Talk:Fractone

Consider Fractone "variants" as characters?

I'm mainly talking about the following:

Architectone
Bloomintone
Chiptone
Constructone
Fragment (maybe)
Fragmentone
Glamtone
Groovetone
Growtone
Hiddentone
Securitone
Seekertone
Smashintone
Stufftone
Styletone
Trustytone

At first glance, it makes sense to consider most of these as variant species of Fractone, considering there's multiples of them, but something strange has occurred when it comes to the statues of the DK Island + Emerald Rush DLC: the previously unnamed animal Fractone NPCs, which there are definitely multiples of as well, were all given names like Monkey Fractone, Giraffe Fractone, Zebra Fractone, Ostrich Fractone, etc. The above list appears to dictate that each Fractone variant's name must follow the specific portmanteau formula of <word> + the -tone suffix, but the animal Fractones go completely against that. And then I noticed something else:

No species NPC is being named when you talk to them.

Typically, when you talk to NPCs in Bananza, such as Poppy Kong or the Snake Elder, their text box will be labeled with that character's name. This also occurs with the Fractones in the above list (with the exception of Fragment and Growtone, which you cannot talk directly to anyway). What it does NOT occur to, however, are NPCs that are a whole species, such as Prospector Monkeys, Zebras... and all regular Fractones and the animal Fractones. This means that the game actually may consider nearly all the Fractones in the above list (with the possible exception of the fragments) as characters instead, much like Exploritone, Collectone, Quiztone and Banandiumtone.

And there's something else I also noticed: while yes, there are indeed multiples of each Fractone in the above list, most of them only appear once on each layer, much like Quiztone and Collectone. There are exceptions of course, such as Architectone and Stufftone, Fractones that provide services. However, if we consider things like the Elephant Shopkeep, a character that provides services which there are also multiples of, then we may consider those Fractones as characters as well.

It's actually quite baffling to me that the Groovetones are considered a species. While there's indeed multiple Groovetones, the game explicitly states that they are a band, and you won't find any other Groovetone outside of the four in the Groove Layer post-game. Similarly, the Hiddentones could also be considered a group rather than a species, even if you can encounter them in multiple layers as well.

Outside of those, Growtone and Bloomintone, and maybe Glamtone are the only other Fractones in which one may argue they're a species: Growtone and Bloomintone will change by Donkey Kong's influence, but they "reset" for each layer appearance; and while Bloomintone resets at every layer visit anyway, the changes done to each Growtone appears permanent. Conveniently, you can never talk directly to Growtone, meaning we can never see a textbox with his name labeled on it either. Glamtone also appears mostly of Fractonium on each layer, but is gold in the Ingot Isle Cave-In. I personally think we can still consider these as characters in the same way we consider the Elephant Shopkeep as a character.

But what do you guys think? rend (talk) (edits) 05:40, September 27, 2025 (EDT)

I've brought this predicament up in the wiki's Discord server, and it looks like most people that joined in agree that the Fractones in the above list should be considered characters instead of species. I'm still leaving this open in case there's debate against this, though. rend (talk) (edits) 20:05, September 27, 2025 (EDT)

I've decided to act upon this and replaced most of the articles' {{species infobox}} with a {{character infobox}}. If you disagree, feel free to leave a comment and explain. rend (talk) (edits) 09:47, September 28, 2025 (EDT)

If we're treating the Groovetones as a group, then shouldn't we move it to "Groovetones" like other groups? Mario JC 10:06, September 28, 2025 (EDT)

Good point; I've been considering adding a {{move}} template to that article, but it requires a discussion first. rend (talk) (edits) 10:35, September 28, 2025 (EDT)

@Arend, I disagree pretty strongly with this change, especially for the likes of Architectone, Constructone, Securitone, and Trustytone, of which multiple of the same can appear on the same sublayer. Both Architectones and Constructones refer to a company/group they are part of, so clearly there's a lot more than just a couple. Listing the Chiptones & Stufftones (along with the various animal shopkeepers characters imo) as particular characters just looks bizarre to me since they aren't specifically affiliated with each other beyond having similar jobs across various regions.

In the cases of Bloomintone, The Seeker/Hiddentones, Fragmentones, Smashintone, it feels too speculatory imo to list them as characters instead of species when there's nothing to suggest they are the same characters travelling between layers. We know Fractones have the ability to change their appearance at will (changing into arrows when DK approaches, Seekertones changing shape once you earn their Banandium Gems, etc) so without some more evidence I disagree with considering them characters as opposed to just unique variants. Okapii (talk)

I definitely think Architectone, Constructone, Securitone, and Trustytone should at least be considered species. We generally use {{species infobox}} anyway when there are multiple of a living thing; it doesn't really matter if they're technically not a "species", like Elephant Shopkeeps. Mario JC 10:46, October 2, 2025 (EDT)

Fair, but in most of these cases, you only encounter one of them at a time. Even with Architectone, Constructone, Securitone and Trustytone, you don't see multiples of them at once, even when they appear multiple times throughout a particular (sub)layer (and in the case of Architectone, Constructone, and Securitone, they disappear from that spot forever when you pay them, which is especially notable for Securitone since you won't be able to visit their next spot before paying them anyway.
Even then, there's still the fact that all of these have their names appear above textboxes and follow a particular naming scheme with the -tone suffix, whereas the animal Fractones do not either of those things (in fact, the animal NPCs don't get to have their names shown above their textboxes either); so it does seem Nintendo wanted to make a clear distinction between those.
At the very least, I still think considering the Groovetones as a species instead of a group is baffling. Yeah, there's four of them, but they're consistently referred to as a band of four instead of a whole subspecies, and even their statue from the DLC shows them in a group of four, as opposed to a single specimen like with the other Fractones. rend (talk) (edits) 11:47, October 2, 2025 (EDT)