The 'Shroom:Issue XLII/Fading into Obscurity

Fading into Obscurity by

Hey there! Welcome to Fading into Obscurity! This issue I’m gonna be finishing up my series of reviews on the poor forgotten characters from Mario Party games past with seven powerful spirits who debuted in Paper Mario – the Star Spirits! (I was gonna talk about a certain host with a big hat but he’s not exactly ancient :/). The Star Spirits’ names are Eldstar, Mamar, Kalmar, Muskular, Misstar, Klevar and Skolar.

The Star Spirits are seven Stars who live in Star Haven. The stars (or just Twink) know them as the “Honorable Star Spirits” and they watch over the magical Star Rod *cough*Kirby*cough* (sorry, can’t talk about that item without making that reference). Anyway, one day Bowser and Kammy Koopa decide to change the story and use their new mystical power of scotch tape to tape Kammy into the story. She steals the star rod and imprisons the poor star spirits in Bowser cards.

The main plot of Paper Mario focuses around Mario and his partners traveling around the Mushroom Kingdom and rescuing Star Spirits. Each Star Spirit gives Mario a special power after it is rescued (except Eldstar, who gives two) and then runs off to Star Haven. After rescuing all of the Star Spirits, Mario gets an attack called the Star Beam…and there’s also the Peach Beam which happens after Peach saves the day. Anyway, then Bowser is defeated, Mario rescues Peach (did I mention Bowser kidnapped her? Then again, that was assumed) and they all live happily ever after…

…until Mario Party 5 where the Star Spirits are yanked away from Star Haven by some Nintendo employees and shoved into a Mario Party game. They are the hosts of the different modes of the game and play no truly important role in the storyline. So, that’s it for the Star Spirits. They had ten seconds (or two games) of fame and glory and then Nintendo just dropped them…seven years ago. They were personally some of my favorite characters but now, like so many others, they have simply faded into obscurity.