It’s almost six months (!!) since Super Mario Bros. Wonder has jumped on the Switch, and while the launch chatter has been dominated by the vocal talents of Kevin Afghani — Mario’s new voice — it turns out that the voice acting we you should the one we were talking about was one by Nintendo’s Koji Kondo (thanks IgreRadar).
Note. We’re about to get into a discussion about Mario Wonder’s ultimate badge. If you’re still developing a platformer to discover its secrets for yourself, we suggest you look away now. If not, prepare yourself for potential spoilers.
As we said, Koji Kondo turned his talents to voice acting for Super Mario Wonder. The Koji Kondo. The man behind some of Nintendo’s most recognizable songs from Mario, Zelda, Star fox and more.
‘How did this happen?’ you may (reasonably) ask. Well, as revealed in Nintendo’s recent GDC panel, it turns out that it all came from one of Kondo’s proposed Wonder effects. According to director Shiro Mouri, this activation effect would cause a “live-action, human-proportioned version of Mario” to appear on stage, “humming background music and mimicking various sound effects himself” as he walked through it.
It’s a creepy idea and she’s not too surprised it’s been discontinued. However, as anyone who has unlocked the game’s latest ‘Sound Off’ tag will be able to tell you, the core concept has not been lost. The live-action Mario may have been cut, but the effect of hearing human-voiced sound effects (which is exactly what the ‘Sound Off’ badge is all about) remains. What’s more, Mouri revealed, “the man behind the voice of the Sound Off badge is Mr. Kondo himself” — come on, is there anyone better suited for the job?
So there you have it, it turns out that the legendary composer is not only capable of crafting some of the best video game music ever, but he can also produce a mean “to bring,” “pop,” and “walla-walla-walla” in his voice when needed. We like to think that was the deciding factor in the composer’s recent induction into the AIAS Hall of Fame, although it may not have been…
