The 'Shroom:Issue 208/Pipe Plaza

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Director's Notes

Written by: Zange (talk)

Shroom208Zange.png

Call me The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air because my life has certainly been flipped and turned upside down since last month!!!

So to make a long story short, I am MOVING out of my parent's home and into an apartment two hours away in early August! This is both exciting and TERRIFYING purely because of how last minute it is happening! What happened with that, is I asked one of my friends around this time last month if she was still looking for roommates for her new apartment because I knew she was looking. She told me she got it figured out, and then fast forward to earlier this month where she asks me if I'm still interested because someone dropped and she had to get that spot filled ASAP. Now I'm just trying to get all my crap packed and organized. My room was already a disaster zone after I got back from college, now it's worse... Adding on the fact that I am currently in a play that has their shows the first few days of August, and that I need to find a job where I'm moving, means I am NOT having a good time right now. Send help I'm begging.

But that's enough about that, you're here to read some awesome and cool Pipe Plaza sections! Remember that you, too, can be a writer of one of these awesome and cool sections too! Just head to the sign up page to get started.

I hope you are all staying nice and cool, but regardless, I hope you enjoy the rest of your month~

Section of the Month

Congratulations to this month's winners! In first place, we have Shoey (talk) with Archie Sonic Comic Shoebox! In second place, GPM1000 (talk) with Mario Calendar! And last but not least, we have a tie for third with Hooded Pitohui (talk) with Poll Committee Discussion and Shoey (talk) with What's in a Campaign?! Thank you to everyone who votes for their favorite sections as well.

PIPE PLAZA SECTION OF THE MONTH
Place Section Votes % Writer
1st Archie Sonic Comic Shoebox 5 31.25% Shoey (talk)
2nd Mario Calendar 4 25.00% GPM1000 (talk)
3rd What's in a Campaign? 3 18.75% Shoey (talk)
3rd Poll Committee Discussion 3 18.75% Hooded Pitohui (talk)
News and information
Mario Calendar
GPM1000 (talk)
Find out all about this month's Super Mario releases.
read more
Poll Committee Discussion
MightyMario (talk)
The best analysis of the polls around!
read more
Anniversary Announcements
Lakituthequick (talk)
The ongoings of the Mario Awards.
read more
The 'Shroom Report
Waluigi Time (talk)
All the latest writers and all the milestones of the current ones.
read more
What's in a Campaign?
Shoey (talk)
Seeing double?
read more

Mario Calendar

Written by: GPM1000 (talk)

Hey everyone, welcome to Mario Calendar! This is gonna be a real quick intro this time around - I had my wisdom teeth removed a couple days ago, and I'm still a little out of it. But either way, I hope you guys enjoy this month's installment!

Region Abbreviations

Abb. Region
ALL All Regions (JP/NA/EU/AU)
JP Japan
NA North America
EU Europe
AU Oceania/Australia
SK South Korea
CHN China
UK United Kingdom

Console Abbreviations

Abb. Console
NES Nintendo Entertainment System
Famicom Family Computer Disk System
SNES Super Nintendo Entertainment System
N64 Nintendo 64
GC Nintendo GameCube
GB Game Boy
GBC Game Boy Color
GBA Game Boy Advance
DS Nintendo DS
3DS Nintendo 3DS
Switch Nintendo Switch
Wii VC Nintendo Wii Virtual Console
3DS VC Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
Wii U VC Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console
VB Virtual Boy
G&W Game and Watch
64DD Nintendo 64 Disk Drive
MS-DOS Microsoft Disk Operating System
CD-i Philips CD-i
IQ iQue Player
NVS Nvidia Shield
ACPC Amstrad CPC
ZX ZX Spectrum
Coleco Colecovision
TI-99 Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

Without going too much into it, I think it's pretty clear to see this is an absolutely insane month. Just look at the very last day on July 31 - Donkey Kong came to the US on arcade machines! Truly one of the most monumental moments in American gaming history. Anyways, I hope you all have a fantastic rest of your month! Back to recovery, see you next month!

Poll Committee Discussion

Written by: MightyMario (talk)

Hey there, Shroom readers! MightyMario here, bringing you a special edition of Poll Committee Discussion focused around RPGs and TTYD (acronyms FTW). We here at the Poll Committee have been hard at work crafting polls, it is amazing to work with my team and for the MarioWiki as a whole. The polls this section were created by Hooded Pitohui and me, respectively.

Archives

How do you feel about the updated and expanded soundtrack in the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake? (Hooded Pitohui (talk), June 8th, 2024)

How do you feel about the updated and expanded soundtrack in the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake?

I think the game's soundtrack is excellent, and the new versions of the original's music and the wholly new tracks are both great. 60.41% (1,445 votes)
I have no opinion. 16.56% (396 votes)
The new soundtrack is good overall, but there are a handful of music tracks that I do not like. 7.61% (182 votes)
I think the updated music is great, but I feel that the wholly new tracks aren't as enjoyable or clash stylistically with the rest of the soundtrack. 6.86% (164 votes)
I think the wholly new tracks are great, but I do not care for the updated music and find it inferior to the original versions. 4.18% (100 votes)
The new soundtrack is okay, with about an even mix of music tracks which I enjoy and tracks which I do not like. 2.01% (48 votes)
I think the game's soundtrack is quite poor and enjoy very few or none of its music tracks. 1.42% (34 votes)
I do not care for the game's soundtrack and enjoy only a few of the music tracks. 0.96% (23 votes)
Total Votes: 2,392

Which aspects do you favor the most in Mario role-playing games? (MightyMario (talk)), June 22nd, 2024)

Which aspects do you favor the most in Mario role-playing games?

Characters both original and from the main Mario series 17.05% (383 votes)
Turn based battle systems 15.85% (356 votes)
Story and seeing how it unfolds 13.31% (299 votes)
Humor in the games, such as making fun of common Mario series tropes 12.29% (276 votes)
Partners/Pixls/other playable characters with special abilities that accompany Mario 11.49% (258 votes)
The ability to use badges and equipment to make battles more strategic 10.24% (230 votes)
I enjoy Mario RPGs, but no particular aspect stands out to me 9.8% (220 votes)
I have no interest in Mario RPGs 4.99% (112 votes)
Exploration of areas/finding hidden collectibles (blocks, Collectible Treasures, beans, etc) 4.99% (112 votes)
Total Votes: 2,246

Analysis

How do you feel about the updated and expanded soundtrack in the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake?

The Sound Gallery playing a track in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo Switch)
"Paper Jam" out to your favorite tunes

First off, we have Hooded Pitohui's poll asking about the new and improved soundtrack for Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. As I have not played it yet, I have no opinion, but the top consensus was that it seems to be great just like the original soundtrack. However, a majority of voters had no opinion of it, with the remaining votes being toward thinking the soundtrack was alright or okay.

Which aspects do you favor the most in Mario role-playing games?

Fawful in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions.
One of many unique and quirky characters that can be found in the Mario RPGs

Mario RPGs are a fun way to experience the Mario universe, whether Mario is flat as paper or teaming up with his brother or rivals to defeat a bigger enemy. Our voters thought the aspect they liked the most with 383 votes were the characters both original (such as Fawful, Cackletta, Smithy, etc) and Mario series characters within the game. The second most liked aspect with 356 votes was the turn based battle systems, a common staple in RPGs. The story aspect came in third place with 299 votes, while humor was at 276 votes. The option that was the least favored was the exploration of areas and collecting things at 112 votes, as I think most players would find it getting into the way of battling, but this can lead to finding unique characters or even secret battles.

Conclusion

That will do it for this special edition of Poll Committee Discussion! Next month, Cosmic Cowboy takes the reins to give more analysis on polls. Also, the Awards are next month, so please stay tuned to the MarioBoards for that! Until next time, readers!

Anniversary Announcements

Written by: Lakituthequick (talk)

“If I had a nickel for every Mario Boards game that involved meeting NPCs at a circus, I'd have three nickels.”
—Roserade (talk · Boards)

Good day everyone, it's time for another edition of Anniversary Announcements! Has the weather been as hot as here anywhere else? Good thing I don't have to go outside to type this for you.

Updates

The polls have closed and the results have been sent out to presenters who signed up for presentations. The first check-in has also occurred, with the next one happening in the next week and a half.
There are still a few open slots for presentations, so do check them out here if you are interested in doing one.

Tournaments

In this section of AA, I shall update you on all things tournaments, including new ones and progress in ongoing ones.

Archipelago Multi-World Randomizer Event
The event is ongoing, with players gradually progressing as co-operation allows.
Picture Pilgrimage
All scribblers have taken their turns and the resulting image has been unveiled! The result can be found from a link in the second post of the thread, and is shown through a viewer that scrolls infinitely as the image loops around seamlessly.
Amusing Awards Artifact Adventure
An exploratory role playing game in which the players, divided over teams, collect artifacts and complete quests for NPCs through investigations and submitted actions.
With some adjustments to factor in feedback, the game is progressing smoothly, with eight of the thirteen artifacts having been found by the various teams. The game is currently in its fourth round of phases, with all NPCs, locations, and quests available.

And as such comes this edition of AA to an end. There might not have been much paper in this one, but I hope you take this mentioning thereof in the spirit of having paper anyway.
Have a good one, and we'll see you next month for the awards!

The 'Shroom Report

Written by: Waluigi Time (talk)

Hello there, 'Shroom readers! Welcome to a very special Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door themed issue of The 'Shroom Report! You may be wondering, "Waluigi Time, this is a section about 'Shroom statistics, how are you possibly going to make it Thousand-Year Door themed?". Well, you're in good company, because I'm also wondering that. How about you go ahead and read these statistics from Issue 207 while I try to think this through one more time? Special thanks to Meta Knight for keeping the spreadsheets up to date, of course!

For new readers or anyone needing a refresher, please open the box below.

​

Categories that are not applicable this month and therefore absent are crossed out.

  • First-Time Writers lists everyone who wrote their first section for The 'Shroom in the previous issue.
  • New Sections lists recurring sections that started their run in the previous issue. This includes returning sections that previously went inactive.
  • Guest Sections lists one-off submissions from the previous issue.
  • Milestones covers certain section numbers reached in the previous issue. Writers are mentioned for every 10 sections written in a team and every 50 sections written overall, teams are mentioned for every 100 sections, and The 'Shroom itself is mentioned for every 500 sections.
  • Most Sections Written lists the current all-time record holders.
Guest Sections
Section Writer
News Flush Waluigi Time (talk)
Quiz Waluigi Time (talk)
Coming Out MightyMario (talk)
Random Image of the Month Shoey (talk)
Random Video Analysis Sparks (talk)
Milestones
Writer/Team Milestone
BBQ Turtle (talk) 80 Fun Stuff sections
Hooded Pitohui (talk) 30 Pipe Plaza sections
Quizmelon (talk) 100 overall sections
RHG1951 (talk) 10 Main/Staff sections
Shoey (talk) 140 Fun Stuff sections
Waluigi Time (talk) 50 Main/Staff sections
130 Fake News sections
70 Palette Swap sections
winstein (talk) 50 Palette Swap sections
Fake News 1,400 sections
Most Sections Written
Team Writer Number of Sections
Main/Staff Henry Tucayo Clay (talk) 142
Fake News MCD (talk) 148
Fun Stuff Shoey (talk) 140
Palette Swap FunkyK38 (talk) 198
Pipe Plaza Yoshi876 (talk) 128
Critic Corner Hypnotoad (talk) 186
Strategy Wing Yoshi876 (talk) 115
Overall Yoshi876 (talk) 747
'Shroom Trivia
Every Paper Mario game has been reviewed in The 'Shroom at least once, except for Paper Mario: The Origami King. (Potential writers with origami opinions, take note!) Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was the first, reviewed by Phoenix Rider in Issue II (2).

See? I salvaged it right there at the end.

What's in a Campaign?

Written by: Shoey (talk)

Hello, and welcome back to What's in a Campaign?, a section where I cover various robots from the hit UK show Robot Wars. This month, we cover probably the most unique robot in the history of this section, a robot that actually was the first of its kind (on television). This month, we cover the original two-in-one cluster bot, Gemini.

Two robots are better than one?

Gemini was by Team Mace, which consisted of Shane Howard, Brian Fountain, and Daryl Howard. The team had been pretty successful, competing in Series 2 and 3 with Mace and Mace 2, respectively. Mace was a pretty standard early series robot, basically being a box with a lifting arm. For the time, it was good and it was a genuine championship contender in Series 2 and a Top 8 finisher in Series 3. By Series 4, though, the design was just too outdated, something that was proven in Mace 2's last Series 3 fight, where Mace 2 was dominated by Chaos 2. Although, in their defense, Chaos 2 was like three series ahead of everybody. Between Series 3 and the second round of the semi-finals in Series 5, Chaos 2 would only lose a single 1v1 fight, losing to Razer in the Robot Wars: Series 3 World Championship while en route to winning back-to-back UK Championships.

This shouldn't be considered a clusterbot!

Enough about Chaos 2. The important thing is that the Mace team needed to do something different if they were going to become competitive again in the ever-changing world of robot combat. The idea that they had was very interesting. Instead of making one 80kg robot, they decided to make two 40 kg robots. This is called a clusterbot. Now, the way it works is the robots can't collectively weigh more than the weight limit and you aren't allowed to enter more than four parts in the arena at the same time. The way it traditionally works is that you enter two robots that are half the size of a regular robot, but some people, including the Robot Wars Wiki, also list robots that have minibots (a totally different concept) as clusterbots. I don't agree with that! I think it should only be a clusterbot if it's multiple robots of around the same weight. For instance, I don't don't think that Coyote, with its 10kg minibot Roadrunner, should be considered a clusterbot. Alas, Robot Wars Wiki disagrees, so...

Very clever, the Dutch are!

Clusterbots also have different immobilization rules than a standard robot, and these rules have changed over time. In Series 4, if one of the segments of a clusterbot is immobilized, the entire thing is deemed immobile. For the rest of the classic series, the immobilization threshold is changed to 50% of the robot's total weight. Now, functionally, this resulted in the same rulings in the UK Wars since every person who entered a clusterbot had the robots have identical weights. There was one robot in the Dutch Wars, √3², who had three segments. This meant that you had to immobilize two of its segments to immobilize it according to the rules. By the way, this actually comes up in a fight! √3² beat Pika 3 in a fight despite Matilda throwing one of √3²'s segments out of the arena!

Identical in every way!

Nowadays, a clusterbot is immobilized if 60% of a clusterbot is immobilized. This was something robots like Crackers 'n' Smash would take advantage of, with Crackers 'n' Smash designed so that neither segment weighs a whole 60% of the total weight. This means that Crackers 'n' Smash had to be fully immobilized to be considered officially immobilized! Oh, also, for some reason (and nobody knows why), in the classic series, clusterbots have to enter the arena attached. I don't know why! It doesn't do anything. They just unattach at the start of the fight. It's a really random rule that even affected the merchandise! The Gemini minibot toy has them attached to each other and it's impossible to unattach them! The reboot got rid of this rule because it was stupid and silly!

As stated above, Gemini was really two different robots fighting as one. Each half was powered by a wheelchair motor, and each had a top speed of between 5 mph and 6 mph. For armor, each half had fiberglass armor reinforced with Kevlar. The chassis was made out of fiberglass 10mm thick and and 6mm of aluminum.

For weapons, each half sported a flipping arm powered by CO2, which was conveyed using a special custom soda-stream method. Capable of lifting 250 kg, the twin flippers were even more powerful because they could attack at the same time, doubling their flipping ability. Gemini did have one major problem, though. If Gemini went too fast, it would roll up on its back, making it a little difficult for it to get its weapon into the fight.

As a reminder, all pictures are sourced from the fantastic Robot Wars Wiki. This month, we have two videos because, for some reason, the video titled "Gemini All Fights Series 4 and 5" doesn't actually include the Celebrity Special from Series 4! Since that is the case, the Celebrity Special will be its own video!

The successor to a back-to-back semi-final machine, Gemini was given the 8th seed and placed into Heat F. In its first-round fight, Gemini would fight Kater Killer (hey, that's the robot that lost to Napalm in Series 3!) and the newcomer Tornado. Now, Gemini is one of the most hyped robots in the history of the show. The producers thought this concept would revolutionize robot combat. You can see this even in this fight. When the fight (2:33) starts and Gemini splits, the producers immediately show a replay of them splitting! But despite this hype, Gemini does very little in its first fight. Instead, the fight is dominated by newcomer Tornado. Tornado, a speedy box, immediately targets Kater Killer, shoving it around the area.

Gemini working with Tornado to topple Kater Killer

The only thing Gemini does in this fight comes while Tornado is pushing around Kater Killer. With Tornado dominating Kater Killer, one of the Gemini twins manages to flip Kater Killer over. Because this is Series 4, Kater Killer's lifting arm does not allow it to self-right, so Gemini goes through to the next round. Despite the hype, however, it's very much overshadowed by a box on wheels.

Now their debut fight might have been underwhelming, but hopefully the next round is better! In the semi-final, Gemini faces off with The Creature, a robot that's more art than robot. The fight starts and one of the Gemini twins gets to the side of The Creature immediately. The twin flips it, causing all of the fiberglass design of The Creature to fall off. Now, funnily enough, The Creature can't self-right, but its decorations were so big that them falling off pushes The Creature back onto its wheels! Of course, this stroke of luck doesn't matter because I think that first flip caused The Creature to die... If that first flip didn't kill The Creature, then Gemini's second flip ,which causes The Creature to spin around in the air multiple times, sure does! But Gemini isn't done! No, this is a fight to prove the strength of its flippers and the strength of teamwork.

The power of teamwork!

Out with much to prove, the twins push The Creature against the wall and, with two mighty flips, Gemini sends The Creature out of the Arena! And this was back when an outta was actually very impressive! In fact, this was only the second outta in the history of Robot Wars! With that, Gemini is into the heat final in dominating fashion!

In the heat final, Gemini faces off against the robot that overshadowed them in the first round, the mighty box known as Tornado. The fight begins with the two twins splitting. Now, you'd think in a 1v1 fight that Gemini would have the advantage because it's two robots, right? Well, here's the problem. Tornado is much faster and has much better pushing power. With those strengths, Tornado proves able to isolate one of the twins immediately. Tornado targets only one half of Gemini, pushing it around the arena as the other half desperately tries to catch up. The twin Tornado is pushing attempts to flip Tornado (who can run both ways up), but they only succeed in throwing Tornado back a little bit. This only briefly stops Tornado, who goes right back on the attack. Tornado throws one of the twins into Refbot before pushing Gemini into the arena wall, pushing Gemini across the side of the arena wall and into the spikes.

Pictures taken moments before disaster

Tornado then pulls back, slamming into the other twin. The twin against the wall attempts to escape the wall, but Tornado comes back on the attack, slamming it right next to the arena spike before again quickly pulling away as the other twin attempts to protect its sister. This forces the twin to pull back as it nearly slams into its own sister. Tornado then charges in and, in one of the most violent KOs in the history of the show, Tornado impales the twin into the arena spike, completely KOing it.

Come on, sis, speak to me... Please!

The remaining twin manages to free its sister from the spike, but there's no life left. Now, here's the thing. The remaining twin actually manages to immobilize Tornado, but remember that because one of the segments is immobilized, all of Gemini is considered immobile. Because of this, despite that fact that half of Gemini is the last robot standing, Tornado is declared the victor.

Now, despite this, Gemini's Series 4 run is not quite done. For starters, Gemini is showered with awards during the end-of-series awards ceremonies, being given both Most Original Entry and Best Design. Honestly, I don't think it really needed to get both, but whatever. Gemini was also allowed to enter the pinball competition, which I think is kind of nonsense. Now, as you might be able to guess, having two robots in a pinball competition is better than having one robot! Gemini manages to win the pinball competition with a score of 255, which, surprisingly enough, is only 10 points higher than runner-up Spawn of Scutter's score of 245!

Clusterbots kick ass at pinball.

More pertinent to this section than pinball, Gemini was selected to participate in one of the many Series 4 side events which were filmed after Series 4 wrapped up. Unfortunately, Gemini was asked to participate in one of the worst events in the history of the show, the Celebrity Special.

Now, I say it's the "celebrity special", but from my research, it seems like we're really stretching the word "celebrity". I'm not an expert on the UK celebrity scene in the early 2000s, but it seems like it's mostly C-level TV presenters, the boy band 5ive (who were super big at the time), and some singers. There's only two entrants that I think would actually be considered "mainstream" celebrities, those being Chris Eubank, a multiple-time world champion in boxing, and Vic Reeves, a successful British comedian.

Gemini, all dolled-up and ready for the Celebrity Special.

This is a very odd special. The bot choices are very random. You've got legitimately good robots like Wild Thing, Pussycat, and Gemini, then you've got comedy bots like Diotoir (the perfect pick) and Sir Chromalot, and then just random choices like Killertron, Iron Awe, and Disc-O-Inferno. Each robot has been decorated by their chosen celebrity, and some of them actually look pretty good! For example, Killertron drops their pink paint for a black paint job and the pickaxe top has been covered by a boxing glove. Although... While, yes, that does look cool, it, uh, completely ruins the point of a pickaxe, so that's points against it!

No! Ick! Gross! Get it away!

Diotoir is the best! They come into the arena wearing large comedy glasses, a frying pan has been attached to their lifting arm, and, to top it all off, a large buttocks has been put at their back! The worst is easily Wild Thing, whose wedge has been painted with Shauna Lowry's face and adorned with stuffed animals. I hate it! Comparatively, Gemini is somewhat plain, decked out in a wig, eyelashes, and eyes.

Here's the other problem with the celebrity special. The fights are bad because the first minute features the celebrities driving the machine. That means the robots are basically just kind of driving into each other awkwardly. Gemini's first fight is against Killertron, a Series 1 robot with no self-righter and a boxing glove over its pickaxe. So you can probably imagine how this fight goes, right? Killertron starts out the fight by actually hitting one of the twins with its glove!

An easy fight for the twins

Of course, since robots aren't humans, the punch does very little. One of the twins then gets under Killertron, almost flipping it over. Gemini keeps getting flips on Killertron, but since all of these flips come from only one half of Gemini, they aren't able to flip Killertron over. Matilda then just decides this fight is stupid and rams into both Killertron and Gemini. That's another problem with this special. They just let the House Robots do whatever, with no rules on their actions. Killertron self-rights and I think it's because Matilda righted them? I'm not sure; the camera angle is bad! Matilda and Sgt. Bash just refuse to leave the fight.

This fight was stupid chaos.

Sgt. Bash sets the boxing glove of Killertron on fire, Gemini keeps flipping Killertron who just up and dies, and finally Gemini manages to flip over Matilda. Somehow this fight goes to the judges, but it's not close, so Gemini is given the win, ending this abomination of a fight.

In the second round, Gemini matched up against Diotoir, and this should be an easy Gemini victory. Diotoir doesn't have a self-righter, so this fight should be over pretty quickly.

Should be another easy victory on the way to the finals!

My prediction seems to hold true as one of the Gemini twins immediately gets under Diotoir and flips it over, but, for some reason, the other twin decides to right Diotoir. Gemini then flips over Diotoir again, but, again, they decide to right it while smoke comes pouring out from Diotoir. Diotoir then manages to flip over one of the Gemini twins, who manages to right itsel,f much to the immense pleasure of Anthea & Wendy Turner, who, to give credit to the special, are clearly having the time of their lives. One of the twins gets into a pushing match with Diotoir, which Diotoir wins. I mean, it was obviously going to win. It's a full-sized robot against a half-sized one! But as that happens, we find out that one of the Gemini twins died at some point.

If only you weren't so arrogant...

With one twin dead, according to Series 4 rules, that means Gemini is considered dead. Because of their own arrogance, Gemini losses this fight and they're out of the Celebrity special, meaning their Series 4 campaign comes to an end!

Now, I'll be blunt. I don't like clusterbots! I don't think they make sense. I get the idea of, like, hey, you'll be two robots with decent weapons, making you a trickier opponent to fight because your foes have have to focus on two robots. But, like, why wouldn't you just build one really good robot instead of two okay robots? That's the problem in my mind. You're building robots that are half the weight of your opponent, so your armor is going to be weaker and your weapon will probably be weaker. Like, Gemini is good, I guess, and when it does work together it's very effective, but you could have just built one really good flipper, you know? I know it's possible! They get built all the time! Gemini finds very little success outside of Series 4. In fact, Gemini only wins one more fight throughout the rest of its campaigns.

I don't even think this fight should count...

In Extreme 1, Gemini loses to Razer in a fight that some people rave about but that I don't personally care for. It's a cool defensive fight where Razer manages to chomp on of the twins and then uses them to play defense, blocking the other twin from doing anything. Well, I say "cool", and it's cool in theory, but in practice I find it very boring! Gemini's only win outside of Series 4 would be its Series 5 first-round heat victory over Ruf Ruf Dougal.

An inglorious end to Gemini

With Gemini losing fights to Reactor 2 and fucking Napalm in Extreme 1 (in what is an all-time top ten fight for me), it just kind of fizzled out. After Series 5, Gemini would stop competing because the system it was using to convey CO2 was banned and they couldn't figure out an alternate method. Honestly, I don't think it would have mattered. If Gemini had continued to compete, I don't think it would have ever gotten out of the heats. Clusterbots just aren't a concept that really works in the higher weight classes, something that's constantly proven by the fact that, well, no clusterbot has ever gotten out of the heats! And only two, Gemini and √3², even ever made heat finals.

That's all for this month! Join me next month for more robot combat history!

The 'Shroom: Issue 208
Staff sections Staff Notes • The 'Shroom Spotlight • Poochy's Picks • Credits
Features Fake News • Fun Stuff • Palette Swap • Pipe Plaza • Critic Corner • Strategy Wing
Specials Cosmo In Rogueport • De Millenniumpoort, or a Girl Talking about a Localization • PM:TTYD Casual Badge Tier List • Paper 'Shroom: Choose-Your-Own-Adventure
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