Talk:Super Mario Bros. Special

(First topic)

I just found an (unofficial) NES port of this. Should I mention it? Paperphailurethemariomonster99 00:42, 18 July 2012 (EDT)

According to MarioWiki:Canonicity, the SMW only covers official content. The fan-made port above should not be mentioned in the article.

Shokora (talk · edits)

you need to put super mario bros special music for both pc88 and sharpx1 version.

please put.

--46.130.44.4 07:21, 10 January 2016 (EST)

Lucky Star description

Can I change "similar to a POW Block except it also affects airborne foes" to "similar to a POW Block in Super Mario Bros. 35"? Their effects are almost the same. Wynn Liaw 07:23, November 27, 2020 (EST)

I think it's better to be more descriptive of it (especially when Super Mario Bros. 35 has limited availability and in the future will be a quaint game not much have played), but you can simply add a reference to a later game, such as "similar to a POW Block except it also affects airborne foes, similar to a POW Block in Super Mario Bros. 35". It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 16:12, November 28, 2020 (EST)

I added it. (Probably could've worded it better though; feel free to change it) Harvstar (talk) 13:21, January 3, 2025 (EST)

does anyone know where we got the name Carolina Software?

I've been doing a bit of searching about the Korean SPC-1500 and trying to find information about the copy of SMBS that was released on it. I'm early into the search but so far the only game publisher name I've seen (relating to the only snippet we have about SMBS existing on the SPC-1500) mentions a company called 스태틱소프트 (Staticsoft), I've also found a couple names of other game publishers for the SPC-1500 but I haven't seen anything like Carolina Software. I was wondering if anyone knew where we got the name.

Thanks
— The preceding unsigned comment was added by CMAYK (talk).

• Caroline was added by an IP poster back in 2017. The circa 1987 date is also a guesstimate from the forum post. The magazine is dated to March '89 but the ad says SMBS was popular so it should have been around for a while. I cannot vouch that Static Soft made an official copy as piracy was very rampant in Korea back then.--Platform (talk) 11:45, October 20, 2023 (EDT)

Translate names?

Should we translate the names/use the English ones, or keep them the way they are? (Assuming the names are different in the English versions) Harvstar (talk) 13:31, January 3, 2025 (EST)

Determine what language(s) to use for the SMBS enemies

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit this section or its subsections. If you wish to discuss the article, please do so in a new section below the proposal.

Use English names and mention Japanese names on tables 3-4-3-7
This proposal will not only impact this article, but the articles for the SMBS worlds/levels as well.

This proposal is predicated on the credits of the game, which contains a (very, very slow) cast listing with the Japanese names of the enemies. For the longest time, the level articles have used the English names of enemies as they were known around the time of release, while the table on this article has used only the Japanese names. Recently, the contemporary English names were added to the table.

So like... Should we be doing that? The game itself makes no use of these English names, and in fact, its cast listing only lists the romanized Japanese names. On the other hand, though, including these English names does help clarify what enemy is what, especially in regards to the enemy table itself, so maybe only a partial adjustment should be made.

(Before you ask about items, those are all already--for the most part, obviously Hachisuke was Romanized Japanese at the source--listed in English by the game. The table even keeps the "Hummer" typo for the Hammer. Also, of course, this wouldn't impact "Names In Other Languages" sections, since covering foreign names is their entire point; this is just for what to do for this article and the various level articles.)

Proposer: Camwoodstock (talk)
Deadline: March 29, 2025, 23:59 GMT Extended to April 5, 2025, 23:59 GMT Extended to April 12, 2025, 23:59 GMT Extended to April 19, 2025, 23:59 GMT

Romanized Japanese Names Only (be literal!)

1. Camwoodstock (talk) Primary option. It's what the game uses, and we don't see any reason to use names that the game itself doesn't provide.
2. PopitTart (talk) Second choice. Neither the game nor any supplementary material gives English names, so its not really correct to say "Little Goombas are in 1-1". There's no enemy in Special called a "Little Goomba".
3. LinkTheLefty (talk) Tertiary; link piping does an adequate enough job telling you what's what.

Contemporary English Names Only (my name is American Koopa!)

1. Nintendo101 (talk) Typically, with Japanese exclusive games, we still use the contemporary English names for the subjects that appear in those games. We even have a proposal precedent for things like this, where we always refer to Bowser as "Bowser" in English translations. I don't think we should treat Super Mario Bros. Special any differently.
2. SGoW (talk) If these topics have English names, it feels asinine to use anything that isn't those.
3. Waluigi Time (talk) Per N101, our policy has always been that English names take priority if they're known (even retroactively) so I don't see a compelling reason for making an exception here just because the game was never released outside of Japan.
4. Cadrega86 (talk) Usual SMB enemies that had localized names even back in 1985. Absolutely no reason to use the Japanese names other than actively trying to be hostile to readers.

#Camwoodstock (talk) Tertiary option. Personally, while we realize this might be contentious, we don't see the issue with renaming things like Wrecking Crew '98 to use the Japanese names from the source; however, we feel like parity is far, far more important than our own personal preferences. No matter what, something has to change about this, and while it's easily the least favored out of the options for us, we wouldn't be mad about it by any means, either. Just about anything's better than the weird meld we've got going right now.

Romanized Japanese & Contemporary English Names on Table, level articles use Romanized Japanese Names (be literal, except for that!)

#Camwoodstock (talk) Secondary option. While we would prefer fully using the Romanized Japanese names, we can see the merit in at least including them on the Enemy table itself.

1. LinkTheLefty (talk) Secondary; this product does not have a Western release, and is relying on external Western-release media.
2. PopitTart (talk) First choice. They may never be called "Little Goomba", but they are still Goombas. Acknowledging the English names helps navigation.
3. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) - In-game, and all of that.

Romanized Japanese & Contemporary English Names on table, level articles use contemporary English Names/Status Quo ('s fine.)

1. LinkTheLefty (talk) Primary; on the other hand, just having the in-game romanizations listed somewhere convenient may be more pragmatic.
2. Waluigi Time (talk) Secondary choice, not too bothered by their inclusion as long as they're not overriding known English names.
3. Hewer (talk) Not sure I understand what the problem is here. Listing the names on this page makes perfect sense, but using them elsewhere not so much considering they're not English (because the game never released in English).
4. Cadrega86 (talk) Secondary option per Waluigi Time, as long as these never take priority over the English names.
5. Jdtendo (talk) I would not consider Romanized Japanese as "English", but I see no harm in listing the Japanese names within the enemy list.
6. Power Flotzo (talk) Per all.
7. Camwoodstock (talk) Even though we've gone on record to say we don't particularly enjoy this option, and would personally prefer just the names provided by the game itself, in the interest of actually concluding the proposal with an actual call to action, we'd at least accept this; in the time since starting this proposal, we've encountered a few other SMBS pages that actually would benefit from a status quo being formally acknowledged as they use Romanized Japanese names interchangeably with English names for whatever reason (usually, the earlier World pages), but making it so Romanized Japanese is a table-only thing would remedy that. So long as something's actually being done rather than "nothing, nothing at all, we're just leaving it exactly as it is in this weird one-and-a-quarter way there", we can't complain that much.

Comments (enemy name language proposal zone place)

In a vacuum, I agree with using the names as they were presented in the material as released, but if we do that, the next question would be what to do with the likes of anime and Wrecking Crew '98. LinkTheLefty (talk) 17:17, March 15, 2025 (EDT)

To be honest, we think that a more generalized approach would be fine, but we could definitely see that being a bit contentious. For right now, we'd like to keep this to Super Mario Bros. Special, though we do acknowledge the precedent this could be setting for sure. ;P ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 17:24, March 15, 2025 (EDT)

@LinkTheLefty: In regards to the recent edits on the table, we imagined that if option 3 passes, the table would be prioritizing the Romanized Japanese names and putting the English names into parenthesis; so, the opposite of how it's currently set up with your current edits. That being said, for right now, we don't particularly mind those edits being made, unless anyone particularly cares to inject themselves. Consider it "acknowledged, but fine by us until the proposal itself ends". ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 20:58, March 15, 2025 (EDT)

It just looked strange for the list of levels to have a mix of Japanese and English names, especially when there's a majority preference toward the latter at the moment, or at least, if the second or fourth option passes. Whichever is in parenthesis in the end doesn't really matter, though note that the current setup leaves out Mushroom, Flower and Star. Anyway, the second option is my least preferred because the new elements in this game only have their romanizations available and not the actual Japanese (not even in the manual, last I checked). This means that they're not included in "names in other languages" sections. That's why I'd prefer the third or fourth options; otherwise, it makes the info a bit harder to find. LinkTheLefty (talk) 21:07, March 15, 2025 (EDT)

By the way, can we tie the Japanese or English preference into whether or not we rename Hudson Bee? LinkTheLefty (talk) 08:03, March 16, 2025 (EDT)

Also, if someone can explain why the second option is preferable over the fourth, removing and obfuscating in-game info... LinkTheLefty (talk) 12:03, March 16, 2025 (EDT)

I mean I wouldn't really consider it removed/obfuscated considering that information is still on the NIOL tables on the enemy pages. -- Too Bad! Waluigi Time! 12:11, March 16, 2025 (EDT)

I said above that it's not, though, in the case of the new/unique names, since we just have the romanizations to go off of. LinkTheLefty (talk) 12:14, March 16, 2025 (EDT)

Nakaji and Sigebou

The cast names are thankfully self-explanatory for the most part (Chokichoki is the basis of Chokkī, Tarusar contains taru (barrel) and Tsurara is just Japanese for icicle), but what indicates that Nakaji and Sigebou refer to Fighterfly and Fireball, respectively? Nakaji may refer to Nakajima, but that's not terribly much to go off of. Sigebou possibly has a similar origin as Bō, but that's hard to tell since it could also be the same -bou as Kuribou (and Sige- might be a reference to Shigeru). Briefly looking it up leads me to a TMK page, which has question marks for these two. LinkTheLefty (talk) 23:56, March 15, 2025 (EDT)

We can buy Sigebou being rooted from "Bō", which would just kind of leave Nakaji as the remainder. To be honest, we have NO idea what to make of that one, so it's moreso a matter of what the fireball is meant to me... ;P ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 10:00, March 16, 2025 (EDT)

Likely just a developer in-joke, not taking it too seriously since they figured not too many players would reach the end. Maybe someone said, "hey, that fly's face looks like yours," or something. LinkTheLefty (talk) 12:07, March 16, 2025 (EDT)

I think it's a safe assumption as can be seen in Bōbō, Hībōbō, Bōbō Heihō, Tamabō, and Mokubō.--Platform (talk) 12:00, March 16, 2025 (EDT)

Fair enough. LinkTheLefty (talk) 12:07, March 16, 2025 (EDT)

"August 1986"?

This talk page or section has a conflict or question that needs to be answered. Please try to help and resolve the issue by leaving a comment.

The magazine insert in question.

(Note: a lot of this is edited from a Discord conversation.)

So uh. if our translation sources are correct, we may have an issue. SMBS might not actually be an August 1986 release?

It's about this magazine insert (pictured right), from Mycom Basic (or Micom Basic), September 1986. The ending portion of text at the end of that block below and to the right of the big red text in the center roughly means "Coming Soon"; a friend of ours, who took a crack at a fuller translation, said the whole thing roughly translates to "An accomplishment on the national level, coming soon!". So, uh. How, pray tell, could it be "Coming Soon" if it was released a month prior? And this isn't like the fabled SPC-1500 version, which released a year later in a different country. It seems like both the PC-88 and Sharp X1 versions of SMBS dropped at roughly the same time there.

In addition, the only source for August 1986 comes from a figure of "two months after Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, from an article that was once upon a time, linked here. However, this "Nintendo Era" website went down at some point, the article wasn't preserved with it, and the "Bando" who is mentioned in the remaining URL is unidentified; it isn't a member of the game's staff, from the looks of things. We attempted to establish contact with the owner of the website; they were a former user here, and they even left an email address in one of the old revisions of the site under the pretense of reaching out, but they haven't responded to it, and we're unsure if they even received it.

If we had to guesstimate, with both the skepticism towards August 1986 and what little we have translated of the magazine insert in mind, SMBS definitely looks like it was a Q4 1986 release; MAYBE Q3, but it would have to be like, late September. We don't wanna commit unless the ENTIRE flyer was translated, but we're. Extremely skeptical on that August 1986 date. The only thing we can prove with certainty is it did release for PC-88 and Sharp X1 in 1986; the year is correct, if nothing else.

Where do we go from here? If someone could translate the rest of the magazine page, that could potentially illuminate a lot more. Would it be safe to remove "August" for the time being, or should that be held to proposal first? ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 16:28, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

Why do pre-2000's release dates always have to be like pulling teeth? The same source is used for the Mario Bros. Special and Punch Ball Mario Bros. dates. I would just add {{better source}} there, but Super Mario Bros. Special seems outright wrong. "Late 1986" citing this insert seems the way to go for now. It bothers me that this "Nintendo Era" article is down with no apparent archive, but I seem to recall it looked like some dude on 2ch. EDIT: There is a way that the "Mycom Basic" magazine technically doesn't contradict the "Nintendo Era" source, and that's if the September 1986 issue was published a month ahead. LinkTheLefty (talk) 17:12, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

That sounds about right. Still wouldn't want to enact on anything unless someone can translate the rest of the flyer to verify there's nothing we're missing, but also, how do we denote the vague "Late 1986" on something like List of games? EDIT: We have no idea how to check the precise release date of one of these magazines; we don't see any reason to suspect it was published a month ahead, but maybe checking the IBSN would help... If we could tell where the IBSN data is, or if it even has one. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 17:27, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

Okay. We couldn't find an IBSN, and given it's a magazine--and a foreign magazine, at that--that's maybe not surprising. At most, we saw SegaRetro asserts that these released either early-to-partway into their corresponding months, giving the date of September 8th, 1986 for the publication; this, however, is entirely uncited on the page itself, and we have no idea where they got that specific number date from--not helped by the fact that SegaRetro's page history seems to load even slower than your average Homestar Runner Wiki page, to the point where we got an honest to goodness timeout error from Cloudflare. It could very well be in the fine print on the front or back cover and we're just missing it. However, if true, the date shouldn't matter anyways; if the month of publication always aligned with the issue's designated month, we can be guaranteed it couldn't have released in August 1986. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 18:05, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

There isn’t anything concrete on the rest of the flyer, just “The super fantastic adventure finally comes/is coming to PC” above the title (the tense is ambiguous in isolation, but the aforementioned “coming soon” bit tells me it hasn’t happened yet) and “The unprecedented/record-breaking bestseller can be fully enjoyed on PC” directly below it. The text below that relates to defeating Bowser and rescuing Peach and how only Mario can restore peace to the Mushroom Kingdom. The pink box lists the PC models with which it’s compatible (with some extra info about a controller being required for the X1 version). The sentence below that box tells people where Hudson products are sold (department stores and computer stores). Mario4Ever (talk) 18:23, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

This? The same insert appears in the before and after issues (latter's alternate) so there goes that theory. In around October, it gets listed in order catelogs with a price, but I see no date. LinkTheLefty (talk) 18:34, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

If the price only gets listed in the October issue, then that's pretty solid evidence for an October 1986 release date... What page is it on? ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 18:50, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

Search for マリオ there and you should see it for 88/X1 as either スーパーマリオ or スーパーマリオブラザーズ starting with the October issue(...which may have been printed in September). LinkTheLefty (talk) 18:56, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

Oh, it is actually there in the October issue's list! Given the One (1) source that gives a full date for these suggests these were printed month-of, we don't see any reason to suspect the October issue actually released in September; unless someone could actually verify the magazines were printed a month in advance, we don't see a need for the skepticism. Even if it was, no matter which way you slice it, September, October, neither of those are August. ;P ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 19:04, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

Maybe, but I find it odd that the November issue reuses the same flyer (just with alternate colors), and order availability doesn't necessarily mean deliveries were out... What would really help narrow it down is knowing if it was also reported on store shelves. LinkTheLefty (talk) 19:28, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

We're gonna be honest, we feel like if you start narrowing it down to "when the first copy shipped, and arrived at a store or at someone's door", that's rapidly approaching "vague and impossible to prove" territory--it's the same conundrum that plagues Super Mario Bros., funnily enough. We'd rather just settle with October 1986, provided we can't find any evidence of an even earlier release than that; September is looking increasingly unlikely, and August is basically debunked entirely. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 21:09, April 28, 2025 (EDT)

Okay, but I think an explanation should definitely be added with the citation that states it as approximately when it first started showing up in order catelogs. Actually, I may be blind since it shows up in the Fantom order catelog right there in the September issue, not sure how I missed it before, it's possible they just reused the flyer for a few issues since August and didn't bother correcting it. LinkTheLefty (talk) 08:12, April 29, 2025 (EDT)

Here's Nintendo Era's YouTube channel if it is any help. I think Bando is just a native Japanese speaker he asks to help him translate material as mentioned in his video about Micom Basic mags.--Platform (talk) 10:15, April 29, 2025 (EDT)