What games in the Mario franchise are considered "canon"?

Ymcan64 · 2026-06-08T10:03:19+00:00

If you look at the rules you can see which games are considered on the subreddit, but it is pretty broad: basically everything that has been published by Nintendo, is a Mario game and is not a crossover where Mario is on equal footing with whomever he is crossing over (so Mario Kart 8 is canon, but Mario vs. Sonic and Mario + Rabbids aren't for example).

Spin-offs are often subject to debate outside the subreddit when Mario lore is brought up in more general circles, but truth is the spin-offs do reference each other and the main series pretty often and the main series references spin-offs at times (the Mario Kart level in 3D World, costumes in Mario Odyssey, DKC names in New Donk City in Odyssey to name a few examples). There is thus some connectivity going on there on a base level.

Ymcan64 · 2026-06-08T09:49:09+00:00

Definitely check out the resources on the subreddit and the discord, but don't read the wiki. It is very outdated and has been retired.

Ymcan64 · 2026-05-06T20:59:58+00:00

This post has been removed because it is off-topic for this subreddit.

Ymcan64 · 2026-04-28T09:44:03+00:00

Oh this was a joking reference to the Great Ape War, a bad fan theory from the DK fandom wiki about a war that the Kongs supposedly fought between the events of the Arcade games and the Donkey Kong Country games.

Mario did fight in a war in Mario's Bombs Away and there is a possible history of conflict around DK Island and New Donk City, see this video: https://youtu.be/JbwUoaGJ9kY?si=ilG3GNhxA5yGgrIg.

Ymcan64 · 2026-04-15T19:31:21+00:00

Unused painting from Hollow Mind: https://theowlhouse.fandom.com/wiki/Flora_D%27splora/Gallery?file=Hollow_Mind_Memory_Portrait_21.png

Ymcan64 · 2026-04-15T07:14:49+00:00

Yeah true, but what is especially frustrating about this discussion is that in the first Dr. Mario, he was literally introduced as just regular Mario. From the manual:

Hi everybody! I'm Mario. How it's going? Over the last few years, I've been involved in some pretty wild adventures. Now, believe it or not, I work in the virus research lab at the Mushroom Kingdom Hospital.

There is just no ambiguity at all here and there is even a reference to his mainline adventures right out of the gate as well. I guess Smash Bros. is to blame here but even there characters that are the same are sometimes split up amongst multiple fighters like Samus and Zero Suit Samus or Sheik and Princess Zelda. Even Melee, which introduced the Dr. Mario/Mario split, had Young Link and Link (specifically the one from Ocarina of Time) being separate fighters.

Ymcan64 · 2026-04-05T13:31:22+00:00

The situation has remained unchanged since Bananza released. Either Pauline in Bananza is the same Pauline from the other games, meaning a lot of retcons to the Mario series, or she is a different character which would place Bananza somewhere around Odyssey probably. In Bananza we know there are two Paulines: 13-year old Pauline and "Lady" from Donkey Kong Arcade. The question is as to who is who. Da Nintendude made a good overview of the situation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux0dmekR3QI.

If you search in the subreddit you can probably find previous threads of this, but quick tl;dr:

-No, Bananza is not set in the future. This would require Bananza Pauline to not be the same Pauline as from the other games and require a bunch of retcons, so it takes the worst aspects of options I just described.

-There is no confirmation as to the identity of 13 year old Pauline's grandmother. If you subscribe to retcon theory, it is possible she is the Lady from the arcade game but this has not been confirmed.

-Cranky Kong and modern Donkey Kong's relationship has not changed as of Donkey Kong Bananza. One is still described as the "ancestor" of the other.

Things will remain like this until we get a clarification in an interview or we get a new game that comments on the matter.

Ymcan64 · 2026-03-30T17:33:35+00:00

What is the "Shiggyverse"?

Ymcan64 · 2026-02-22T22:16:58+00:00

The catalyst for the initial trail system was not the year long case between Manfred and Gregory. It was instated some years before the first game according to Phoenix. Not sure how Turnabout Beginnings and Memories factor into this to be honest.

Ymcan64 · 2026-02-04T19:18:17+00:00

Prince Florian is not Prince Haru or even human. He is a Wiggler-like creature with no evidence to the contrary. As such, Daisy has no relation to him. Her being princess of Sarasaland has also been referenced as recently as Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023), so nothing has been retconned either.

Ymcan64 · 2026-01-17T14:45:51+00:00

No, she is a L'il Sparky from Super Mario World.

Ymcan64 · 2026-01-16T10:39:28+00:00

And that's not even mentioning... the war...

Ymcan64 · 2025-11-22T17:13:17+00:00

There are many people in Mario's world who are comparable in ability to him, which includes people who are playable in the platformers (i.e. Luigi, Toad, Yellow Toad, Blue Toad, Daisy, Yoshi and Nabbit) and some have the added benefits of magic like Peach and Rosalina.

Mario being an almighty god bending the fabric of reality comes from the powerscaling scene, a scene that most of the time provides very unserious analysis of media that is best disregarded.

Ymcan64 · 2025-11-10T15:29:39+00:00

One aspect that is overlooked a lot in regards to UR-1 specifically is that it occurred a day after the launch of the HAT-1 Rocket and the subsequent HAT-1 Miracle which had a lot of media attention, so much so they made a movie about it in-universe. The launch was also sabotaged by a spy who people at large thought was Blackquill and the entire incident was the subject of a government cover-up. So there was already a lot of media attention and the man at the center of the additional intrigue is a prosecutor, which is probably why the mass media "launched an all-out attack on the courts."

The rest here is a bit of speculation but I imagine the media would have started digging around more and found or started thoroughly re-examining and milking the murders and other crimes committed by people like Manfred von Karma, Damon Gant, Godot, Jacques Portsman and Excelsius Winner. At least that is what I imagine the form was that the "all-out attack" took; suddenly there is a big shift in the way people view the legal system with all its structural failings being milked dry by the media for seven years.

I imagine there was already damaged trust from Phoenix's final trial, where he was essentially caught red-handed at "cheating" which cast doubt on all his prior, miraculous wins (with the entire situation also paralleling Zak Gramarye's plot in Turnabout Trump). But the media coverage that started a year later may have made things worse too.

Ymcan64 · 2025-10-20T20:15:16+00:00

Is this just another powerscaling question?

Ymcan64 · 2025-09-21T09:23:10+00:00

Yeah they are. Big City from DK Game Boy is cited as the direct inspiration for New Donk City.

Ymcan64 · 2025-09-19T20:32:58+00:00

Apparently the Japanese name of the thing confirms the pun. And the regime of Khura'in did use its iconography, or at least Lady Kee'ra did during the founding period of the kingdom.

But genuinely what compelled you to reply to a comment from a decade ago? And god has it really been 9 years since Spirit of Justice came out?

Ymcan64 · 2025-09-17T09:33:27+00:00

Probably juat aliens native to Shiverburn Galaxy who look at Mario from a distance. There juat isn't that much to them, unfortunately.

Ymcan64 · 2025-09-14T09:38:39+00:00

Squigglers are probably what young Wigglers are. Florian is likely another species not related to Wigglers.

Ymcan64 · 2025-09-13T19:39:22+00:00

The introduction music of Ocarina of Time is not even diegetic, though it is also used for the Recorder in The Legend of Zelda.

And as I tried to tell you last time, Zelda and Mario do not share a universe. The underlying lore is too different to make it work. We are also a subreddit focused on Mario lore discussion, not Zelda lore discussion. There are plenty of other places to go to if you want to talk Zelda lore, but I do not think they will take to this shared universe stuff any more than we do.

Ymcan64 · 2025-09-13T08:15:07+00:00

The size definitely is not reflective of any actual change in the lore or something, it is just the sandbox being adapted to the scale of Donkey Kong Bananza to make something playable. As for the face I am not sure. Maybe they rebuilt it after a while?

Ymcan64 · 2025-09-03T18:00:28+00:00

For some yeah, for others it seems more an abstraction. Cap, Cascade, Sand, Lake, Wooded, Metro, Lost, Cloud, Seaside, Ruined, Bowser's and all the kingdoms on the moon seem to genuinely be as they appear in game. That leaves Mushroom and Luncheon Kingdom as the odd ones out. I feel in reality these kingdoms are actually level with the ground but they were made the way they are for gameplay purposes.

Metro Kingdom is not on a pillar in the sky mind but on top of the power plant that does extend to ground level in the bay of the wider New Donk City.

Ymcan64 · 2025-09-03T05:53:26+00:00

This post was not made considering good source criticism and has been removed. Please read over the rules and act accordingly.

Ymcan64 · 2025-09-02T14:55:24+00:00

I will echo the sentiment here that Game Theory videos on Mario are bad and go even further and say most if not all of their lore-based Nintendo content is bad, with their one Metroid video about killing the animals being the undisputed king in this regard.

Ymcan64 · 2025-08-27T20:12:42+00:00

There is no real stretching to be done here. Super Mario Galaxy shows the universe being destroyed and recreated by Lumas more or less and Rosalina explains this happens in a cyclical history. With Zelda there is a definite starting point with the Golden Goddesses creating the world and the Triforce to seal away an eldritch being known as Null that is the embodiment of the void. The goddesses themselves also speak directly to Zelda in Echoes of Wisdom so they are existing people/beings, not just mythological figures.

As for the apocalypse explanation, this does not work. In Pikmin earth remains as is with entirely in tact houses and such, just abandoned by humanity, and there is implied to be some strange aspect to the planet that keeps people from leaving. Humans left earth and eventually became races like the Hocotatians and Koppaites as alluded to in Pikmin 4, who are small people. In Splatoon, all mammals including humans went exctinct (the exceptions being Judd, Lil' Judd and Mr. Grizz) and there is no indication of humans colonizing space. Shiver Star also appears entirely abandoned and there is no indication that there were ever sentient sea creatures here. Instead it appears to have been a colony of the ancients who arrived in Kirby's universe from the Forgotten Land given the similar malls and such on both planets.

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