A new trailer for the Super Mario 3D All-Stars has surfaced, and it appears that one of Mario's infamous voice lines in Super Mario 64 may have been replaced. In Super Mario 64, Mario has to fight his rival, King Bowser, which requires the player to throw the oversized Koopa outside of an arena. While Mario usually says "So long, King Bowser" the new trailer shows Mario saying something different.
Super Mario 64 was released in North America in June of 1996 for the Nintendo 64 and featured some of Mario's first-ever voice lines. Mario could be heard for the first time using some of his most iconic phrases like, "Let's-a Go," "Yahoo," "Mamma mia," and "It's-a me, Mario." While all of these quips instantaneously became synonymous with the mustachioed hero, one of Mario's voice lines was popularized due to its seemingly offensive nature. When throwing King Bowser off of the edge of the arena, Mario exclaims, "So long, King Bowser" but due to his thick Italian accent and likely the compression of files it sounds like something much more immature. It was long thought that the plumber said "So long, gay Bowser," which would have been a very offensive and rude thing for Mario to say. However, for many young gamers, the colloquialism stuck.
A new Japanese trailer for the collection of 3D Super Mario titles was released which featured a man playing Super Mario 64. The trailer posted by Nintendo Japan even showed Mario throwing King Bowser out of the arena followed by a different voice clip: "Bye-bye." This instantly sparked some intrigue on Twitter as famous YouTube personality Bob Wulff posted the clip from the trailer announcing that Nintendo may have replaced the offensive-sounding voice line. However, the trailer being cited is from Japan which makes the theory of a voice clip change hold little water.
Super Mario 64 was released in Japan in 1997, over a year after its western release. The games had very little differences, except for the change in a few voice lines. In Japan, King Bowser is named King Koopa, so the voice line "So long, King Bowser" was replaced with "Bye-bye" as the original voice line would not have made sense to Japanese players. Seeing as the aforementioned trailer was released on Japan, the King Bowser voice line would not have been included even if it is still in the North American version. Additionally, "So long, King Bowser" was also included in the North American version of the DS port in 2004.
While the internet is stirring over the revelation, it's highly unlikely that Nintendo has made any changes to make the plumber's dialogue – even if he's not actually saying what some believed him to be saying. It is a bit odd that of all the memorable moments in Super Mario 64 the trailer would choose to showcase Mario saying "Bye-bye", but it also chose to showcase one of Super Mario Sunshine's most unforgiving levels. Unless more footage reveals itself over the next couple of weeks, players will have to wait until the release of Super Mario 3D All-Stars to see whether Mario has changed his verbiage to avoid sounding like he's using an immature insult.