked, but they really weren’t, at least not in that upgrade thread.
“You are in extreme minority here; you are already at disadvantage”
Roughly 60+ users were in agreement while there were less than 10 who were against it. Now, this does look like an idiot banging his head against the wall but…
I will still go against these.
As I mentioned, previous thread didn’t include the contradictions that I am introducing later. As for being against so many? I do feel the need to talk. This doesn’t actually hurt or anything. Maybe 60+ users can do honest mistake and not many feels encouraged to talk about it because of it. Maybe I have at least some points here? (Well, I hope I didn’t use bad logic at least.)
“You are being needlessly lowballing, other verses get more with less”
The state that this Wiki ranks certain franchises can leave some people in questions, however this is not a proper debunk thread to general downgrades. If some verses are needlessly wanked, they should also be called out. But this is not the thread for that. Not to mention different verses have different rules. Mario himself goes way back in 40 years. It can be difficult to rate old and long series. But again, this is separate issue.
With these questions being talked, I will now explain that examining events that happen in Mario games, you can not only potentially see that some of the support for Low 2-C are possibly not as reliable, but there are several events in other games that contradict these kinds of powers.
This might make one think: “so basically you think these Low 2-C feats are outliers?”
And yes, while that kind of is true, that itself isn’t necessarily problem. Truthfully, it is bit unreasonable to assume high-tier feats to happen in every game. For example, in Dragon Ball we do not expect Goku to bust universe every arc or even planets. The key detail in outliers, are CONTRADICTING outliers.
If Mario had a universal feat only once, but nothing in series would contradict, it probably shouldn’t be dismissed automatically. However, if Mario had universal feat, but also several feats that contradict that level of power, then it should be worrisome.
The one problem I do acknowledge, is that some of these contradictions might feel bit too gameplay-ey at parts. However, as far as I see, most of these are from cutscenes. The meat and grit of things. Since this Wiki accepts “Mario is Mario and all are canon until said otherwise”, then even these feats are just valid as higher end ones.
Wario related things
Black Jewel and his pocket dimension related powers seem to be earliest times these kinds of feats have happened, and as such we will be focusing on feats that contradict these after this one. As in, feats contradictions prior 2003 will be mostly ignored. Mario is old series, even at this point Mario was 20+ years old as a franchise. Characters and verses do get stronger overtime and as such, I am avoiding using feats that predate this one. It would be unfair to downgrade a verse based on older feats. For example, Kid Goku’s feats shouldn’t be used to downgrade Dragon Ball Super.
As mentioned in the even older thread:
"The Wario fade to white is vague as hell and was able to be survived by characters explicitly “so weak” that it takes a collective group to build a house. It’s probably not meant to be taken as some universe collapsing attack that takes literally infinite durability to survive."
You can argue for it, but it clearly also has as much against it. This wasn’t mentioned during the upgrade thread, which is odd cause it looked like it was denied in earlier thread. Screen turning into white is not as destructive showcase as possible. Not to mention, the way to support this feat is by using statement from a website. It’s not wrong per say, but one could honestly argue that either scenario is possible, as this isn’t clear enough feats. In fact, …
https://youtu.be/LBYyuXYWQII?t=325
Looking back on this clip, it’s not even the explosion that destroys that space. Black Jewel’s destruction doesn’t immediately blow the space up. It then afterwards slowly fades to white. The screen doesn’t even shake during the fading out part. But for the sake of being generous, lets accept this for now.
One other supposed universal feat that is related to Wario and even most of main cast is in Yoshi Island DS having said that Star Childs can allow to take over universe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RG39Rf-Tb8&t=2586s
This isn’t true definite universal statement. “Take over the universe” doesn’t necessarily mean “destroy the universe”. It could mean it would allow user to gain a boost, but the amount of boost doesn’t guarantee universal. If the verse had only Planet-busters, but Star Childs would make user Solar System – buster, this wouldn’t mean one could blow up the universe, but it would mean one could “take over the universe”, as no one would be strong enough to stop them.
Not to mention, Kamek is Bowser’s old caretaker and minion. Using hyperbole to please his boss is certainly possibility.
And as for this statement, Wario gets scaling from other Star Children. However, there is evidence of Wario struggling against non-Star Children.
WarioWare Touched has a blatant scene of Wario struggling against a train.
https://youtu.be/VQN1u2WqrM0?t=1612
Sure, outside of vacuum and using this against the 4 accepted Uni feats is dumb, but not only do we have more games coming to contradict those, this is just another game to portray inconsistency of Mario. And since all Spin-offs are still parts of Mario, there is no real reason to neglect this one.
Not to mention Wario blatantly struggles here whereas Black Jewel was fade to white and Kamek only has kind of wrong statement.
WarioWare Gold has Wario struggling against Lulu:
https://youtu.be/HBRi94_NVDY?t=5566
Lulu is not a Star Child and is not implied to have special powers. Same thing with Young Cricket (1:38:05), Wario struggles a lot with those two. Neither have massive feats and the only way this makes sense is if they would scale to Universe+ levels of stats, but that is logical only if Low 2-C is right in the first place. Ware series has not shown any impressive feats, so it fits more that Wario is not at Universal+ levels. Black Jewel is only thing to support Wario directly and that feat has its own issues.
And while this could leave a question: “World is an action game while Ware-games are minigame collection, why should that be given priority?”
Well, frankly it is objectively true that by this point Ware is far more important series. Wario World was one-off game, while Ware spans multiple games, as recent as 2018. If anything, it seems Wario World isn’t the important game for Wario in grand scheme of things and is less of importance for his history.
And even if the argument is “these funny games are not Mario’s true identity, RPGs and Platformers are” that won’t work because plenty of Mario games use a lot of humor, as well as RPGs and Platformers themselves are not entirely same either. A lot of concepts are ignored from RPGs in Platformers as well.
So far Wario has 1 Low 2-C feat against 2 contradictions, and personally contradictions are clear as day while the supporting feat is vague and relies on reading separate material to guarantee it.
Bowser related things
“Superlava”.
https://youtu.be/i4ewBBCbxsc?t=21
Sorry, I hope that little “black humor” didn’t hurt too much, but the point is clear. NSMB on DS showcased Bowser being severely hurt from lava, enough to be turned into a skeleton. Dry Bowser is the skeleton form of Bowser being reanimated by magic. It is even referenced in later scenario.
https://youtu.be/i4ewBBCbxsc?t=374
Bowser being dead and Jr. having resurrect him is a cutscene in the game. NSMB for DS treats this as something that truly happened in the scenario.
Other games with his appearance have also shown this. Mario Party 10 has the cast use cannonballs to shoot him into lava, where he emerges in his skeleton form.
https://youtu.be/lsjGsIJEBxw?t=1511
Even if this isn’t actually a true “reanimated corpse” it seems sometimes lava hurts Bowser enough to peel off his skin. This doesn’t add-up for universal+ survivability.
Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga has Bowser fall a simple fall from atmosphere after falling off. This from a cutscene as well.
https://youtu.be/SLpL9bDId50?t=14217
This is enough to get Bowser be unconscious for extended period of time.
Similarly Partners in Time has Bowser fall and eventually end up unconscious from a fall
https://youtu.be/e9xlld_81vo?t=299
Now to be fair, this is with Time Portals, so the event arguably can be way higher in AP, but almost no high-end should be enough to hurt Low 2-C from a fall. And again, this is a story event.
Now, I suppose argument can be made, that being knocked unconscious doesn’t disprove durability. Maybe to a degree, but all these events show no direct scaling to Low 2-C levels of power. And so far, contradict greatly with Black Jewel & Kamek statements at least. And personally, how high do you need to fall to make Low 2-C character unconscious?
Galaxy has the most infamous feat, surviving the universe reset.
https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.ne...est/scale-to-width-down/525?cb=20170716024721
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-W28ZDcXJc
Universe goes boom. Rosalina seems to protect Mario somehow to explain cycles of universe. Yet Bowser survives. Seems clear-cut?
It isn’t. Looking at the universe re-created one can find a certain detail. Peach’s castle is also rebuilt. Considering its destruction prior and its location after being separated from Mario’s home (6:15), it seems that the new cycle turned everything back to normal (8:30). This also happens to Bowser’s airship too. There is nothing stopping Bowser from being reborn as well is there? To be fair, this is another either way goes feat. Sure, Bowser could’ve survived it, or maybe he was resurrected by new cycle. You can’t definitely prove it.
One weird thing is that a Prima Guide is used to support this. But that isn’t a primary source, so why is that ok? And again, even its support is vague.
“Even Bowser is there, shaken by his narrow escape from a horrible fate.”
Heck, looking at next line:
“Mario smiles at his friends and casts his eyes to heavens, welcoming new life to into existence.”
This would support them being given a new chance by being reborn or being given a new cycle. Nothing here definitely proves Bowser tanks universal reset.
But let’s accept this feat anyways. At this point it’s still 3 Universal+ feats contradicted by 6 other games.
Galaxy 2 has Bowser survive Blackhole (9:57):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyeYVR3sc3o
Impressive? In context of Low 2-C, no. Bowser is weakened by it and has been cut-off from his magic (16:51). Hell, even making this a Galaxy level feat, even that level of AP shouldn’t effectively hurt low 2-Cs. And even then, this would be contradicted by the previously mentioned feats. If you happened to have noticed, Mario isn’t the most consistent series there is.
In SM3D Land, after the bridge explodes and he is hit by debris, Bowser is unable to continue to stop preventing Mario.
https://youtu.be/TDQy2kAT6RE?t=335
A cutscene visibly showing Bowser being affected enough to be unable to do anything. A low 2-C characters would unlikely even feel this, yet even with his teleportation, Bowser won’t return to combat. Now, this bridge could be strong, but there is no evidence for it. Perhaps going through games to find these events lowers the verses power, but if that is how the verse functions, then that should be how it ranked, right?
In SM3D World, we also see another peculiar case. Bowser in his Cat form showed to not being able to be hurt by Mario & Co., but he is defeated by POW Block.
https://youtu.be/cPCiuvRzBlg?t=392
Sure, this is bit related to gameplay, but the game has cinematic showing Bowser being defeated, matches that of the POW Block gameplay. So, arguing that this is pure gameplay doesn’t work.
This site has not ranked POW Blocks, but I haven’t seen Universal+ related feats for it. This site also uses several one-off items from Super Paper Mario and has given them a profile. Surely, a standard Mario series related item has bigger priority than one-offs? And an actual cinematic event is supporting this as well. Therefore, we have an item that has not been found a feat strong enough to hurt Low 2-C character, severely causes enough force to stop him.
Of course, if Rosalina is playable, in theory we could scale everyone to Rosalina. This makes little sense, as this game has no big feats and being able to replicate weaker feats doesn’t mean others scale to higher ends, but sure. Let’s go with 3D World supporting Low 2-C cast.
For both Bowser and Wario, there is Power Tennis too:
https://youtu.be/q3_ks3no2Ig?t=267
While it looks like good durability feat, a point plank explosion that might be in Megaton range hurts them enough to collapse. If this weak explosion hurts them, it makes universal+ less likely. It’s not even a sneak attack, they had time to embrace the explosion.
Donkey Kong related things
Since the idea of deleting DK as a verse happened, as it’s included in whole Super Mario collective, this means those games are important sources too. The game Tropical Freeze from 2014 also shows something that isn’t exactly right.
https://youtu.be/7oGQioVTjo0?t=101
Lord Fredrik used his special powered horn and blew away DK Gang quite easily. True, DK and gang survived it, which itself is a good durability feat, but why would this feat even affect Low 2-C leveled character? Even if this attack was highballed to Planet level, it’s such a fraction of that power.
And in hindsight, even DKC Returns might have evidence for contradiction. The Moon feat.
https://youtu.be/_McXP06-oqU?t=651
No, doing lower power feat doesn’t invalid other higher power feats, of course that wouldn’t. It just happens there is a detail that is forgotten, I didn’t realize it either. It actually requires effort from DK.
His hand is swollen red, and he even blows on it after the punch (11:25). It’s silly, but its factual that there is no way someone who is Universal+ would be affected by such a low feat. Moon’s size is weird, and it has been called Tier 6 feat, but let’s just make it Planet level. The gap between Planet and Universal is roughly 58 zeroes in joules even when lowballed. That is:
10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
times the difference. The gap is bigger than between housefly and nuclear weapons. Bigger than a housefly and solar system busting.
And that is without realizing Low 2-C is already so huge, DK should transcend this limitation. And why would DK need to charge his punch? If he is so above that feat, why did all of these happen?
And yet how come a cutscene shows even tiny bit of struggle for DK? Perhaps Low 2-C isn’t the consistent level for Mario. Certainly not going by showings so far.
Mario related things
Galaxy 1 intro shows Mario being hurt by Kamek:
https://youtu.be/baiIGqVeaI4?t=297
Now, as Galaxy 1 has support for Low 2-C, this might seem odd. Why does this support contradiction? Because some of the earlier games supposedly support Low 2-C. This is yet another contradiction, as while Kamek is a threat, he isn’t truly accepted as Low 2-C. And since the later feat might be questionable, the scale might balance to contradiction side in against of Low 2-C.
But let’s just keep this as a footnote. Let’s keep Galaxy 1 as true support for Low 2-C. Let’s see will this matter in the end.
Super Mario Odyssey also features another oddity of feat itself being a decent durability feat, but actually not making sense for Low 2-C.
https://youtu.be/Utvj76F07C8?t=33
Bowser sends Mario flying off with a feat, that is not even Planetary. Sure, surviving a launch from sending a person across the country is good. But it’s not Low 2-C good. Technically, if Bowser was true Low 2-C, this might would’ve supported it. But going through prior games, Low 2-C Bowser isn’t the most consistent tier for him. And with that, Mario being hurt from this feat further doesn’t support Low 2-C Mario cast.
Bowser was also defeated by using his own hat against him.
https://youtu.be/AdWppEO_mtw?t=2657
Going by logic with POW Block, this doesn’t support Low 2-C much either. Now to be fair, this is gameplay related, so we won’t look at this fully at the end. But again, this would support lower end of feats, rather than Low 2-C feats, if this was being looked at.
The one feat with most going for it is the Void feat in Super Paper Mario.
https://youtu.be/SwC8Xr9pibg?t=287
However, even this doesn’t seem to truly support it 100% perfect.
https://youtu.be/SwC8Xr9pibg?t=511
This shows few remains being left there. No, maybe not the ground, for a game we do need something to walk on. But there are few debris remaining there. It seems you need to dodge it as well (8:58).
But yeah, this is still 3-A at least. Its bit hard to call this true destruction of everything if there remains debris, but the feat is mostly sound and at least universal.
I was bit harsh on this feat, but yeah this is alright. Lets even keep it at Low 2-C.
Although by now there are far more showings for not Low 2-C than there is for it.
Additional bonus notes
Because I feel like there are more support for inconsistency, I do feel like to point out these other problems. However, in name the case of proper support, these following claims are not as strong and can be potentially ignored if they provide problems. There are also potential upgrades as well, so let’s look at these.
This is slightly long text, and apparently during writing this, there has been suggestions on more evidence.
https://vsbattles.com/threads/adding-3-more-feats-to-mario.119065/
These are:
MP5 has Bowser’s statement. We have no idea how this would work; how certain it is.
King Olly is only a statement and has been debunked in the older thread.
It seems these would support currently supporting feats, but they are kind of weak text only supports, which are again still contradicted by visible feats.
https://youtu.be/GBLZnv-kZ1g?list=PL-7t9DoIELCTv6VOoNDos4jP1B04wFuDg&t=3744
Origami King has Mario struggling to move a stone is prior sequence, in plot important scenario. You could say this is a prior scenario, so Mario got upgraded over the course of game, but this already contradicts prior games universal feats. Furthermore, Olly is a videogame bad guy. Of course, he would gloat. This isn’t a good support.
Power Source Shenanigans
One common way in this Wiki is to use power sources power in order to Tier characters. This itself isn’t a problem, especially if verses support these methods. For Mario, however, the support doesn’t seem exactly fully explained. Most of the time its background decoration or trying to put a level’s size as far bigger than shown.
Of course, Grand Stars are accepted, so let’s accept that.
64 Power Stars support?
Currently Power Stars are being hypothetical upgrade to Low 2-C.
Now personally, I am not a fan of these. We are never given exact full power of Power Stars directly and in that game, Bowser is defeated by bombs, albeit this is gameplay related.
Problem for me is that I highly doubt it was intended for Mario to be this strong and that this method needlessly buffs characters, not just Mario.
But let’s just add this for Low 2-C support. Technically this makes earliest Low 2-C feat from 1996 and hypothetically allows contradictions from 96-03 games, but I might be too harsh, so lets give it a pass.
Looking at older games
I said not to look at older games, but for curiosity’s sake, as a bonus note, I will list here some notable feats.
Less solid evidence for contradictions, but some either way
I’ve placed some Universal+ contradicting feats here. While they should have cutscenes to prove valid contradiction, these are bit influenced by gameplay. For the case of not being potentially biased with debunking, I’ve placed some here.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong Minis series showcases oddity.
In the GBA games, while some battles do have Mario physically throw objects at DK, thus allowing scaling, there are several battles where far weaker things hurt DK. Things such as falling fruit (1:32) and Bob-ombs (5:37)
https://youtu.be/CCXnZBU6dPg?t=92
While borderline gameplay, many battles still have Congratulations screens portraying the battle fought, thus portraying some precedence on battles being decent representation of battles fought.
A bit silly one is 8:57 having Toad stomp on DK’s hands. Compared to Universal, this is at best still gap of 1 X 26 zeroes in joules. And DK is Star Child as well as Low 2-C. Since even a fraction of Low 2-C is still Low 2-C, it doesn’t make sense that gap that big can cause even flinching.
However, since this is a funny scene, it might be affected by gag humor. Still, even prior battles showed even bigger gaps in strength affecting DK.
New Super Mario Bros U has gameplay related contradiction as well:
https://youtu.be/R58enbudqco?t=330
Koopa Clown Kart is used to hurt Bowser and it works. KCK hasn’t been given low 2-C calcs here.
Now… as I said this is gameplay, I won’t count this as a main one. However, at (6:55) we can see Bowser being defeated in cutscene as well. Notably, he has fallen from where he had his battle. This implies the scenario of Bowser being defeated by KCK is very passable. More than vague texts really.
KCK should be needed to be given Low 2-C rating then as well.
Compromise?
One suggestion has been giving Mario cast variable tier. Now the answer to that is NO.
NO VARIES TIER
Varies is given to characters with actually varying powers. Inconsistent writing doesn’t mean characters canonically fluctuate.
We do have “At least” moniker. Considering Mario games have other showings for feats in Tiers 7-5 like the recent fodder upgrade to Tier 7, Mario, Paper Mario & Yoshi being launched to space, Dark Bowser and Kamek creates storm clouds, Fury Bowser creates storms as well, Frederick’s Island freezing, DK Moon Punch, Mario SMW Castle throws, Tennis Game explosion durability feat and Shake King feat etc.
Already 12 visible feats from lower tiers.
Tiers 7-5 seem to be more directly supported, so say having At least Tier 5 seems reasonable.
If we do find out more solid evidence for Low 2-C, we could use Possibly, Likely or At Best.
But unless we get solid proof for Low 2-C, it seems a downgrade is needed or more serious proof for Low 2-C showings outnumbering these contradictions.
There is no easy answer here.
Previously Mario cast had Tier 4 Solar System levels, but unless I miscounted, it seems these contradictions also contradict Tier 4 as well. How awkward. Whatever the end results are, let’s just first see if Low 2-C is consistent enough. If worst comes to show, maybe even Tier 4 Mario cast needs a re-examination.
Phew, that was bit long, right?
At the end of the analysis, even if we were to give Super Mario a big benefit of doubt, the side that supports universal feats looks like this:
Of course, I was giving there the best benefit of doubt for Low 2-C. It seems like some of the feats are not clear or could have issues.
In fact, let’s look at the worst-case scenario for Low 2-C support. This would actually split universal+ support into clear support:
And “shakey” support:
This notably decreases amount of support for universal+, while the number of contradictions increases.
Quite frankly, it seems a lot of contradictions are blatant, while the support for Low 2-C is either text based (which itself isn’t an issue) or based on odd outside source. In fact, I purposely added a lot of support for Low 2-C that are frankly just bad. Kamek statement in YIDS, MP5, 3D World, Galaxy 2, TTYD and PMOK are in fact really bad. So, the real support amount is 4.
4 Low 2-C feats in games vs 17 contradicting games
And that is minuscule compared to contradictions, less than 25% comparatively.
Really, large majority of contradictions are visual evidence, not even gameplay as its mostly cutscenes and even how the series is portrayed is significantly favoring non-Universal+ feats. And frankly, a lot of evidence for universal+ is pocket dimensions that don’t relate to stories, or out of game material that’s not even that official, meanwhile most contradictions are blatant, ignoring gameplay.
Why can’t this majority be the more accurate portrayal of Mario? It is weaker than expected, but should we strive for accuracy its more consistent.
TLDR:
Unless the evidence I posted turn out to be flawed, which you can prove because I might have missed something, it seems there are more evidence of clearly not universal feats causing significant effect on most of Mario cast rather than main cast being flat-out Low 2-C. Some of the Tier 2 Mario related things can remain, but trying to keep Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Wario, Peach, Bowser & DK as Low 2-C, as well as those who get their tiers from scaling to these Star Children, seems far less likely.
Unless Mario cast gets significantly more explained explanation on Low 2-C, it would be best to not guarantee it as much, which could lead to use of forms like “At least” for the clearer evidence and “At most” or “Possibly” for the less vague ones. Of course, we could even remove Low 2-C entirely, if there aren’t proper explanation on Mario casts’ significant number of universal feat contradiction.
As much as it is pain, we should probably list and calc significantly more feats to properly see which Tier range seems most consistent, albeit looking these examples there even seems to quite a number of low Tier feats that cause struggles for most of Mario cast.
But as far as I see, at best its 10 Low 2-C games vs 10 contradicting games, which already is odd dilemma, but factually the more accurate case is there being only 4 Low 2-C games against whopping 17 contradicting games.
Outside of Vacuum, showing 4-7 Low 2-C feats might support that tier, but if the verse actually shows blatantly characters struggling with powers weaker than Low 2-C, then the sad true is probably that those high-ends are contradicted.
Most of the support is based on vague power source and outside material, while contradictions are visible in games. Not to mention a lot of, if not majority of visible feats themselves are in lower range like in Tiers 7-5.
And personally, in order to make Mario cast more accurate, Low 2-C should be removed from Star Children’s base, until it gets far more significant support. Or well, actually not, as technically Upgrade Mario cast fully to Low 2-C, as its still currently work in progress. Even more unfortunately, it seems even Tier 4 feats might be contradicted here.
The contradictions are far more apparent than the support for Low 2-C.
Now, as I do have seen some of the discussions on this topic, there are few things I’ll address here at start:
“We already went through the debunks, those debunks weren’t good”
Indeed, previous thread had debunks that weren’t accepted, and with that the upgrades were allowed as good to go.
I’ll bring up some of these.
https://vsbattles.com/threads/mario-crt-low-2-c-upgrade.117568/
- Being powered by power source doesn’t guarantee to make you as strong as the power source, Grand Stars in this scenario.
It was mentioned that there is difference in drawing power from outside force and literally absorbing the power. Bowser was deemed latter. As well as the fact even the tiniest fraction of Low 2-C is still Low 2-C.
- Sammer Kingdom feat was rejected in earlier thread.
Mentioned but generally this wasn’t followed on.
- Black Jewel was rejected as well in earlier thread.
Was not followed up on.
- Bowser was physically harmed by reactor.
He doesn’t scale to the heat, but still retains the stats. This got extensive arguments, but it was decided heat resistance is separate from stats.
So, of these 4 subjects, 2 debunks were generally not really followed up on and just ignored, but the other 2 arguments were heavily discussed and got rejected. This still leaves 2 problems that weren’t discussed and weren’t really followed up on. No one wanted to further discuss Black Jewel and Sammer Kingdom apparently being rejected, rather discussion was spent on going through why Grand Stars & Bowser scaling things were fine. This is rather odd, as Low 2-C is a powerful Tier, so I expected Mario to get more careful examination.
While I will go through these feats with some doubt, as I personally do find most of them have some flaws, I will still mostly accept them to be fair. After all, these were already accepted. At the end of this text, they actually turn out to not be helpful enough.
Since I have my own analysis on more possible debunks as well, if I were to be in wrong with these, I would appreciate it if you explained. Technically I am not native English speakers, and this text might have typos due to its slightly bigger size.
And reason for going through possible debunks and/or flaws on older accepted feats is, that it seems that old thread was heavily arguing on single games feats. The problem is, other games contradict these accepted feats.
Sure, the accepted feats are fine to a degree, that wouldn’t be the core issue. The real issue is these feats are accepted in Vacuum, and multiple games that showcase contradictions are flat-out not mentioned at all. If you just go “there are 7 Low 2-C feats for Mario”, that seems clear-cut. However, if the scenario is actually “there are 7 Low 2-C feats for Mario but also more contradictions”, that’s a problem. And it’s a reason why I started this text.
If we go into the even older thread, since there was upgrade attempt prior to last one, there actually was even a debunk for Wario’s Black Jewel feat:
https://vsbattles.com/threads/low-2-c-mario-in-the-final.110950/page-12#post-3506958
Yet in newer thread this debunk wasn’t mentioned at all. The ignorance of contradicting feats and debunks seems off. Maybe debunk got affected? It seems debunker was a staff member who retired. If the old staff member was flawed, I could understand it, but as far as I understand, that doesn’t seem to be the case. If anything, this just looks like a staff member retiring allowed previously denied things to slip through cracks. I’d understand if debunks were debunked, but they really weren’t, at least not in that upgrade thread.
“You are in extreme minority here; you are already at disadvantage”
Roughly 60+ users were in agreement while there were less than 10 who were against it. Now, this does look like an idiot banging his head against the wall but…
I will still go against these.
As I mentioned, previous thread didn’t include the contradictions that I am introducing later. As for being against so many? I do feel the need to talk. This doesn’t actually hurt or anything. Maybe 60+ users can do honest mistake and not many feels encouraged to talk about it because of it. Maybe I have at least some points here? (Well, I hope I didn’t use bad logic at least.)
“You are being needlessly lowballing, other verses get more with less”
The state that this Wiki ranks certain franchises can leave some people in questions, however this is not a proper debunk thread to general downgrades. If some verses are needlessly wanked, they should also be called out. But this is not the thread for that. Not to mention different verses have different rules. Mario himself goes way back in 40 years. It can be difficult to rate old and long series. But again, this is separate issue.
With these questions being talked, I will now explain that examining events that happen in Mario games, you can not only potentially see that some of the support for Low 2-C are possibly not as reliable, but there are several events in other games that contradict these kinds of powers.
This might make one think: “so basically you think these Low 2-C feats are outliers?”
And yes, while that kind of is true, that itself isn’t necessarily problem. Truthfully, it is bit unreasonable to assume high-tier feats to happen in every game. For example, in Dragon Ball we do not expect Goku to bust universe every arc or even planets. The key detail in outliers, are CONTRADICTING outliers.
If Mario had a universal feat only once, but nothing in series would contradict, it probably shouldn’t be dismissed automatically. However, if Mario had universal feat, but also several feats that contradict that level of power, then it should be worrisome.
The one problem I do acknowledge, is that some of these contradictions might feel bit too gameplay-ey at parts. However, as far as I see, most of these are from cutscenes. The meat and grit of things. Since this Wiki accepts “Mario is Mario and all are canon until said otherwise”, then even these feats are just valid as higher end ones.
Wario related things
Black Jewel and his pocket dimension related powers seem to be earliest times these kinds of feats have happened, and as such we will be focusing on feats that contradict these after this one. As in, feats contradictions prior 2003 will be mostly ignored. Mario is old series, even at this point Mario was 20+ years old as a franchise. Characters and verses do get stronger overtime and as such, I am avoiding using feats that predate this one. It would be unfair to downgrade a verse based on older feats. For example, Kid Goku’s feats shouldn’t be used to downgrade Dragon Ball Super.
As mentioned in the even older thread:
"The Wario fade to white is vague as hell and was able to be survived by characters explicitly “so weak” that it takes a collective group to build a house. It’s probably not meant to be taken as some universe collapsing attack that takes literally infinite durability to survive."
You can argue for it, but it clearly also has as much against it. This wasn’t mentioned during the upgrade thread, which is odd cause it looked like it was denied in earlier thread. Screen turning into white is not as destructive showcase as possible. Not to mention, the way to support this feat is by using statement from a website. It’s not wrong per say, but one could honestly argue that either scenario is possible, as this isn’t clear enough feats. In fact, …
https://youtu.be/LBYyuXYWQII?t=325
Looking back on this clip, it’s not even the explosion that destroys that space. Black Jewel’s destruction doesn’t immediately blow the space up. It then afterwards slowly fades to white. The screen doesn’t even shake during the fading out part. But for the sake of being generous, lets accept this for now.
One other supposed universal feat that is related to Wario and even most of main cast is in Yoshi Island DS having said that Star Childs can allow to take over universe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RG39Rf-Tb8&t=2586s
This isn’t true definite universal statement. “Take over the universe” doesn’t necessarily mean “destroy the universe”. It could mean it would allow user to gain a boost, but the amount of boost doesn’t guarantee universal. If the verse had only Planet-busters, but Star Childs would make user Solar System – buster, this wouldn’t mean one could blow up the universe, but it would mean one could “take over the universe”, as no one would be strong enough to stop them.
Not to mention, Kamek is Bowser’s old caretaker and minion. Using hyperbole to please his boss is certainly possibility.
And as for this statement, Wario gets scaling from other Star Children. However, there is evidence of Wario struggling against non-Star Children.
WarioWare Touched has a blatant scene of Wario struggling against a train.
https://youtu.be/VQN1u2WqrM0?t=1612
Sure, outside of vacuum and using this against the 4 accepted Uni feats is dumb, but not only do we have more games coming to contradict those, this is just another game to portray inconsistency of Mario. And since all Spin-offs are still parts of Mario, there is no real reason to neglect this one.
Not to mention Wario blatantly struggles here whereas Black Jewel was fade to white and Kamek only has kind of wrong statement.
WarioWare Gold has Wario struggling against Lulu:
https://youtu.be/HBRi94_NVDY?t=5566
Lulu is not a Star Child and is not implied to have special powers. Same thing with Young Cricket (1:38:05), Wario struggles a lot with those two. Neither have massive feats and the only way this makes sense is if they would scale to Universe+ levels of stats, but that is logical only if Low 2-C is right in the first place. Ware series has not shown any impressive feats, so it fits more that Wario is not at Universal+ levels. Black Jewel is only thing to support Wario directly and that feat has its own issues.
And while this could leave a question: “World is an action game while Ware-games are minigame collection, why should that be given priority?”
Well, frankly it is objectively true that by this point Ware is far more important series. Wario World was one-off game, while Ware spans multiple games, as recent as 2018. If anything, it seems Wario World isn’t the important game for Wario in grand scheme of things and is less of importance for his history.
And even if the argument is “these funny games are not Mario’s true identity, RPGs and Platformers are” that won’t work because plenty of Mario games use a lot of humor, as well as RPGs and Platformers themselves are not entirely same either. A lot of concepts are ignored from RPGs in Platformers as well.
So far Wario has 1 Low 2-C feat against 2 contradictions, and personally contradictions are clear as day while the supporting feat is vague and relies on reading separate material to guarantee it.
Bowser related things
“Superlava”.
https://youtu.be/i4ewBBCbxsc?t=21
Sorry, I hope that little “black humor” didn’t hurt too much, but the point is clear. NSMB on DS showcased Bowser being severely hurt from lava, enough to be turned into a skeleton. Dry Bowser is the skeleton form of Bowser being reanimated by magic. It is even referenced in later scenario.
https://youtu.be/i4ewBBCbxsc?t=374
Bowser being dead and Jr. having resurrect him is a cutscene in the game. NSMB for DS treats this as something that truly happened in the scenario.
Other games with his appearance have also shown this. Mario Party 10 has the cast use cannonballs to shoot him into lava, where he emerges in his skeleton form.
https://youtu.be/lsjGsIJEBxw?t=1511
Even if this isn’t actually a true “reanimated corpse” it seems sometimes lava hurts Bowser enough to peel off his skin. This doesn’t add-up for universal+ survivability.
Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga has Bowser fall a simple fall from atmosphere after falling off. This from a cutscene as well.
https://youtu.be/SLpL9bDId50?t=14217
This is enough to get Bowser be unconscious for extended period of time.
Similarly Partners in Time has Bowser fall and eventually end up unconscious from a fall
https://youtu.be/e9xlld_81vo?t=299
Now to be fair, this is with Time Portals, so the event arguably can be way higher in AP, but almost no high-end should be enough to hurt Low 2-C from a fall. And again, this is a story event.
Now, I suppose argument can be made, that being knocked unconscious doesn’t disprove durability. Maybe to a degree, but all these events show no direct scaling to Low 2-C levels of power. And so far, contradict greatly with Black Jewel & Kamek statements at least. And personally, how high do you need to fall to make Low 2-C character unconscious?
Galaxy has the most infamous feat, surviving the universe reset.
https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.ne...est/scale-to-width-down/525?cb=20170716024721
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-W28ZDcXJc
Universe goes boom. Rosalina seems to protect Mario somehow to explain cycles of universe. Yet Bowser survives. Seems clear-cut?
It isn’t. Looking at the universe re-created one can find a certain detail. Peach’s castle is also rebuilt. Considering its destruction prior and its location after being separated from Mario’s home (6:15), it seems that the new cycle turned everything back to normal (8:30). This also happens to Bowser’s airship too. There is nothing stopping Bowser from being reborn as well is there? To be fair, this is another either way goes feat. Sure, Bowser could’ve survived it, or maybe he was resurrected by new cycle. You can’t definitely prove it.
One weird thing is that a Prima Guide is used to support this. But that isn’t a primary source, so why is that ok? And again, even its support is vague.
“Even Bowser is there, shaken by his narrow escape from a horrible fate.”
Heck, looking at next line:
“Mario smiles at his friends and casts his eyes to heavens, welcoming new life to into existence.”
This would support them being given a new chance by being reborn or being given a new cycle. Nothing here definitely proves Bowser tanks universal reset.
But let’s accept this feat anyways. At this point it’s still 3 Universal+ feats contradicted by 6 other games.
Galaxy 2 has Bowser survive Blackhole (9:57):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyeYVR3sc3o
Impressive? In context of Low 2-C, no. Bowser is weakened by it and has been cut-off from his magic (16:51). Hell, even making this a Galaxy level feat, even that level of AP shouldn’t effectively hurt low 2-Cs. And even then, this would be contradicted by the previously mentioned feats. If you happened to have noticed, Mario isn’t the most consistent series there is.
In SM3D Land, after the bridge explodes and he is hit by debris, Bowser is unable to continue to stop preventing Mario.
https://youtu.be/TDQy2kAT6RE?t=335
A cutscene visibly showing Bowser being affected enough to be unable to do anything. A low 2-C characters would unlikely even feel this, yet even with his teleportation, Bowser won’t return to combat. Now, this bridge could be strong, but there is no evidence for it. Perhaps going through games to find these events lowers the verses power, but if that is how the verse functions, then that should be how it ranked, right?
In SM3D World, we also see another peculiar case. Bowser in his Cat form showed to not being able to be hurt by Mario & Co., but he is defeated by POW Block.
https://youtu.be/cPCiuvRzBlg?t=392
Sure, this is bit related to gameplay, but the game has cinematic showing Bowser being defeated, matches that of the POW Block gameplay. So, arguing that this is pure gameplay doesn’t work.
This site has not ranked POW Blocks, but I haven’t seen Universal+ related feats for it. This site also uses several one-off items from Super Paper Mario and has given them a profile. Surely, a standard Mario series related item has bigger priority than one-offs? And an actual cinematic event is supporting this as well. Therefore, we have an item that has not been found a feat strong enough to hurt Low 2-C character, severely causes enough force to stop him.
Of course, if Rosalina is playable, in theory we could scale everyone to Rosalina. This makes little sense, as this game has no big feats and being able to replicate weaker feats doesn’t mean others scale to higher ends, but sure. Let’s go with 3D World supporting Low 2-C cast.
For both Bowser and Wario, there is Power Tennis too:
https://youtu.be/q3_ks3no2Ig?t=267
While it looks like good durability feat, a point plank explosion that might be in Megaton range hurts them enough to collapse. If this weak explosion hurts them, it makes universal+ less likely. It’s not even a sneak attack, they had time to embrace the explosion.
Donkey Kong related things
Since the idea of deleting DK as a verse happened, as it’s included in whole Super Mario collective, this means those games are important sources too. The game Tropical Freeze from 2014 also shows something that isn’t exactly right.
https://youtu.be/7oGQioVTjo0?t=101
Lord Fredrik used his special powered horn and blew away DK Gang quite easily. True, DK and gang survived it, which itself is a good durability feat, but why would this feat even affect Low 2-C leveled character? Even if this attack was highballed to Planet level, it’s such a fraction of that power.
And in hindsight, even DKC Returns might have evidence for contradiction. The Moon feat.
https://youtu.be/_McXP06-oqU?t=651
No, doing lower power feat doesn’t invalid other higher power feats, of course that wouldn’t. It just happens there is a detail that is forgotten, I didn’t realize it either. It actually requires effort from DK.
His hand is swollen red, and he even blows on it after the punch (11:25). It’s silly, but its factual that there is no way someone who is Universal+ would be affected by such a low feat. Moon’s size is weird, and it has been called Tier 6 feat, but let’s just make it Planet level. The gap between Planet and Universal is roughly 58 zeroes in joules even when lowballed. That is:
10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
times the difference. The gap is bigger than between housefly and nuclear weapons. Bigger than a housefly and solar system busting.
And that is without realizing Low 2-C is already so huge, DK should transcend this limitation. And why would DK need to charge his punch? If he is so above that feat, why did all of these happen?
And yet how come a cutscene shows even tiny bit of struggle for DK? Perhaps Low 2-C isn’t the consistent level for Mario. Certainly not going by showings so far.
Mario related things
Galaxy 1 intro shows Mario being hurt by Kamek:
https://youtu.be/baiIGqVeaI4?t=297
Now, as Galaxy 1 has support for Low 2-C, this might seem odd. Why does this support contradiction? Because some of the earlier games supposedly support Low 2-C. This is yet another contradiction, as while Kamek is a threat, he isn’t truly accepted as Low 2-C. And since the later feat might be questionable, the scale might balance to contradiction side in against of Low 2-C.
But let’s just keep this as a footnote. Let’s keep Galaxy 1 as true support for Low 2-C. Let’s see will this matter in the end.
Super Mario Odyssey also features another oddity of feat itself being a decent durability feat, but actually not making sense for Low 2-C.
https://youtu.be/Utvj76F07C8?t=33
Bowser sends Mario flying off with a feat, that is not even Planetary. Sure, surviving a launch from sending a person across the country is good. But it’s not Low 2-C good. Technically, if Bowser was true Low 2-C, this might would’ve supported it. But going through prior games, Low 2-C Bowser isn’t the most consistent tier for him. And with that, Mario being hurt from this feat further doesn’t support Low 2-C Mario cast.
Bowser was also defeated by using his own hat against him.
https://youtu.be/AdWppEO_mtw?t=2657
Going by logic with POW Block, this doesn’t support Low 2-C much either. Now to be fair, this is gameplay related, so we won’t look at this fully at the end. But again, this would support lower end of feats, rather than Low 2-C feats, if this was being looked at.
The one feat with most going for it is the Void feat in Super Paper Mario.
https://youtu.be/SwC8Xr9pibg?t=287
However, even this doesn’t seem to truly support it 100% perfect.
https://youtu.be/SwC8Xr9pibg?t=511
This shows few remains being left there. No, maybe not the ground, for a game we do need something to walk on. But there are few debris remaining there. It seems you need to dodge it as well (8:58).
But yeah, this is still 3-A at least. Its bit hard to call this true destruction of everything if there remains debris, but the feat is mostly sound and at least universal.
I was bit harsh on this feat, but yeah this is alright. Lets even keep it at Low 2-C.
Although by now there are far more showings for not Low 2-C than there is for it.
Additional bonus notes
Because I feel like there are more support for inconsistency, I do feel like to point out these other problems. However, in name the case of proper support, these following claims are not as strong and can be potentially ignored if they provide problems. There are also potential upgrades as well, so let’s look at these.
This is slightly long text, and apparently during writing this, there has been suggestions on more evidence.
https://vsbattles.com/threads/adding-3-more-feats-to-mario.119065/
These are:
- Paper Mario TTYD statements
- Mario Party 5
- Paper Mario the Origami King
MP5 has Bowser’s statement. We have no idea how this would work; how certain it is.
King Olly is only a statement and has been debunked in the older thread.
It seems these would support currently supporting feats, but they are kind of weak text only supports, which are again still contradicted by visible feats.
https://youtu.be/GBLZnv-kZ1g?list=PL-7t9DoIELCTv6VOoNDos4jP1B04wFuDg&t=3744
Origami King has Mario struggling to move a stone is prior sequence, in plot important scenario. You could say this is a prior scenario, so Mario got upgraded over the course of game, but this already contradicts prior games universal feats. Furthermore, Olly is a videogame bad guy. Of course, he would gloat. This isn’t a good support.
Power Source Shenanigans
One common way in this Wiki is to use power sources power in order to Tier characters. This itself isn’t a problem, especially if verses support these methods. For Mario, however, the support doesn’t seem exactly fully explained. Most of the time its background decoration or trying to put a level’s size as far bigger than shown.
Of course, Grand Stars are accepted, so let’s accept that.
64 Power Stars support?
Currently Power Stars are being hypothetical upgrade to Low 2-C.
Now personally, I am not a fan of these. We are never given exact full power of Power Stars directly and in that game, Bowser is defeated by bombs, albeit this is gameplay related.
Problem for me is that I highly doubt it was intended for Mario to be this strong and that this method needlessly buffs characters, not just Mario.
But let’s just add this for Low 2-C support. Technically this makes earliest Low 2-C feat from 1996 and hypothetically allows contradictions from 96-03 games, but I might be too harsh, so lets give it a pass.
Looking at older games
I said not to look at older games, but for curiosity’s sake, as a bonus note, I will list here some notable feats.
- Super Mario World has Mario lifting castles, no clear indication on universe+ levels
- Yoshi’s Island has Rafael the Raven’s star creation
- 64 has the pocket world creations, but also feature Mario being unable to harm Bowser directly without Bowser’s own bombs
Less solid evidence for contradictions, but some either way
I’ve placed some Universal+ contradicting feats here. While they should have cutscenes to prove valid contradiction, these are bit influenced by gameplay. For the case of not being potentially biased with debunking, I’ve placed some here.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong Minis series showcases oddity.
In the GBA games, while some battles do have Mario physically throw objects at DK, thus allowing scaling, there are several battles where far weaker things hurt DK. Things such as falling fruit (1:32) and Bob-ombs (5:37)
https://youtu.be/CCXnZBU6dPg?t=92
While borderline gameplay, many battles still have Congratulations screens portraying the battle fought, thus portraying some precedence on battles being decent representation of battles fought.
A bit silly one is 8:57 having Toad stomp on DK’s hands. Compared to Universal, this is at best still gap of 1 X 26 zeroes in joules. And DK is Star Child as well as Low 2-C. Since even a fraction of Low 2-C is still Low 2-C, it doesn’t make sense that gap that big can cause even flinching.
However, since this is a funny scene, it might be affected by gag humor. Still, even prior battles showed even bigger gaps in strength affecting DK.
New Super Mario Bros U has gameplay related contradiction as well:
https://youtu.be/R58enbudqco?t=330
Koopa Clown Kart is used to hurt Bowser and it works. KCK hasn’t been given low 2-C calcs here.
Now… as I said this is gameplay, I won’t count this as a main one. However, at (6:55) we can see Bowser being defeated in cutscene as well. Notably, he has fallen from where he had his battle. This implies the scenario of Bowser being defeated by KCK is very passable. More than vague texts really.
KCK should be needed to be given Low 2-C rating then as well.
Compromise?
One suggestion has been giving Mario cast variable tier. Now the answer to that is NO.
NO VARIES TIER
Varies is given to characters with actually varying powers. Inconsistent writing doesn’t mean characters canonically fluctuate.
We do have “At least” moniker. Considering Mario games have other showings for feats in Tiers 7-5 like the recent fodder upgrade to Tier 7, Mario, Paper Mario & Yoshi being launched to space, Dark Bowser and Kamek creates storm clouds, Fury Bowser creates storms as well, Frederick’s Island freezing, DK Moon Punch, Mario SMW Castle throws, Tennis Game explosion durability feat and Shake King feat etc.
Already 12 visible feats from lower tiers.
Tiers 7-5 seem to be more directly supported, so say having At least Tier 5 seems reasonable.
If we do find out more solid evidence for Low 2-C, we could use Possibly, Likely or At Best.
But unless we get solid proof for Low 2-C, it seems a downgrade is needed or more serious proof for Low 2-C showings outnumbering these contradictions.
There is no easy answer here.
Previously Mario cast had Tier 4 Solar System levels, but unless I miscounted, it seems these contradictions also contradict Tier 4 as well. How awkward. Whatever the end results are, let’s just first see if Low 2-C is consistent enough. If worst comes to show, maybe even Tier 4 Mario cast needs a re-examination.
Phew, that was bit long, right?
At the end of the analysis, even if we were to give Super Mario a big benefit of doubt, the side that supports universal feats looks like this:
- Super Mario 64
- Wario World
- Paper Mario TTYD
- Mario Party 5
- Yoshi Island DS
- Super Mario Galaxy 1 (Grand Stars & Bowser)
- Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Grand Stars)
- Super Paper Mario
- Super Mario 3D World (Rosalina scaling to cast)
- PM Origami King
- Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga
- Mario Power Tennis
- New Super Mario Bros
- Mario & Luigi Partners in Time
- WarioWare Touched!
- Donkey Kong Country Returns
- Super Mario 3D Land
- Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze
- Super Mario Odyssey
- WarioWare Gold
Of course, I was giving there the best benefit of doubt for Low 2-C. It seems like some of the feats are not clear or could have issues.
In fact, let’s look at the worst-case scenario for Low 2-C support. This would actually split universal+ support into clear support:
- Super Paper Mario
And “shakey” support:
- Super Mario 64 (as its Power Stars only, it doesn’t likely scale to base powers)
- Wario World (vague screen turns to white, as well as Spritelings also no selling it despite being weak enough to be caged)
- Paper Mario TTYD (Statements, also a review?)
- Mario Party 5 (Pure statement)
- Yoshi Island DS (Its literally Kamek saying that, a bosses’ minion, what rules out he doesn’t try to smooth his boss?)
- Super Mario Galaxy (considering prior games that supports universal, how can Kamek’s much smaller blast knock out Mario unconscious? even then the later universe reset is vague for anyone but Rosalina)
- Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Grand Stars, however Bowser was severely weakened by clearly weaker black hole, which doesn’t seem to support universal power)
- 3D World (Rosalina scaling to cast, however Bowser still gets harmed by POW Block and Rosalina scaling doesn’t even properly work)
- PM Origami King (Pure statement)
- Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga (a fall from not even space knocks Bowser unconscious)
- WarioWare Touched! (Visibly shown, relates to story majorly)
- WarioWare Gold (Visibly shown, relates to story majorly)
- Mario Power Tennis (Visibly shown characters being hurt by significantly weaker attack)
- New Super Mario Bros (Visibly shown, relates to story majorly)
- Mario & Luigi Partners in Time (a fall knocks Bowser unconscious)
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Visibly shown, relates to story majorly)
- Super Mario Galaxy (Kamek’s blasts is not at Low 2-C levels at start of the game)
- Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Bowser is hurt by not even 3-A feat)
- Donkey Kong Country Returns (Visibly shown, small detail)
- Super Mario 3D Land (Cutscenes imply bridge destruction and debris can hurt Bowser significantly)
- New Super Mario Bros U (Cutscenes imply KCK can hurt Bowser significantly)
- Super Mario 3D World (Cutscenes imply POW Block can hurt Bowser significantly)
- Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze (DK & Gang are affected by Wind not strong enough to even destroy a planet)
- Mario Party 10 (cannonballs hurt Bowser to turn into undead Dry Bowser)
- Super Mario Odyssey
- PM Origami King (Contradicted by game itself with Mario struggling to move a stone, heavily contradicts prior statements)
This notably decreases amount of support for universal+, while the number of contradictions increases.
Quite frankly, it seems a lot of contradictions are blatant, while the support for Low 2-C is either text based (which itself isn’t an issue) or based on odd outside source. In fact, I purposely added a lot of support for Low 2-C that are frankly just bad. Kamek statement in YIDS, MP5, 3D World, Galaxy 2, TTYD and PMOK are in fact really bad. So, the real support amount is 4.
4 Low 2-C feats in games vs 17 contradicting games
And that is minuscule compared to contradictions, less than 25% comparatively.
Really, large majority of contradictions are visual evidence, not even gameplay as its mostly cutscenes and even how the series is portrayed is significantly favoring non-Universal+ feats. And frankly, a lot of evidence for universal+ is pocket dimensions that don’t relate to stories, or out of game material that’s not even that official, meanwhile most contradictions are blatant, ignoring gameplay.
Why can’t this majority be the more accurate portrayal of Mario? It is weaker than expected, but should we strive for accuracy its more consistent.
TLDR:
Unless the evidence I posted turn out to be flawed, which you can prove because I might have missed something, it seems there are more evidence of clearly not universal feats causing significant effect on most of Mario cast rather than main cast being flat-out Low 2-C. Some of the Tier 2 Mario related things can remain, but trying to keep Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Wario, Peach, Bowser & DK as Low 2-C, as well as those who get their tiers from scaling to these Star Children, seems far less likely.
Unless Mario cast gets significantly more explained explanation on Low 2-C, it would be best to not guarantee it as much, which could lead to use of forms like “At least” for the clearer evidence and “At most” or “Possibly” for the less vague ones. Of course, we could even remove Low 2-C entirely, if there aren’t proper explanation on Mario casts’ significant number of universal feat contradiction.
As much as it is pain, we should probably list and calc significantly more feats to properly see which Tier range seems most consistent, albeit looking these examples there even seems to quite a number of low Tier feats that cause struggles for most of Mario cast.
But as far as I see, at best its 10 Low 2-C games vs 10 contradicting games, which already is odd dilemma, but factually the more accurate case is there being only 4 Low 2-C games against whopping 17 contradicting games.
Outside of Vacuum, showing 4-7 Low 2-C feats might support that tier, but if the verse actually shows blatantly characters struggling with powers weaker than Low 2-C, then the sad true is probably that those high-ends are contradicted.
Most of the support is based on vague power source and outside material, while contradictions are visible in games. Not to mention a lot of, if not majority of visible feats themselves are in lower range like in Tiers 7-5.
And personally, in order to make Mario cast more accurate, Low 2-C should be removed from Star Children’s base, until it gets far more significant support. Or well, actually not, as technically Upgrade Mario cast fully to Low 2-C, as its still currently work in progress. Even more unfortunately, it seems even Tier 4 feats might be contradicted here.
The contradictions are far more apparent than the support for Low 2-C.
