Races of the Marioverse

[Koopalmier]

Their primary goal in life is to do bad things to people (they even did a raid against Toad Town in Paper Mario), much like Boos. Maybe that they're simply monsters we'll never see the face of.

[shadowgoomba]

Shy Guys can't be Boos, since there's Ghost Guys already.
Still, it's interesting that they both hide their face.

[Koopalmier]

I don't mean they're Boos, I mean they can be considered as monsters / demons just like Boos.

[Vent]

The Shy Guys have got to be their own species. They have enough sub-breeds and have pretty clearly established themselves as a neutral clan that sometimes defects to other armies (Bowser, Wart and Smithy have all employed them).

Another theory I have regarding the Shy Guys is that their masks are actually removable faces. The Shy Guys' faces move in Mario Strikers Charged, and the Bandits and Zeus Guys appear to have masks that resemble and move like real faces.

[SMBBQ]

I've always thought that Shy Guys and Shaman are humans, or at least a sub-species. Then again, this is just me trying to fit more humans into the series.

[Artemendo]

Against Shamans being human... in SPM, the humans we see (three of them) have connected bodies, you know, no floaty parts, but the Shamans do have floaty parts and, in general, look more abstract. Don't know if this counts, though.

[SMBBQ]

Yes, but characters like SPM Merlon probably are a different species, I doubt they would be what we consider human.

[Koopalmier]

They were Ancients. The Tribe of Ancients was made of humans, while the Tribe of Darkness was made of monsters. My guess is that, while PM1 Merlon is normal, SPM Merlon lives since thousands of years ago so he eventually mutated.

[Artemendo]

Yeah, living for thousands of years probably would make your parts floaty.

Oh, about races... is there any word for the inhabitants of Flipside? Flipsiders? Also, are the people who live in Yold Town also Flipsiders?

[SMBBQ]

What about the rest of the Flip-Flop folk? Were they mutated too?

EDIT: Dang, the forum's busy. We just posted about the same time!

[Koopalmier]

...
Then it may come from the strange stability of the interdimensional area Flipside and Flopside are in.

[SMBBQ]

Personally, I'm ready to write up their appearences as artistic direction. But no one else will agree with me, so meh.

[Koopalmier]

It could be artistic direction, but that's the only appearance we've got of them, so for now it's the canon one.

[Artemendo]

Well, if you keep in mind that Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser etc. all look exactly how they did in the Mushroom Kingdom, that means it's not style, they really DO have floaty parts in those dimensions.

[Koopalmier]

If Mario and co were changed, it'd have looked awkward. In this game, people from the Mushroom Kingdom are "normal" and everyone else has separated body parts.

[SMBBQ]

My idea of artistic direction was that they were showing that the people and locations in the game were so alien and different from the familiar. So everything had a crazy art style.

[Artemendo]

Some things really can be contributed to art style, such as the pipe enter animations and other things... but the Bitlands really ARE pixelated, for example. It's mentioned in dialogue, too.

[Vent]

Well, it's not like it makes no sense. The whole thing takes place in a parallel dimension.

[SMBBQ]

Actually, multiple parallel dimensions.

[Koopalmier]

Not parralel dimensions. Different dimensions (although they look much more like sub-dimensions). There's a big difference there.