Super Mario Bros. Wonder was once planned to feature live commentary, with one of the voices being a Tsundere character. Unfortunately, Nintendo cut this concept from the final version of the game, so you’ll never know whether the Talking Flowers like you or not.
To those of you lucky enough not to have had your mind spoiled by anime or manga, the term Tsundere refers to a specific personality type. A character with a Tsundere personality is someone with a cold or harsh demeanor who shows moments of kindness and affection, revealing that they like someone despite being unpleasant to them earlier.
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Super Mario Bros. Wonder Nearly Featured Live Tsundere Commentary
In a new interview with the Super Mario Bros. Wonder developers on the official Nintendo website, it was revealed that the game would have a live commentary mode, one meant to evoke a sporting event, similar to Street Fighter 6’s commentators. The developers had the idea of using different personality types, one of which was a Tsundere character.
It turns out that this was a popular idea with some of the playtesters, many of whom gravitated to the Tsundere character. Unfortunately, the idea was scrapped, partly due to the sheer amount of work it would have taken to include so many different voice types, not to mention the different languages they would need to be translated into.
The idea would eventually evolve into the Talking Flowers. As Super Mario Bros. Wonder takes place in the Flower Kingdom, it features sentient flowers that comment on your progress. This was a lot easier to produce, so it made its way into the game’s final version.
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Super Mario Bros. Wonder had some strange cut concepts, but the live commentary aspect is a genuine loss. It would have been awesome to include a commentator who cheers you on or laughs at you when you fail, and even if it got annoying, you could switch it off in the menu. The loss of the Tsundere commentator might be the biggest mistake the developers made, as you just know that would have the star of every streamer’s run-through of the game.
