Soapbox: Can You Really 'Spoil' A Mario Game?

I would not have wanted to know about the big musical number in New Donk City, for example.

I don't know about spoiling, though @bigpale presented a good example with New Donk City's extravaganza, but I'd rather encounter all the goodies the first time myself and experiment with how they work. Part of the fun for me is experiencing how different power-ups can be deployed or how to beat certain enemies. So I will avoid any further Wonder trailers.

Depends on the specific game - odysseys endgame setpiece is definitely something I would say should not be spoiled for new players, but if the general plot of a mario game is going to be "beat bowser" without anything super amazing and unbelievable happening to get to that point, it doesn't really matter in my eyes.

It needs to be a really cool and unique setpiece for me to warrant caring about having it spoiled - and even then, I can live with it. I watched the insane finale of Kirby and the forgotten land before even touching the game, yet I felt exactly the same as I would have done if I hadn't been spoiled on the ending. Going through something myself is what matters most, so spoilers be damned for the most part.

There was a ton of things that were spoiled for me from Mario Odyssey that I won't mention here in case someone hasn't played it yet. I'll just say there were jaw dropping moments that I wish I discovered myself.

gameplay maybe but people don't Mario games for an interesting story or we'll developed characters

@BenAV same - if I catch a glimpse of like a certain character or the fact there's some alternate world or airship later in a game, then that can slightly spoil it for me. The anticipation I'd have waiting on them/it to appear takes away part of the sense of discovery. I hate it more in movies/sequels, but have seen it happen with games.

I personally consider anything not shown in an official trailer to be a spoiler. And I prefer to go in to a game completely blind if at all possible. I mute keywords and hashtags and social media, steer clear of previews and reviews, and avoid trailers uploaded close to release. Unless! It's a third party title I'm a little iffy on or is liable to have performance issues, so I will wait for reviews before deciding to make that purchase. But for something I know I'll buy regardless, I go into blackout mode.

Uhm...
You can use fire balls from the fire flower thats amazing! 😂

After seeing the ShoShinKai preview for Mario 64 in '95, that game became my obsession, and the wait through multiple delays until it was eventually released in the UK in March 97 was agonising for me at the time. I've never anticipated a game so much. During that time I voraciously bought every single magazine that featured the game, and of course as it was released in Japan earlier, many of them had complete guildes to every level, every star, in theory there should have been no surprises for me.

And yet playing the game when I eventually got it, every moment felt fresh, every discovery new, everything exciting. I think "spoilers" for me are plot twists. Just showing things like levels, areas, mechanics don't really mean much to me because when you play the game, you experience them for the first time. Or perhaps my memory is terrible and after watching and reading things I instantly forget them 😂

By the way, I saw that ShoShinKai Mario 64 preview on Bad Influence, presented by Violet Berlin. I always recorded that show on VHS. I rewound and watched that section so many time the tape literally wore so thin it snapped. I've since had the privilidge of working with Violet and talking to her about how much it affected me, and I was delighted to hear that its one of the all time highlights of her life! The trip, not speaking to me about it 😅 She was as mind blown by the game as I was 🥰 )

The butterfly is the villain’s lover.

Spoiler alert! Mario beats bowser at his castle and saves the kingdom

@TheBigK Agree with wanting to play it as blindly as possible. It goes to the nostalgia of playing NES games back in the day. Many games were purchased based on the box art or an ad in a magazine. And so when I played the game it was all a complete surprise. I'm still chasing that experience!

can depend on the game, for example You go to a lava themed world/castle, fight bowser, then fight bowser but bigger could count as a spoiler for a large amount of mario games and spinoffs. though every now and then we get something that goes in a different direction and some of those ended up becoming extremely memorable.

its what im hoping for with wonder, that the game gets weird with it. weird Mario is my favourite Mario

Of course. If Wonder does some fancy s*** that's super cool I want to see that stuff myself before some idiot has to spoil that on day 0 on Twitter or Youtube or wherever the hell they put up images with blatant spoilers without much you can do about it short of a complete media blackout.

People generally read spoiler and assume people don't want to know about story beats but if I didn't know Espinas was in Monster Hunter Sunbreak I would've LOST MY MIND when that icon first popped up ingame...

I always like to know as much as possible and even the ending because I need to know if it's worth playing. Nothing worse than getting a game and the ending being absolute trash. Same with movies, before I watch a movie, I Google the trivia and everything about it.

My wife watched the Mario Wonder Direct with me and commented that the plot of Mario games is sort of like the plot in adult movies: just an excuse to get into the action. I thought that was pretty insightful honestly.

with mario, story isnt what im concerned with getting spoiled with. Gameplay however is a little more of a concern, as thats always gonna be the main selling point of the game for me

Run right, fight Bowser, save peach.

Uhh nope, not much to spoil in these games. Do they even have a writing staff? Lmao

You absolutely can spoil a Mario game. I will admit I'm very spoiler-averse (I regularly mute key words for movies and games I'm looking forward to on all platforms) but I think even people not like me would want some surprises in what they play. A particular boss fight in Odyssey and what happens after the final boss (both immediately and post game) come to mind as far as stuff that shouldn't be spoiled.

Anytime anything is coming out that I'm excited for be it a game, movie, whatever, I basically have to go completely dark on internet activity. Nowadays everyone is constantly tripping over themselves to put spoilers in the thumbnails and titles of everything in an effort to get clicks and views. Most of the time it's before the product is even released for the general publc to have even had a chance to experience it.

Mario's a little harder of a thing to spoil, at least in regards to story, since Nintendo rarely deviates from the core aspect of the series, but it's certainly possible to spoil the smaller things, the niceties of discovery.

On the games side of Mario, I don't mind much. Watching and playing a game are two different experiences.

Totally depends on the person and Mario game I’m sure. But I do believe 2D Mario’s are much harder to spoil. The power ups are more spoiler than the stages and such honestly.

Small story from youth, back when SNES and Super Mario World hadn’t released yet, if you pre-ordered the system through, I believe it was Toys R Us…. That or being a Nintendo Power Subscriber…. You’d get an official Super Mario World guide showing you how to beat each stage, all the secrets, and how to beat the game in 13 stages using W2 ghost house pipe to Star World.

I studied that thing for 2 weeks leading up to the release. When the game came out I was more excited than I’d ever been, did the 13 stage trick first thing, and was so proud of myself for my accomplishment. Then I made a second file and finished the whole thing out 100%. All the “spoilers” I got for that game only lead to the excitement. I didn’t feel cheated out of anything or let down because I knew something about it in advance.

I’m the type of gamer that would like to know the ins and outs of the mechanics, and stage designs before I play so I can be prepared for anything. A lot of the probably stems from the NES era where everything was ultra difficult and you needed to memorize things. However, I don’t want story or plot reveal spoilers, or character spoilers. Or in 2D Mario titles, new power up spoilers. Those are fun things to discover as you go.

And that’s why I think it’s harder to spoil 2D Mario over 3D Mario. 2D has always been less story more stage design and power up usage. 3D Mario has always had more story, while maintaining a fair bit of stage and power up design.

Plot wise it’s almost always been Bowser kidnapping Peach, so that bit is hard to spoil anymore. But the characters involved in each story change from time to time like in SMB2 or Mario Galaxy…. That stuff I do consider spoiler.

Maybe not mainlines but I would love to avoid information for TYD, but it’s old so I don’t mind if I get any.

I'm avoiding everything about Wonder including this comment section

I'm of the opinion that any information about a piece of media that you'd rather learn first-hand is a potential spoiler. That being said, most of the responsibility for avoiding spoilers falls on you. If you hear someone talking about a game/book/etc. you're not done with, it's your responsibility to either get out of earshot or ask them to avoid giving too much information. If you've seen enough of a game to know you're going to play it, you probably don't have to watch any more new trailers. The one exception I'll put on this is that entertainment news sites, which cater specifically to the avid fans who despise spoilers the most, probably shouldn't be putting them in their titles and thumbnails.

You can! What if Wonder has surprising amounts of story like Galaxy 1? What if later levels are revisits to locales from old games? What if Bowser was being controlled by a different villain, or a new villain? You can absolutely spoil a Mario game.

I went into Mario Odyssey mostly blind and it was all the better for it. I had no idea I'd be a Mario dinosaur, for example, and it was a great surprise.

I dislike the modern trend of releasing a million trailers before a game's release, with many developers seeming to think they have to constantly be in the news or else their game will be forgotten.

Is it possible? Sure.

Should anyone care? Nooo.

Mario is a fully focused gameplay franchise, you cant spoil a Mario game, is the typical 8/9 worlds(with grassa, desert, florest, ocean/beach, florest, mountain, sky and lava world, most if not all Mario games follow this world themes, spoiling that, is to beat a dead horse)

Practically any video game can be spoiled. Just because a game doesn't have a
proper story doesn't mean it can't be spoiled. I'm sure Elden Ring players wouldn't want the underground spoiled for them despite that not necessarily being a big story moment. It's about the discovery. And to imply that the discovery doesn't matter is quite simply a braindead take

For me, spoilers in a new Super Mario game would be something like learning about the new worlds, powers, and secret unlockables. I personally do try to stay away from spoilers even in Super Mario games because as progression is made in the game, all of the mentioned above occurs, and would dampen my enjoyment of the game if I already knew what to expect from my playthrough. There isn't much fun in that. I'll have fun regardless though since I will be playing this with my family. That will make all the difference regardless of spoilers.

Wait, Mario is a vampire?!

@samuelvictor great post, loved that!

@bigpale The big WHAT!??!?!!?!?!? Dude, you just spoiled the game for me! 😡

(Jk, I played the game when it came out, of course.)

I recall that amongst my social circle it was considered improper to read the manual before playing a new game.

The new experience was supposed to be pursued raw, with the manual only read if you got really stuck. Manuals were more things to be enjoyed leisurely at a later point.

@Manguy888A

and both involve protagonists pretending to be plumbers.

I am totally annoyed by the moustache overinflation

If I’m not sure I’ll get a game, then I’ll seek out information. But if I know I'm going to buy it day one, then I avoid any articles or hype. It’s not the end of the world if I see something before I can play, but it’s definitely more fun to experience things firsthand as I'm playing.

So for any Mario game, I pretty much just watch the first trailer and avoid anything else haha

Is this the game where Mario is both dead and a robot? And where you find out that Yoshi's real name is Rosebud?

I've always said that spoilers don't always have to be about story things. Part of the fun is exploring the world, the levels, the mechanics, the characters, music, etc yourself.

I honestly don't see why this should even be a debate. Sure, one person may not care about being spoiled about those things, but I know for a fact that there are people who don't care about story spoilers either, so should those suddenly not be considered spoilers either because not everyone cares about it?

Some people want to experience even non-story stuff first-hand, and you CAN be spoiled about them, hence they're spoilers. Simple as that.

@AmplifyMJ Thank you! 😀

It was just Mario dreaming all along!

I'll watch official trailers and news. But I will skip all leaks and / or rumors.

Not a platformer, but I’ve never played Thousand Year Door, and had a VERY cool, unexpected moment from that game “spoiled” for me (I’m using quotations marks because yes the game is old, so whether it can be spoiled is debatable now). Point is, I wish I’d never known about that moment because it would have been so cool to experience it blind, especially when I’m now planning on buying the remake.

I mean "Holy crap I just turned into an elephant!" or "I touched this thing and the whole world changed!" or even "that flower is talking" are all unexpected moments of discovery that have been spoiled by the trailer.

The real question is if that's a bad thing, or if the hype of worth it. But ... not really. That's subjective and both sides matter. I personally would rather have the hype, my wife ignores all trailers so she can experience it in game.

So the REAL real question is ... do we try to balance both sides? I would say no. There really isn't any way to take in any pre-release content without having things spoiled, and while I don't think we should ever scale back the current reveal trailers and how they show off the new game play elements because a lot of people (me included) like that ... maybe a different trailer for people who want to go into the experience blind would be a good thing.

You generally get this in Japan, with a TV spot focusing on a kid and their mom playing the game together with maybe 3 seconds on generic game play in it. Hey look, a new Mario game. It's prettier then the last one and you still jump on monsters. BUY IT.

Does the West even do TV spots for games any more? I haven't watched TV outside of a country that literally forces me to pay for it in like 30 years.

If we're talking the story, it's basically the same thing in almost every mainline Mario game: Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach, and Mario has to save her and defeat Bpwser, which he ends up doing in every single one of those games.

Gameplay-wise, you're running and jumping, a staple of the franchise. And if there are special gameplay elements specific to that game, they end up getting shown in the trailers.

So no, I don't think you really can spoil a Mario game. Certain gameplay elements and story details aside, you're basically playing the same game over and over again.

It's basically almost the same thing with The Legend of Zelda, too. And Metroid. And Star Fox. And Kirby. And F-Zero. And Pokémon. And Fire Emblem. And Splatoon. And Super Smash Bros. The list goes on.

The story for mario games has always been minimal but yet still brings you such wonder. but eversince the wii era they’ve been really limited from doing that by the mario mandates since then they’ve are rather lacking

If gameplay ideas then yes, what bosses, what level design, what power ups (besides what they already show off).

Mario games do mix things up from time to time so I'd say they can be a spoiler then the desert level, lava castle, etc we all know appear very often. Is the flight power up in Mario Galaxy a spoiler let alone the galaxies you visit I'd say so.

In terms of story I mean Paper Mario/Mario RPG games yes yes you can.

I'm not even a Mario fan but as someone that go between genres yes it's easy to tell when you spoil gameplay content in a platformer, puzzle game, racing (those without stories then those with them like a Puyo for puzzle or a Grid Legends/TOCA 1 PS2/R Racing Evolution/NFS games or others that I know have them then just spoiling puzzles, spoiling opponent lineups, what rewards, etc.) or any more gameplay focused games, so story isn't the only thing to spoil. You can meme anything and it can be a spoiler but a fair in joke.

In Spyro I could be spoiled on the Gnasty's Loot bonus level if I wasn't good at 100%ing the game, let alone later levels if I sucked at it and go oh those are cool levels/abilities/level design aspects/a funny dialogue moment from the dragons. Platformers are always more gameplay spoilers then story ones. While VNs, Action Adventure or RPGs are more story spoilers just as much a gameplay ones with boss fights and set pieces and movesets or characters along for the journey if it's a party based RPG.

You can spoil concept art/collectibles/other stuff/dev interviews too. I don't go around saying 'hey there is a GBA SP/GB Micro in Pikmin 4' it's a cool thing to find for yourself even if cool to share it is a spoiler on the treasures in the game and robs people of the reaction to it so I've prevented saying anything about Pikmin 4 to a friend other than the controls were a bit odd that's it.

So yes story isn't the only thing to spoil if you think outside the box and what people will react to of 'oh that's cool of a treasure, wish I'd discovered it myself though', to 'that boss fight/new enemy types looks awesome' 'that ability for your character or that enemy is awesome' kind of reactions. Not just a story twist, a character you never heard of because they don't want to in trailers and so on.

I wrote a review for Monsters Inc Scare Island recently and went hmm are the abilities you get after the races spoilers. It's a gameplay spoiler technically, not a story one.

You get an idea with them silhouetted when playing the game going oh this is for back tracking to access this era (with a invisible trampoline, grey arrows then blue ones or invisible orb looking things you do ask questions) but have no idea what they are especially the slingshot as the invisible orb looking thing I never knew until I unlocked it but is it a spoiler as you don't know how to access it till you beat the snow race which is the end of the game or the bonus areas you backtrack to with cool set pieces?

I'd say so. If they are better level design aspects you can't see normally then I'd say they are spoilers if one person breezes through the game and another collects everything their experiences are different and the parts the breezes through person never saw are skipped then well it's a spoiler for them.

Any bosses/abilities can be spoilers as much as story ones.

I really don't like being spoiled. It definitely doesn’t ruin the product itself, but there’s no question it cheapens the experience. Whether it’s story, gameplay, movies, albums, whatever. If given the choice I would like my first experience with the thing to unfold the way the creator intended.

Imo, even for say the main platforming games, the joy of being surprised for the first time is something you only get once, and for those who care about that (me) you can absolutely be spoiled on that.

I remember being upset after seeing a Cat Bowser YouTube thumbnail before playing 3D World. That design is so good and I had it spoiled

Seeing that huge dragon for the first time when playing Odyssey was a crazy good moment. That's also something from that game that I wouldn't have wanted to be spoiled.

@AstroTheGamosian This is just false. Even just looking at the most recent Zelda, Metroid, Pokémon, and Kirby games there are absolutely story AND gameplay things that could be spoiled. There's technically gameplay things in Mario to be spoiled too. As far as gameplay, yes the general idea is in trailers but each one of those games throw in something to switch the core gameplay up at some point.

100% yes! And the worst thing is you will see thumbnails filled with boss spoilers hours after the game goes online (or earlier if it leaks). Mario and Kirby games especially, I really don't know why people think they are exempt from spoiler territory. If there's a game I really like and want to avoid spoilers, I'll go full internet blackout.

"Remember being on the playground as a kid and swapping stories and strategies with your friends?"

Haha, good one!

@BlublacMH That's why I said details aside. If you get into the nitty-gritty, yes, there are obvious differences. But the basic plot and gameplay structures are the same.

In the case of Mario and Zelda, the princess gets captured, and you have to save her and defeat the bad guy (Bowser in Mario, Ganon/Ganondorf in Zelda). Very few entries deviate from that.

I have yet to see an entry that REALLY shakes up the series and introduces radical changes to that basic formula (such as Bowser having to be the one to rescue Peach and Mario, or Zelda having her own solo adventure; the CD-i games don't count for the latter).

As fun as the games can be, speaking from a writer's perspective, I just find that formula to be getting a little stale, and want to see something completely original to each series.

But that is just my opinion, of course. Everyone has their own thoughts on it, and are free to agree or disagree with my opinions.

It's entirely possible to spoil. During the Wii U Era, leakers were drip-feeding spoilers that Super Mario 3D World would have extra playable characters aside from the four shown. Biggest candidates were Yoshi, Wario and Rosalina.

Then Mario 3D World was leaked early onto the Internet and pirated, as all Nintendo first-party games are nowadays, and Rosalina being playable turned out to be true. Rosalina was not in any official advertisements until well after launch, so she was meant to be a surprise. But the cat had long since fled the bag.

Imagine what a treat New Donk City would have been if we hadn't seen it in the trailers!

I'm definitely of the opinion that you should only watch enough to decide whether or not to purchase a game and then once you've made that choice don't look up/watch anything else, because it will only diminish the total enjoyment you can consume.
For example the Depths in TOTK, I am still shocked that Nintendo kept that a secret, and my jaw hit the floor when I first went down there, I was stunned for days and exploring it I felt like I wasn't supposed to be there, like I'd discovered something nobody else was doing, it was a childlike euphoria that I won't soon forget. Nintendo Magic.

Not Nintendo related, but topic related, I'm a huge fan of the Lego Games, 100%ing them is genuinely so much fun to me and the reward for doing so is usually awesome.
Last year, when Skywalker Saga came out I was eagerly waiting to sink my teeth into what was promised to be the biggest Lego game ever.
Went onto YT having deliberately watched no videos on the game only to have the reward for 100% completely spoiled in the thumbnail of a recommended channel I had never watched...

Needless to say, it soured me so much I haven't touched the game since, it ruined the whole thing.

@JohnnyMind

That's interesting. I don't spend a lot of time in the EU ... are they spolier-y? Or like the ones in Japan, are they at least somewhat sensitive of the fact that you're being "forced" to watch them.

Spoiler alert: A princess gets kidnapped.

@HeadPirate agree, but won't we only able to say if it's spoiled after we finished it: if the elephants is the only new gimmick, that it is quite a spoiler, but if it is the first of many it is a great way to get your appetite up..

What kind of multiple choice answers are these. No you cannot spoil a Mario game. Or at least its pretty hard too. It might be possible with the RPG games, but these games are mostly an experience and almost zero story. If they had a story sure. But its usually very minimal.