Chapter 24: The Epilogue of Heroes

The story is almost over, but even with all the celebrations, there's still a few endings untouched.

Despite all he had been through, Bowser couldn't bear to watch the celebrations, much less peace returning to the world again. He fled back to his castle, reportedly with an upset stomach or something like that. What a nutcase, huh?

Mario and Luigi returned to the Mushroom Kingdom with Peach in hand...or so it was thought, but it seems Bowser's up to his old tricks again. Fortunately, the two will continue combating him for as long as it takes for peace to pervade throughout the world.

Donkey Kong returned to his country in order to fight off evil on that front. Cause ya never know when another freaky tiki will come robbing your banana bunches.

...seriously.

Ghoulman left to go find his brethren's new home. Eventually, he came across the Castle Boo, where he and many of the other Boos now leave in peace. He is considered King Boo's right-hand Boo and a connoisseur of fine cheeses.

Lucky returned to the reunited Breakfast Brigade to continue fighting for the rights of breakfast cereals everywhere. Eventually, they added a new member to their ranks, former TV actor Fred Flintstone of the Pebbles cereals. Lucky's just happy to be reunited with his friends.

Gary continues to perform his research and trains with Larry to improve his magical skills. He would later found the Goomba's Magic Academy for young and upcoming MagiGoombas. He has appointed Larry as one of the teachers.

Wario and Waluigi went out on a search across the world for rare and valuable treasures. It's no surprise that they were both successful and not very successful. Needless to say, Wario has had bigger things to do with his share of the wealth. It's unknown what Waluigi's planned for his share, though apparently he may not need it with his music career taking off. Rumor has it he's gone under the name "PSY".

Crimson Crusader became a crime-fighter over in the briar patch, saving the local rabbits from villainous squash and malicious crocodiles. While he appreciates the carrots the locals tend to adorn him with, he's content with merely saving the innocent.

Birdo longed for the day that her dearest Yoshi would come to her. Seeing her waiting for him from his particularly high vantage point, Yoshi sent down a reincarnated version of himself that could peacefully live with her for the rest of eternity.

And as for Yoshi himself? Well, I think that his story is covered fairly well...

Wow. After 6 long years, it's finally over. Starting this story way back in 2007, I definitely would not have expected the ending to be like this. I think I was just going to run down to fighting Bowser at the end and saving the kingdom as usual. But this! This is something all on its own! I mean, what if you went to sit down and play Super Mario 64, and instead you got this crazy adventure RPG with a bunch of characters from all walks of life, a bunch of insane randomness, and at the same time one hell of a kickass behind-the-scenes story that ended up blowing your mind at the end? I think it would be pretty awesome!

But alas, Super Mario 64 is great in its own right. It was the first 3D Mario game, and it was extremely well-done for its time frame. In fact, the game serves to hold up even now, and it gartered enough popularity to have been remade for the DS. I think it says a lot about the game developers from back then when you can make a game that good to stand the test of time.

A few thoughts on the story: like I said, starting out I would never have expected the story to come this far. I was just working on writing a story for the enjoyment of other people on the forum I go to, and it ended up being mildly successful. Unfortunately, I think mostly it was the slower updates that ended up keeping the story out of the public eye for a while, and in part for that reason, I started to bring the story to FanFiction back in 2010.

The main reasons to bring it out were to 1) give it some popularity with a new fanbase, and 2) bring it out to the public eye again. And partially to inspire myself to write the story again. 3 years for 12 chapters, sounds legit right? But bringing in the zany characters into the story, treating it more like an RPG-style game, and ultimately adding a dosage of epicness to the story is what makes this stand out more from the original.

In the beginning, this story was going to just be a tribute to the game, taking the same old events and spicing them up in a different style. Yet as the story grew, and indeed as the ideas came forth, the story changed direction. The locations were still the same, the foundation didn't change, but the story became much grander than the original design. When I first introduced the idea of the hidden enemy back in Chapter 1: Bob-Omb Battlefield, I didn't really think too much about it. At that time, I was working on The Five-Star Universe somewhat, an idea I would still love to get back to but which I think may not be revivable (though there are ideas towards the ending of it and what the plot would ultimately be, but it's the middle that once again creates a problem), so it was originally just planned to be an allusion to The Dark Stranger from that story. But when I had Wario fight this enemy, I had a vision of a much different character. Enter the beginnings of Gallax-E.

Gallax-E didn't end up having a name for a long time, and that's partially intentional for the purposes of the plot and partially unintentionally given that I really didn't have a name for him. I wanted something that sounded cool and that could possibly lead to a great villain. Super Mario Galaxy came out in 2007, though I didn't get around to playing it until 2008. And as the vision grew around that space-age theme, so too did the inevitable idea that Gallax-E would become the name. In fact, the story itself was at one point planned to lead into the events of Super Mario Galaxy.

As you can see, that didn't happen, the main reason for that being that it took me 6 years to write this story, and I don't think I'd be able to write a story for Super Mario Galaxy on the same level. So ultimately it came down to just ending it here with Super Mario 64 DS CARA (the Fanfic). But how do you end that? Final battle against Gallax-E? It seemed too simple, too plain.

And then in 2011, Homestuck made its legendary update to end Act 5.

Yeah, no kidding! Homestuck has had a partial influence on this comic! Mostly in part due to the music that plays during that update, Cascade. This music actually inspired the vision that would lead to the descriptions of Chapters 22 and 23. After that, Libera Me from Hell from Tengen Toppa Gurrenn Lagann and its ending theme Mina no Peace were the primary influences in the ultimate defeat of Gallax-E and the final ending before the epilogue.

One of the hardest parts of this story that I found to write were the battles. All those numbers to keep track of, all those characters, and the descriptions were mostly just "X used attack 1 to deal Y dge to opponent Z." Sure, it's what would appear in a normal RPG battle, but it's not as dynamic to read. The battles taking place nearer the end were far more worth reading, as they rely more on the battle script rather than just plain attack text. The battles early on were quicker to read with fewer characters, but I think the formula goes a bit stale with more characters. It demands that something like descriptive writing and dialogue be intertwined to keep it from its own blandness.

Honestly though, I think this is a pretty good story. It's slow in the middle I think cause most of it is just carrying the plot along at a snail's pace, but there are a lot of jokes that still make me laugh and even some more original jokes that make it flavorful. It does get a bit corny at times with some of the references it makes, but I think there's enough good humor and randomness to keep it going. So if you can make it past all the battle text and through the corniness to the epic finale that occurs, I'd say that this story is pretty good. Thanks for reading this fanfic! For those of you who stuck it out till the end, good on ya! I'm glad I could bring this onto FanFiction, and I hope you enjoyed it. This is aroramage, signing off on Super Mario 64 DS CARA the Fanfic!