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Nintendo tracks Super Mario friendships on official web page that reveals Pauline is an outcast, Waluigi is controversial, and Mario canonically doesn't like you

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By Ashley Bardhan published 25 April 2025

Et tu, Kirby?

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Super Mario RPG Remake
(Image credit: Nintendo)
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Nintendo's G-rated official site Play Nintendo lets kids know who their favorite characters are friends with and, apparently, it's not them. In particular, it seems the entire Super Mario Bros. cast is too embroiled in their own one-sided drama to give healthy human relationships a chance.

First noticed by Mario blogger Supper Mario Broth, the Play Nintendo website indicates that the franchise's Plumber-in-Chief Mario is friends with all the usual suspects – his brother, Luigi, his love, Princess Peach, and so on.

And yet, while customizable Miis – egg-headed characters who represent the player – generously consider Mario to be their only friend in the whole lonely world, Mario doesn't feel the same. Though his friends list is long and, honestly, a little self-congratulatory, it does not include Miis.

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Supper Mario Broth elaborates on this detail in a subsequent Bluesky post that recognizes that there "many one-sided friendships are listed on the official Play Nintendo site." They compile some of the most "bizarre" in a complicated flowchart, which reveals several bombshells.

It was brought to my attention that many one-sided friendships are listed on the official Play Nintendo site. I have analyzed the lists and present some of the most bizarre cases of non-mutual friendships below. pic.twitter.com/x8Ym7LvMrTApril 23, 2025

Pauline, Mario's first leading lady and the first female character to appear in the Mario games, is a woman of class, happy to acknowledge characters like Peach, Princess Daisy, and even her kidnapper Donkey Kong as pals. But none of these characters feel the same about her.

More predictably, Luigi's nemesis, the sour-faced Waluigi, seems to have been banished from the core clique – Mario, Peach, Toad, and even Bowser – though forgiving souls like Rosalina and Baby Luigi are comfortable being mutuals.

"The Play Nintendo site contains 40 Mario-related characters, and mapping out all friendships in a satisfactory manner requires 3D visualization," Supper Mario Broth concludes on Twitter. All I want to know is – Kirby, can I get a follow back?

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As Mario Kart World approaches, fans remember bizarre Mario Kart 8 frame rate issue which has lasted 11 years, but only on the Wii U with CPU racers and on every 64th frame.

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Ashley Bardhan
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Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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