#notso

To surmise, time moves in a bizarre fashion, and I apologize to my audience of three people for my laxness of punctuality. To surmise further, always listen to birds.

Name: Howzit

Debut: Super Paper Mario

Howzit goin’ everybody? Are you ready to talk about some... Weird Mario Allies? Do not panic! We have not run out of Weird Mario Enemies to talk about! We just figure that sometimes, Mario’s pals are just as interesting as his foes, and we figure we should let them in on the fun too! We’re really stretching that url of ours, here!! So for a week, we’re gonna talk about Weird Mario Allies instead!

Which means I can finally talk about Howzit, thank the lord! Do you ever just have that one minor character in a video game that really sticks out to you, regardless of how minor their role is? You know I do! I’ve been part of this blog for a good six months or so now! I live and breathe obscure, minor, video game characters! And of course... our first Weird Mario Ally is from, get this, Super Paper Mario!

Howzit is the game’s shopkeeper, and he does the usual things you’d expect a shopkeeper to do! He has a friendly personality, really likes to extend the number of “O’s” in the word “gooooooood,” and he sells you helpful gooooooods to aid you on your quest! Isn’t that gooooooood? No I’m not sorry! You’re sorry!

I’m not honestly sure why I love Howzit so much! There’s not much to him! He’s made of squares, which is kinda neat, but really, half the cast of Super Paper Mario is so that’s not really anything to brag about! But strangely enough, everyone I’ve talked to about Howzit also seems to remember him, and also seems to really, really like him. Maybe his character sheet just has a really, really high charisma stat, and he’s charmed us all! Oh, Howzit! How we love you!

The only really, really weird thing about Howzit is how many stores he has, specifically, four. Now I guess there are people out there who own more than four stores, sure, but, BUT!! Howzit is the sole employee of all four of these stores, and furthermore! He owns stores in parallel dimensions!! He owns stores between dimensions! He owns a store in the middle of Outer Space! It sells chocolate bars!

I question how Howzit serves at all these stores at once. Maybe there was a freak cloning accident! Maybe parallel dimensions have parallel Howzits!

Name: Notso

Debut: Super Paper Mario

Or maybe parallel dimensions, or rather, the flipside of certain dimensions, have Notso! Or rather... the FLOPSIDE of certain dimensions! Because that’s where Notso lives! Flopside!

Yeah, I could’ve worded that better. That was not so great.

But what’s not so bad is Notso! There’s only one of him, unfortunately, but he’s essentially the “stronger color variation” of Howzit, giving you better goods at higher costs. That’s right! Even minor NPCs get stronger color variations! Isn’t that neat?

There’s actually not so much to say about Notso. The German dub puts him in charge of Twinkle-Mart instead of Howzit, though. Maybe Howzit decided to take a leave! In German! I’ll let him have that, he seems overworked.