So long gay boswer

  It turns out that Mario is actually saying “king-a Bowser” with an ‘A” sound that got muffled when being added to the game. I think it makes sense, doesn’t it?

Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario for over 20 years, finally weighed in on the issue on Twitter:

There you have it from the man himself, the phrase is “So long, kinga Bowser!”

Wile it’s definitely fun to see him comment on something like this, I do have one problem with it… “Kinga” has two syllables, but Mario clearly says one syllable after “long”.

I’m not one to get up in arms due to the fact these classics are emulated or that Super Mario Sunshine doesn’t let you invert the controls, even if those are completely valid reasons to avoid this game for some folks. If you already have the Switch re-release, try pressing ZL to make it appear.

(Check out this TCRF article for a full list of the Shindou-version differences.)

Super Mario 3D All-Stars is an excellent collection of Mario games that has been criticized over the last few days due to a few strange decisions on Nintendo’s part.

A travesty, for sure, but there’s a good reason the iconic voice line is missing.

The mystery of Mario’s dialogue that has eluded fans since Super Mario 64 originally appeared on the Nintendo 64 in 1996. During the moment you throw Bowser, Mario says something that’s quite muffled, which has led to various mondegreens of what was said.

The latter one may be the reason why Nintendo opted to swap out the line for a more general “Bye bye!” in the Nintendo DS remake. Charles Martinet, who has voiced Mario for decades, tried to clarify last year, but “So long king-a Bowser!” doesn’t make any sense, especially when held up to an impressive audio restoration of the original line.

https://twitter.com/embed/status/1287156871003070464

My excitement for playing Super Mario 64 for the first time in Super Mario 3D All-Stars was partly in anticipation of hearing this line for myself rather than through YouTube uploads.

But not being able to experience “So long, gay Bowser!” first-hand really bums me out. While he’s obviously not calling Bowser gay—either as a pejorative or a simple descriptor of the Koopa king’s sexuality—no one can come up with a good alternative read on what he’s actually saying. When defeating Bowser, Mario's English voice rendering seems to spout the lines, "So long, gay Bowser!".

The Verdict

Well, the debate is finally put to rest, once and for all.

You know, kind of how he always says “It’s-a me, Mario!”, but in this case saying “So long-ey, Bowser!”. Since Bowser is known as King Koopa in Japan, this meant removing the line that used his Western name and replacing it with the more region-friendly “Buh-bye!”

Two more details make it clear that Super Mario 3D All-Stars is using the Shindou version of Super Mario 64.

This updated cartridge included, among other things, voices from the English release. I fully expect the developers to correct this gross oversight with a future patch.

Nintendo did not respond to Kotaku’s request for comment before publication.