Ever since the Switch 2 Direct, the Nintendo of Korea site has certainly revealed a few things they weren’t supposed to. They revealed the presence of Rainbow Road in Mario Kart World, giving us a glimpse at the course prior to its official debut…
And then revealed something important about Donkey Kong Bananza too. That being, the presence of what appears to be a younger version of Pauline in the game.
Yep, as noted by Mario Wiki and others on social media, the Korean Switch 2 site temporarily used the wrong piece of promo art for the new game. With that art showing not Odd Rock on DK’s back, but a young human girl that looks suspiciously similar to Pauline from the original arcade titles and Super Mario Odyssey.
Here’s the artwork in question:
As well as a link to the archived version of the website to prove it’s actually legit:
Switch 2 Page (Korean Nintendo Site, Archived)
So. what’s going on? Why is there what appears to be a younger version of Pauline here anyway?
Well, it’s hard to say really. On the one hand, some people have talked about the possibility of an origin story. A story where Pauline meets DK for the first time, and it somehow leads into the events of the original arcade game.
But that doesn’t really make much sense. After all, Cranky Kong and Rambi are in this game too, with the latter being the original DK from that game. So unless time travel is involved, or Cranky Kong’s own dad/grandad was the original Cranky Kong, then that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Alternatively, it could always be a daughter or relative of Pauline instead, maybe like her niece or something. That would make a lot more sense timeline wise, and give for some interesting character development…
Yet it’d also open up a ton of other questions too. If it’s a niece or other relative, who are Pauline’s family members anyway? Does Mario’s ex-girlfriend turned New Donk City mayor have a large extended family offscreen, similar to the Bros and Bowser?
And if it was her daughter or something, that just raises the question of who the father would be. It probably can’t be Mario himself, since he’s clearly with Peach now. Nor could it be any other random Mario character either, unless you wanna go crazy and ship her with some other rando like Waluigi or Stanley the Bugman.
So. whatever answer Nintendo goes with here, it just raises even more questions about the series and whatever resembles a ‘canon’ there.
Still, it seems Pauline (or someone resembling her) will be in Donkey Kong Bananza, and play a major role in the story. So what do you think it’ll be? And who is this character anyway?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below, or on our Discord server today!
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