The 'Shroom:Issue 216/Pipe Plaza

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Director's Notes

Written by: Zange (talk)

Shroom2019 Zange.png

Hello and Happy March!! I don't know about the rest of you but Daylight Savings is throwing me for a loop more than usual this year, ach...

I am maybe five years late to the party but I finally started playing Animal Crossing on the Switch near the end of last month. I have correctly predicted that it would become a major time sink for me as well, oops. I think I'm getting to the point where the need to do EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME TO EARN BELLS is wearing off. So yay for my free time but that probably means I need to start figuring out something to do to fill the gaps...

As always, we have some super cool Pipe Plaza sections in store for you this month!! Remember that you, the person reading this, can always send a super cool section our way! Just head to the sign up page to get started!

One last thing before I go: I would like to thank everyone who voted A Section of Muppetational Origins as the Section of the Month here in Pipe Plaza for February! Make sure to check out everything we have in store for this month and show some love for them all!

That's all from me this time, enjoy your read~

Section of the Month

Congratulations to this month's winners! Taking silver this month is Waluigi Time (talk) with Poll Committee Discussion! Shoey (talk) nabs the bronze this month with What's in a Campaign?! Thank you to everyone who votes for their favorite sections as well.

PIPE PLAZA SECTION OF THE MONTH
Place Section Votes % Writer
1st A Section of Muppetational Origins 6 30.00% Zange (talk)
2nd Poll Committee Discussion 5 25.00% Waluigi Time (talk)
3rd What's in a Campaign? 4 20.00% Shoey (talk)
News and information
Mario Calendar
GPM1000 (talk)
Find out all about this month's Super Mario releases.
read more
To-Do Tracker
Camwoodstock (talk)
No clue what to do? Join the fun and see what's been done!
read more
Poll Committee Discussion
MightyMario (talk)
The best analysis of the polls around!
read more
Awards Analysis
Waluigi Time (talk)
Awards may have come and gone, but let's talk about the results!
read more
Archie Sonic Comic Shoebox
Shoey (talk)
I'm not saying it was aliens... but it was aliens.
read more
The 'Shroom Report
Waluigi Time (talk)
All the latest writers and all the milestones of the current ones.
read more
What's in a Campaign?
Shoey (talk)
TOTAL ANARCHY
read more

Mario Calendar

Written by: GPM1000 (talk)

Happy March, everyone! I hope you have all had a great first few months of the year - it's insane how quickly time flies by! But I know we can all be grateful that March has arrived so quickly, because it means that it's already time for another Mario Calendar!!

Region Abbreviations

Abb. Region
ALL All Regions (JP/NA/EU/AU)
JP Japan
NA North America
EU Europe
AU Oceania/Australia
SK South Korea
CHN China
UK United Kingdom

Console Abbreviations

Abb. Console
NES Nintendo Entertainment System
Famicom Family Computer Disk System
SNES Super Nintendo Entertainment System
N64 Nintendo 64
GC Nintendo GameCube
GB Game Boy
GBC Game Boy Color
GBA Game Boy Advance
DS Nintendo DS
3DS Nintendo 3DS
Switch Nintendo Switch
Wii VC Nintendo Wii Virtual Console
3DS VC Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
Wii U VC Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console
VB Virtual Boy
G&W Game and Watch
64DD Nintendo 64 Disk Drive
MS-DOS Microsoft Disk Operating System
CD-i Philips CD-i
IQ iQue Player
NVS Nvidia Shield
ACPC Amstrad CPC
ZX ZX Spectrum
Coleco Colecovision
TI-99 Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

The main thing that really stood out to me for this month is the amount of strange, experimental games! Like there were multiple games for the Tandy 1000, which I had never seen before. In fact, I had to look up what a Tandy 1000 actually is, as I hadn't even heard of it. It is basically an old PC that was made to be affordable but effective. It always fascinates me seeing Nintendo allowing their IP to be used in such weird, niche systems back in the day. It's really not something I could see Nintendo doing these days - they're extremely protective!

Anyways, I hope you all have a great rest of your month. See you in April!

To-Do Tracker

Written by: Camwoodstock (talk)

Welcome one, more, and all to the second edition of the To-Do Tracker! With the section introduced last time around, this should hopefully be a lot more brief. To summarize, though, late December 2024, a to-do bar was added to the front page of the wiki for logged in users, giving a quick look at the state of various maintenance categories. We're here to keep track of how these have all progressed, from success stories to new potential targets for editing projects. Hopefully, we can give some better insight into what's been going on behind the numbers! Without further adieu, let's dig in.

Note: All dates here, unless otherwise specified, were taken fairly late at night in EST; around 1-3 AM EST. (In this case, "otherwise specified" is Feb 19, 2025, which was taken at 1PM instead.)

January & February To-Do Items
To-Do Item Feb 12, 2025 Feb 19, 2025 Feb 26, 2025 Mar 5, 2025 Mar 12, 2025
Spotlight focuses 3 4 4 4 2
Ongoing TPPs 16 12 15 14 22
Unimplemented Proposals 25+ 25+ 25+ 25+ 20+
Unresolved Discussions 291 289 298 286 298
Construction Projects 219 217 216 169 152
Rewrites Needed 97 102 104 108 104
Sourcing Issues 19,800 19,727 19,691 19,621 19,607
Stub Articles 565 565 567 570 580
Wanted Articles 1000+ 1000+ 1000+ 1000+ 1000+
Pending Deletions 4 4 3 3 3
Requested Deletions 8 8 16 7 5
Suggested Merges 72 74 73 73 66
Suggested Moves 46 45 45 48 53
Suggested Splits 23 23 25 26 26
Deprecated Templates 723 713 527 334 332
Descriptions Needed N/A 27,078 24,764 22,354 19,073
Unknown Meanings N/A N/A N/A N/A 1
Image Quality 3,919 3,904 3,864 3,868 3,866
Images Needed 779 775 769 773 765
Media Needed 194 195 195 194 195
Media Quality 9 9 9 9 9
Unused Files 300+ 300+ 300+ 300+ 200+

Fortunately, this month the To-Do Bar itself didn't change all that much (unless you count "dark mode" as a change for the To-Do Bar, but that feels a bit more... Universal.), so no need to do a whole segment just for revisions. As for some observations for how the numbers have progressed, some potential targets, and some other stuff you might be wondering about:

  • If you noticed some entries are absent from last month's table, no, it's not because they were removed/they stopped being tracked; rather, it's because they never appeared in our data-set this month, so we didn't feel the need to display them on the table when all entries would just read "N/A" anyways.
  • Construction projects got a bit of a cleanup in early March, namely removing templates that were either left by inactive users or were redundant in the face of pre-existing maintenance templates (for instance, media/images needed). Hence, the rather abrupt decrease. Of course, even before that point, it was at a steady decrease, so that's nice to see!
  • Sourcing issues has been on a very gradual downswing, fortunately enough, though it's still not as fast as we'd have hoped it to be; of course, a lot of the entries in this category are still thanks to unsourced foreign names, which still take up over 17,600 of the dang entries. If you're bilingual, this maintenance category has your name written on it!
  • Out of the merges/moves/splits trifecta, the clear winner is merges, as the other two have held relatively steady the past month.
  • You may have noticed the absolutely meteoric rise in Descriptions Needed. This came about from a discussion on the Discord where it was made so that any file missing the "Aboutfile" template qualified for it. It was first added on the evening of February 13th, and calculated the sheer quantity of files missing the template for so long, that it only wrapped up the next day. By that point, it sat an absolutely catastrophic 32,574! (Thank you to Technetium (talk) for grabbing the final total while we were asleep!) This, of course, has been lowering as the weeks have progressed.
  • On the other end of the spectrum, Deprecated Templates' immense downfall has got to be studied; entering the month with almost 750 entries, only to fall to just under half of that. Keep up the good work!
  • We would be remiss to not mention a strange phenomenon that happened around late February. For whatever reason, Unlicensed Media started ticking up, very, very slowly; sometimes one at a time, sometimes in waves. This ultimately never appeared on the table itself, as it just so happened to never land on a date where we collected data, but we'd feel strange leaving out that it peaked around 350-or-so before eventually slowing to a halt as everyone cleaned up what was left. Good work covering it as fast as possible!
  • Media Needed and Media Quality have been held utterly stagnant, the former only having a net increase of 1 and only ever changing in increments of 1, and the latter staying at 9 for the entire month. That's simultaneously sad, yet impressive. Be sure to give the change-by-one wonder and one-digit wonder some love next month.

Poll Committee Discussion

Written by: MightyMario (talk)

Hello and welcome to the FINAL Poll Committee Discussion of the Fourteenth Poll Committee! I'm the Poll Committee Chairperson, MightyMario. First, a big thank you to everyone who was on the Poll Committee this year. I couldn't have done it without any of you. I hope the next Poll Committee can carry on creating awesome polls and writing Shroom sections!

Archives

What are your thoughts on the recently released Donkey Kong Country Returns HD? (MightyMario (talk), February 1st, 2025)

What are your thoughts on the recently released Donkey Kong Country Returns HD?

I have played the Wii or 3DS versions of the game and have no interest in the HD version. 25.71% (455 votes)
I have not played a previous version of the game but I am not interested in Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. 25.20% (446 votes)
I have not played Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, but I want to. 18.47% (327 votes)
While there are improvements that could be made, the game was good and I enjoyed it. 12.09% (214 votes)
The game is excellent and I enjoyed it a lot. 10.06% (178 votes)
The game is good and I enjoyed it, but I prefer the Wii or 3DS versions. 3.16% (56 votes)
While the game itself is okay, I found it a considerable downgrade from the Wii or 3DS versions. 2.66% (47 votes)
The game is only okay, but I enjoyed it somewhat. 1.47% (26 votes)
The game is bad, and I did not enjoy it. 1.19% (21 votes)
Total votes: 1,770

With a new Mario Kart game coming soon, there have been a few racers who only appeared once in the roster. Which would you most like to see come back? (MightyMario (talk), February 15th, 2025)

With a new Mario Kart game coming soon, there have been a few racers who only appeared once in the roster. Which would you most like to see come back?

I would like to see all of these racers return. 25.38% (793 votes)
R.O.B. (Mario Kart DS) 15.33% (479 votes)
I would like to see only some of these racers return. 7.49% (234 votes)
Dixie Kong (Mario Kart Tour) 7.39% (231 votes)
King Bob-omb (Mario Kart Tour) 6.85% (214 votes)
Koopa Paratroopa (Mario Kart: Double Dash!!) 6.72% (210 votes)
Captain Toad (Mario Kart Tour) 5.47% (171 votes)
Poochy (Mario Kart Tour) 5.44% (170 votes)
Nabbit (Mario Kart Tour) 5.25% (164 votes)
Hammer Bro. and other variants (Mario Kart Tour) 4.77% (149 votes)
I have no opinion. 3.43% (107 votes)
Honey Queen (Mario Kart 7) 3.20% (100 votes)
Monty Mole (Mario Kart Tour) 1.25% (39 votes)
Chargin' Chuck (Mario Kart Tour) 1.15% (36 votes)
I would not like to see any of these racers return. 0.86% (27 votes)
Total votes: 3,124

Analysis

What are your thoughts on the recently released Donkey Kong Country Returns HD?

Promotional poster of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD.
Hey, oh! Look out down below! Here he comes, banana slamma!

Donkey Kong Country Returns... Returns... Returns once more. I'm not going to sugarcoat the fact that they brought back Donkey Kong Country Returns again almost eight years after the 3DS port. Kind of wished they made a new Donkey Kong Country game, but I guess it's nice to have Mugly in HD!

The sentiment that this port wasn't necessary is seen in the top option where voters that had played either the Wii or 3DS version having no interest in the Switch version. Strikingly, voters that never played either of the previous releases don't have interest in this as well. Luckily, there are some voters who do want to experience this title, and think that despite some issues, they enjoyed DK's return for the second (third?) time around, some voters thinking it was excellent!

After that shine of positivity, it seems while voters played the game, they thought the Wii and 3DS versions were better than the Switch release.

Mm, now I want a banana split sundae with all this Donkey Kong discussion...

With a new Mario Kart game coming soon, there have been a few racers who only appeared once in the roster. Which would you most like to see come back?

Artwork of R.O.B. from Mario Kart DS
While not being a Mario character, R.O.B. is pretty well remembered for only showing up in one Mario Kart.

A while back, I did a story based around the Booster Course Pass where Diddy Kong tried to secure his spot in the roster, despite surviving being blown up by Bowser Jr.'s Bullet Bills and a fiercely determined Koopa Paratroopa (who even missed out on Tour unfortunately), didn't make it into the original Mario Kart 8 Deluxe roster.

Whom I didn't include in the story was the one voters were wanting the most even if all of the options came back: R.O.B.. He beat several Tour exclusive characters, the Honey Queen from Mario Kart 7, and even Koopa Paratroopa (maybe they'll be back in the Switch 2 Mario Kart, fingers crossed).

We have a lot to owe to this little plastic robot peripheral that helped revive the medium of video games after the video game crash of 1983, so a returning spot on the roster in Mario Kart would be a cool way to honor that legacy (or you know, just play Smash Bros.)

Conclusion

That'll do it for the final Poll Committee Discussion of the current term. It has been an honor to lead such a wonderful committee and get the chance to create Mario polls for the site's visitors. I give my best respects to the next Poll Committee and I can't wait to see the creativity that comes from them.

Thank you all so much, MightyMario!

Awards Analysis

Written by: Waluigi Time (talk)

Hello there, 'Shroom readers! Waluigi Time here, with one last Awards Analysis for the 2024 Mario Awards! With the Fourteenth Poll Committee's time in the sun coming to a close, so to does our time analyzing these awards. Hopefully we'll be able to keep this going and we'll see you back in September to start checking out the results of the 2025 Awards (WOOO AWARDS), but until then, please direct any thoughts you may have about this section to the incoming committee! For now, to cap things off, I'll be covering M8. Favorite Game Mechanic and F8. Worst Mario Kart Course Remake, a double 8 to celebrate the impending end of Mario Kart 8's reign! (Not really, these two coincidentally seemed like the most interesting of what was left. But it's more fun to pretend I planned something kind of cool.)

Archives

M8. Favorite Game Mechanic

M8. Favorite Game Mechanic

Wonder Effects (SMBW) 15.05% (257 votes)
Cappy/Captures (SMO) 13.23% (226 votes)
Partners (Paper Mario series) 10.36% (177 votes)
Bros. Attacks (Mario & Luigi series) 8.02% (137 votes)
Badges (Paper Mario series) 7.20% (123 votes)
Timed hits/action commands (Mario RPG titles) 7.20% (123 votes)
Gravity (SMG) 5.91% (101 votes)
F.L.U.D.D. (SMS) 4.92% (84 votes)
Two racers (MK:DD!!) 4.68% (80 votes)
Kart customization (Mario Kart series) 3.34% (57 votes)
Total votes: 1,708

F8. Worst Mario Kart Course Remake

F8. Worst Mario Kart Course Remake

GBA Sunset Wilds (8D) 22.86% (317 votes)
GCN Baby Park (DS) 16.15% (224 votes)
GBA Sky Garden (8D) 8.94% (124 votes)
Wii Coconut Mall (8D) 8.44% (117 votes)
SNES Ghost Valley 2 (Wii) 5.12% (71 votes)
SNES Choco Island 2 (DS) 4.25% (59 votes)
N64 Toad's Turnpike (8) 4.18% (58 votes)
GBA Shy Guy Beach (Wii) 3.75% (52 votes)
Wii Koopa Cape (8D) 3.46% (48 votes)
3DS Rainbow Road (8D) 3.39% (47 votes)
Total votes: 1,387

Analysis

M8. Favorite Game Mechanic

Bending pipe Wonder Effect in Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Wonder what today will bring.

In a result that surprised probably no one, Wonder Effects took the gold here! Really, it's something just about anyone paying close attention could've seen coming - it's the flashy new feature carrying the latest mainline platformer, after all. As expected as it may be, it does mark a shakeup in the results, though! Ever since the award was introduced in 2021, Cappy/Captures has always won with a pretty significant margin of victory, usually receiving about 20-25% of the vote with second place struggling to even reach 10%. Well, not anymore! This year our top three have a much more even spread of about 15%, 13%, and 10%. Cappy/Captures do maintain a respectable second place, though. I'll be very interested to see how this award plays out moving forward. I don't think Wonder Effects will be going anywhere, but at the moment they're definitely getting a boost from being the big new thing, so we'll see if they'll be able to maintain their placement or if Cappy/Captures will have more long-term staying power. Either way, I don't expect to see any nominee be as dominant on this poll as Cappy/Captures were, at least without another new release to really knock everyone's socks off.

Now it's time to talk about Paper Mario! Partners have always been pretty popular on this award, maintaining second place since its inception until last year when they slipped below Bros. Attacks from the Mario & Luigi series. Not to be outdone, they've taken a solid third place, no doubt helped by the recent remake of The Thousand-Year Door, bumping Bros. Attacks down to fourth. Maybe this is a return to normalcy, maybe not. Brothership will be the most recent RPG when the polls go up again, so maybe that'll put Bros. Attacks back in the spotlight. For now though, Paper Mario has a strong hold on this award. Badges have jumped all the way up to fifth place this year from an unremarkable twelfth in 2023, tying with timed hits/action commands from the RPGs in general which also saw a jump in placement of their own, beating out the gravity mechanics from Super Mario Galaxy which have historically been a strong contender.

The other nominees we added for new games didn't fare as well, though. In addition to Wonder Effects, we also added Badges from Super Mario Bros. Wonder, but those fell just barely short of making the top ten by a single vote! From my time with the game, I felt that these didn't make nearly as much of an impact as the Wonder Effects. There was rarely a reason to equip anything besides Parachute Cap, and the designers never really had the chance to build courses around them outside of the Badge Challenges. Princess Peach's transformations from Showtime! ranked even lower at fourteenth, continuing a common thread this cycle of voters just not caring much about that game.

F8. Worst Mario Kart Course Remake

GBA Sunset Wilds in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Mining for content isn't always the best strategy.

Gonna be honest here, this one's going to be a little bit rough for me as someone who's mostly been tuned out of Mario Kart since after 8. But it's a brand new award, so it seemed worth covering and I'll give it my best shot. (Can't say the same about Favorite Princess Peach: Showtime! Transformation though, I don't have the insight on that game to know anything about what I'm saying. Sorry!) Anyway, this idea was proposed by Roserade in response to the Booster Course Pass (actually, the original thought just applied to the DLC, but it was quickly expanded to encompass the whole series), which introduced a lot of new course remakes and some of them that weren't very good! Allegedly. I didn't play them.

Looks like it certainly played out that way with the votes, though! In our top five, three of the nominees come from the Booster Course Pass, including the "winner", GBA Sunset Wilds! The Booster Course Pass has already been discussed at length for several years, so we know the drill - most, if not all of these retro courses were simply ported from Tour with some adjustments, rather than being built from the ground up to meet the quality standard of the base game and original DLC tracks from Mario Kart 8. Opinions on it did seem to soften with time, and as a matter of fact, most of the nominees from the Booster Course Pass were from the first half. (Our other top five nominees from the DLC, GBA Sky Garden and Wii Coconut Mall, were both wave 1. Rough time to be a course.) GBA Sunset Wilds and Wii Koopa Cape are the only exceptions, both coming from wave 5. Perhaps you're wondering why GBA Sunset Wilds made it to the top with that trend in mind, and the answer is, at least partially, YouTube! Specifically, Schafrillas Production's video ranking every course in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which at the time of writing is the most popular on the subject with just over two million views, and which places GBA Sunset Wilds all the way at the bottom. Wouldn't be the first time, as any Hammer Bro. apologist can attest. But really, why did they remove the sunset progressing throughout the race? Even Tour kept that! Compare it to screenshots of Tour or even Super Circuit and it just looks so... meh. I also found a couple of other ranking videos which picked 3DS Toad Circuit as their worst instead, and while those don't have nearly as many views, it would be interesting to see what happens if that gets on the poll too.

Our big exception here is the runner-up, GCN Baby Park from Mario Kart DS. You know, the same course that won Worst Mario Kart Course four years in a row and caused us to bin that award. So, if we're being charitable here, we can say some people voted for this because they just really hate Baby Park in general, otherwise Nintendo somehow managed to make a course that people already hated even worse. You drive around in a circle for seven laps, big whoop. But at least you can get some chaotic moments and sudden upsets out of it, so Nintendo's brilliant idea when bringing it back was to... make it shorter by cutting it from seven laps down to five? Okay then. Rounding out our top five is SNES Ghost Valley 2 from Mario Kart Wii. What can you say about this one, it's from the SNES era and none of those tracks are particularly interesting in the modern day (I also tried to play Super Mario Kart once but had negative amounts of fun) and it's got holes in it.

With the Booster Course Pass wrapped up and Tour being done adding new content, we won't have anything new to look at this year (unless Nintendo decides to drop the Switch 2 and that new Mario Kart on us within the next two months), but I expect this award to stick around. Our initial run only came up with 15 nominees, and as usual, the voters tell us what they want, so we have some pretty solid write-ins to look at.

Conclusion

And that wraps things up for now! Hopefully we'll be seeing you back in this space later this year. Get hyped for Awards, everybody! Woo!

Archie Sonic Comic Shoebox

Written by: Shoey (talk)

Hello, and welcome back to Archie Sonic Comic Shoebox, a section where I take a look at various storylines from the long-running (yet not long enough) Archie Sonic comic book. Last time, we took a look at the stupidity that is the Bem. This month, we actually stay in outer space as we look at yet another space-based OC conflict!

Our story begins halfway through issue 124, which funnily enough was the conclusion of the comic's adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2 because this comic goes to outer space a lot. So, following the conclusion to that whole mess. Shadow seemingly sacrificed himself to blow up a space station or something (idk, I wasn't paying attention). But don't worry, guys, because the fucking Bem are here! They saved Shadow! Not only did they save him, but it was actually the Bem who gave Shadow enough power to become Super Shadow and blow up this space station… WHY ARE THE BEM SO IMPORTANT?! THEY SUCK!

Anyways, our heroes celebrate and Sonic and Princess Sally make out because that's what the people want to see. Sonic even proposes to Sally in a storyline I'd almost be willing to guarantee Sega wouldn't approve of! But our heroes aren't able to celebrate for long, because, as this is all going on, that son of a bitch Dr. Eggman has hacked into the laptop of the United Federation's President (the President from the game) and offered him a not-yet-explained alliance.

I don't know, Mr. President; I like the cut of Eggman's jib!

The President refuses because he's not an idiot so he knows Dr. Eggman can't be trusted. So Dr. Eggman hacks into his car in an attempt to, idk, kill the President, but don't worry because he's saved by Rouge the Bat! Oh, also, Rouge the Bat is here! But something strange happens after Rouge saves the President. Suddenly the protective dome shielding the city shatters! Is this the work of Dr. Eggman, angry about the rejected alliance? Or is something else afoot???

Anyways, back in Knothole, Sonic and Sally announce to King Max and Queen Alicia Acorn that they intend to get married. And the king is surprisingly okay with it! This is during the brief period of time where the king isn't written as, quite frankly, the worst character in the entire comic, so he's, like, cool with Sonic and not an asshole! But before they can get very far in wedding planning, Shadow falls from the sky! For a second it looks like Shadow and Sonic are about to throw down, but before they can, Nicole's emergency beams start-a-flashing and the Freedom Fighters are summoned to the castle. In the castle, a much more desperate-looking Dr. Eggman explains the situation.

A lot is happening all at once…

He says that a vessel appeared from the sky and attacked! The vessel destroyed a large amount of Swatbots, Snively is now missing, and Megaopolis is ruined. The king, still in his based form, doesn't trust Eggman because for once he's not an idiot! He points out that Dr. Eggman has done quite literally nothing but kill his people for years, so why should he trust him? But Shadow interjects and informs the king that he thinks Eggman is telling the truth because he also encountered a vessel in space. Before things can be pondered further, a transmission comes in from Station Square informing them that they've been attacked and the President is injured! Sonic wonders who is responsible but he doesn't have to wait long! For, suddenly, everyone in the world gets a message from the Xorda!

What the hell is that? No, gross! Ick! Get it away!

The Xorda explain that, long ago, they sent an emissary to gain an alliance with the people of Earth, but instead the people captured the emissary and dissected it. You might think this sounds crazy, but history is full of shit like this. There was that time Genghis Khan sent emissaries to the Khwarazmian Empire hoping for an alliance only for the Khwarazmian Empire to kill and humiliate them. And that, kids, is why the Khwarazmian Empire doesn't exist anymore. 'Cause I'll let you in a little secret. In response to that, Genghis Khan fucked the Khwarazmian Empire all the way up! By the way, fun fact, the head scientist in charge of the dissection? Why, none other than Dr. Robotnik's ancestor Dr. Ivan Kintobor, because these Kintobors have been fucking things up since the dawn of time apparently!

Anyways, in retaliation for this act, the Xorda decided to launch a gene bomb to kill all life of the planet. But, well, unbeknownst to the Xorda, they failed! They only killed the vast majority of life on the planet. For millennia, the Xorda had no idea there was still life on Mobius and the only reason they found out was by pure chance. As revealed later in the issue by Hope (Snively's half-sister and Dr. Eggman's niece), while Overlanders were in space looking for a new planet following their defeat at the hands of the Mobians, they happened to come across a Xorda vessel. They thought they had escaped, but the vessel must have tracked them down and realized their mistake!

Anyways, hearing this, Dr. Eggman attempts to talk to King Max about an alliance, but gigachad Max hangs up on him. While Sally questions the wisdom of not hearing him out, King Max points out that for the first time in his history Dr. Eggman isn't invincible and that he'll have to come crawling back. He then orders Rotor to work on some way to establish communications with the Xorda. Then King Max immediately gets in contact with the Echidnas of Angel Island to gain their assistance. I gotta say that I love this version of King Max. He's rational and decisive, working towards the safety and prosperity of his kingdom and its subjects. I don't understand why we've got this version of King Max who is awesome and why the comic insists on abandoning King Max the Awesome and focus entirely on versions of King Max that suck. Because I can tell you this – smart, decisive King Max doesn't last. Soon enough he'll be back to hating Sonic and doing dumb shit like trying to force Sally to marry Antonine. But for now we'll just enjoy this super based King Max. Unfortunately, Locke has some bad news. Our hero Knuckles is dead… WAIT, WHAT? Knuckles is dead? When? How?

I bet this is how Sega found out Knuckles was dead!

Yeah, apparently Knuckles died at some point? I don't know when. My guess is it was during one of those Knuckles B-stories I never read because, simply put, absolutely not! But anyways, the Freedom Fighters start freaking out because they know about as much about Knuckles' death as I do. But once again, even-keeled King Max steps in and reminds them they don't have time to grieve because they've got shit to do.

Princess Sally leaves to do some research with Nicole and Locke pledges to do the same at Angel Island. There's a weird piece of dialogue where King Max questions Angel Island and Locke says it's a long story. I don't know what happened to Angel Island to make Max question it. I know there's a story where it gets destroyed, but that hasn't happened yet. Again, a lot of the problems are that, if it involves Knuckles or the stupid Echidna race, I'm not going to have an answer because I'm not going to read the Knuckles stories! Sonic also questions how these bozo-ass aliens didn't realize they failed to kill everyone. And that's when Hope explains her space story. Apparently it did not take very long, because by the time the story is over, Sally has returned, having learned that Earth and Mobius are the same planet!!!

Apparently, the records of legendary heroes or whatever perfectly match up with the Xorda claims. something which is also confirmed by the Echidnas. So yeah, Earth was just Mobius before squishy aliens destroyed all life, which is stupid, by the way, but we'll move past it. Don't worry though! Rotor has created a helmet that can either communicate with these aliens telepathically or it teleports the wearer to the aliens. It's sort vague because Rotor's explanation is that she can communicate with them while what's happening on the panel is that she teleports to them. Regardless, Sally attempts to explain to the Xorda that humans aren't the dominant species anymore, so, really, if you think about it, they don't need to blow up Mobius or whatever. We then get one of just the most unnecessary lore dumps in the whole damn comic. It turns out the gene bomb that the Xorda launched mutated lower lifeforms like squirrels, lizards, dogs into the mobosapiens. That's right! These floating jelly-brain aliens who, I will remind you, we just met are in fact completely responsible for why the planet is the way it is.

Wait? Run, that by me one more time.

Hey Sonic comic, let me tell you something. We don't need an explanation for everything! Nobody was clamoring for a reason why the animals talk in the Sonic universe! You don't need to explain everything! It's okay for some things to just be the way they are 'cause that's what they are. And if you're going to force an explanation, STOP CREATING NEW CHARACTERS AS THE REASON. The Xorda have been in, quite literally, a single issue. I think they were on three pages of the previous issue. They don't need lore integral to the entire comic. They don't need to be these greater-scope monsters that made the world the way it is. I don't know why, but for some reason this era of the comic is addicted to introducing space aliens who are just super important for no reason, and I just don't get it! Like, I already think the Xorda are dumb because they've got a dumb design and they don't fit the tone of Sonic at all, but you don't need to "square peg, round hole" them into prominence! Oh, by the way, the Xorda don't care at all for the semantics of whether or not the Mobians are humans. Instead, they point out that Mobians and humans actually share a decent amount of DNA, so you know what, screw it! They're destroying all life anyways!

With diplomacy having failed (as always), the Freedom Fighters ponder what to do when a desperate Eggman manages to hack the transmission feed. He explains that he's figured out a way to defeat the Xorda and it's pretty cool. He built a big-ass robot called the Giga-Bot Prime, a robot standing over one hundred feet tall with the power to destroy a mountain! But he needs Sonic's speed to power it. Sonic is about to agree to pilot the mecha for the greater good when King Max stops him. King Max demands that, in return for aiding Dr. Eggman, Dr. Eggman will cede half the territory under his control to the Acorn Kingdom, telling Dr. Eggman it's his choice - either cede the territory or die!

Seriously, this King Max kicks ass!

With great reluctance and having no other options, Dr. Eggman agrees to cede over the territory after the war, to the celebration of the Freedom Fighters. Oh, also, as this is happening there's a subplot where the ghost of Knuckles is talking to other dead Echidnas on a higher plane of existence, but I don't really care!

Locke expresses shock that Dr. Eggman would agree to King Max's demands, but King Max points out that Dr. Eggman was desperate and had no choice. As Locke reflects on how the Xorda threat is making enemies work together such as the Echidnas and the Dingoes (which makes me sad because the Echidnas are, canonically speaking, oppressors of the Dingoes, but are also for some reason the good guys. I don't know, we don't have time to get into that). Sonic and Sally meet up with Dr. Eggman, who explains the robot is quite simple. All Sonic has to do is peddle the robot and his speed will power it! Sonic, being the fastest creature alive, has no problem powering the Giga-Bot and attacks the Xorda head-on. And with a single missile, the bot sends the Xorda panicking and retreating…

Seems anti-climactic.

Wait a second! You're telling me the Xorda, who we spent the last issue hyping up as these all-powerful bad guys who can destroy all life as we know it, a group of aliens who can destroy cities with great ease and who even terrified the great Dr. Eggman so much he was willing to give up half his territory just so Sonic would aid him, got taken down by one missile from a big robot?! That's so dumb!

Sonic and Sally are about to celebrate their victory with a kiss, when suddenly…

I can't believe Dr. Eggman betrayed us.

…Dr. Eggman reveals that, with the Xorda defeated, he no longer has any need to honor his deal. Instead, he's going to force Sonic into being the battery for his Giga-Bot and use it to conquer Mobius!

But unfortunately for Dr. Eggman, the Xorda actually won't be defeated quite so easily. Instead, the Xorda, sore losers that they are, drop their ultimate weapon, the Quantum Dial! The Xorda explain that, once this dial completes its rotation, a black hole will open up, sucking up Mobius and its stupid star system and destroying it once and for all! With his betrayal thwarted, Dr. Eggman decides to just have the Giga-Bot smash the dial to pieces and forces the pedals to move, ordering Sonic to destroy it. As this happens, forces from across the planet converge on the dial in an attempt to destroy it. And this is actually really cool, because, while it's not every character, it's just a ton of allies and villains all teaming up to defend the planet by trying to destroy this dial. As that narration emphasizes, on this day none of the petty feuds are rivalries that defined this world mattered. Instead, everyone is working together to protect the planet from destruction.

I'll admit this is pretty badass.

Oh, also, as this is all happening, there's more Knuckles stuff. He basically tells his stupid ghost ancestors to shove their place in the cosmic order up their asses and that he's returning to life to help his friends! And he does this not a moment too soon, because the Quantum Dial activates its defense, which are lasers by the way, and these lasers are kicking ass! Beloved character Fiona Fox nearly eats it, guys!

Turns out the dial has some sort of technology-destroying core too, because not only does it destroy Station Square's greatest missiles, but it also completely destroys the Giga-Bot once it gets within 50 feet of it. While temporarily bad, that is probably for the best since Dr. Eggman was planning on using it to conquer the world. Things seem hopeless, with nothing they throw at it being able to stop the dial. Rotor then speculates that, with enough counterforce, they might be able to reverse the gears, causing it to implode. But, oh no, there's only one person alive who can generate that much force - Sonic the Hedgehog! But if he implodes the dial, he'll die in the process…

Despite knowing he will die, Sonic doesn't hesitate to do what's right. Telling Sally he loves her one last time, Sonic runs towards the gear to stop the destruction of his planet. Oh, and hey look, Knuckles is back and he attempts to help, but it turns out he lost his stupid Chaos Knuckles powers in the process of coming back to life so he's unable to help!

Sonic gets to the dial just in the nick of time, running as fast as he can. The dial reverses itself, when suddenly it explodes under the pressure. The planet is saved, but in the aftermath, Sonic is nowhere to be found.

The end of Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog, Mobius' greatest hero, is dead, having given his life to once again protect Mobius and the ones he loved.

Or is he?

This would be the only time the Xorda would ever really appear in the comic. They would be alluded to in a future chapter involving the Bem, and then it would later be revealed that they were locked in a war with the Black Arms which would serve to both fully write them out and explain why they never investigated whether or not their Quantum Dial worked or not. I believe the plan was, if Sega ever gave approval for the Black Arms to appear, that the Black Arms would eventually win their war with the Xorda, but that never happened before the comic was rebooted.

I think the Xorda are one of the least necessary comic creations. Not only do their designs not fit at all, being something out of a generic sci-fi comic, but they also get all this fanfare and lore implications and they're supposed to be so deadly, but then they get chased off by a single missile and never show up again. They're a great example of why this era of the comic isn't looked at fondly, because they just have nothing to do with Sonic. Of the three main writers, Karl Bollers (who wrote these issues) is the middle-of-the-road writer, but he's not a Sonic fan, so he's just doing whatever. As a result, you get a lot of chapters like this which feature things which have no place in Sonic, with a bunch of unnecessary loredumps and hype before the thing is just never brought up again. It's no wonder that the comic was really teetering off the rails at this time!

The 'Shroom Report

Written by: Waluigi Time (talk)

Last month we had a great start to the year, this month we have a great start to the term! Well, technically that was also last month, but I'm speaking specifically from the perspective of The 'Shroom Report because I'm talking about last month this month. This kind of nonsense is what you get for an opening when I've been writing this section for over a year, so please bear with me. Anyway, Issue 215 info, and thanks to Meta Knight for keeping our spreadsheets up to date!

For new readers or anyone needing a refresher, please open the box below.

​

Sections that are not applicable this month are crossed out.

  • First-Time Writers lists everyone who wrote their first section for The 'Shroom in the previous issue.
  • New Sections lists recurring sections that started their run in the previous issue. This includes returning sections that previously went inactive.
  • Guest Sections lists one-off submissions from the previous issue.
  • Milestones covers certain section numbers reached in the previous issue. Writers are mentioned for every 10 sections written in a team and every 50 sections written overall, teams are mentioned for every 100 sections, and The 'Shroom itself is mentioned for every 500 sections.
  • Most Sections Written lists the current all-time record holders.
New Sections
Section Writer
A Section of Muppetational Origins Zange (talk)
To-Do Tracker Camwoodstock (talk)
A Look at Mario Enemies Lost to Time Shoey (talk)
Guest Sections
Section Writer
Game Corner ClawgripFan9001
News Flush Boo1268
The Triple A Gang Sparks (talk)
Say Yes to the Dress: Waluigi Edition ClawgripFan9001
The History of The Great and Powerful Trixie Sparks (talk)
A Golden Sun GBA Duology Story Review and Analysis Paper Plumm (talk)
Why Ballistic Bingo is a Garbage Minigame Sparks (talk)
Why Are You So Shaped? Hooded Pitohui (talk)
Milestones
Writer/Team Milestone
ClawgripFan9001 10 Palette Swap sections
Ninja Squid (talk) 90 Fun Stuff sections
Shoey (talk) 450 overall sections
Sparks (talk) 10 Strategy Wing sections
TheBlueCatMenace 20 Fake News sections
Waluigi Time (talk) 40 Pipe Plaza sections
Most Sections Written
Team Writer Number of Sections
Main/Staff Henry Tucayo Clay (talk) 142
Fake News Waluigi Time (talk) 154
Fun Stuff Shoey (talk) 154
Palette Swap FunkyK38 (talk) 205
Pipe Plaza Yoshi876 (talk) 128
Critic Corner Hypnotoad (talk) 202
Strategy Wing Hooded Pitohui (talk) 138
Overall Yoshi876 (talk) 747
'Shroom Trivia
The first ever News Flush was written in Issue XLVIII (48) by Gabumon, but it was called Fake Report at the time. Alongside other staples of Fake News, it was renamed to News Flush and received the banner it still uses today two issues later. Gamefreak75 was the first to write it under its current title.

What's in a Campaign?

Written By: Shoey (talk)

Hello and welcome back to What's in a Campaign?, a section where I look at various robots from the hit show Robot Wars. Last month, we took a look at the sheer domination that was Series 3 Chaos 2. This month, we're going to be looking at the rarest thing in the history of Robot Wars, Anarchy, a walkerbot that's… Good???

ANARCHY!

Anarchy was built by Robot Wars veteran Mike Franklin, a brilliant engineer and the man behind 101, a robot which we've sort of covered before and who had competed between Series 3 through 5. 101 was a simple robot, being a tracked robot with a pneumatic spike that fired on a sensor. A really good robot in its day, 101 finished in the top 8 in Series 3, losing only to Hypno Disc in a fight so close that the judges personally inspected it for damage. It then went on to finish top 4 in the World Championship with a stunning win over Panic Attack. 101 would remain competitive in Series 4, making a Heat Final and taking home the Tag Team Terror Championship with friendly rival King Buxton (although the King Buxton team would steal the single trophy made for the tournament). But by Series 5, 101 was completely outclassed and was completely destroyed in its one fight against Fluffy. So for Series 6, Mike Franklin knew he needed to build a new bot. So, he set out to do something that nobody had ever done before - make a walkerbot that was good!!!

Before we continue with Anarchy, have a little explanation about what a walkerbot is, because we've never covered one before and, quite frankly, god willing we never will again! The walkerbots, as their name suggests, use mechanical legs instead of wheels or tracks. This presents problems because, quite frankly, most mechanical leg setups are slow as dirt compared to using a standard wheel setup. Plus, they're going to weigh more because you've got to set up a system that can move those legs. Because of this, walkerbots were allowed to weigh more other robots, and by Series 5 walkerbots were allowed to weigh 200kg, double the amount of a regular heavyweight. So with all this extra weight, you'd think that not only would you have just a ton of pushing power, but you should also be able to turn that weight into incredible armor and a super powerful weapon, right?

It's like a science experiment gone wrong.

No! Wrong! Never! Every walkerbot feels like the same thing. They're all super slow robots with no weapons that just so happen to have legs! Most of them barely work, which makes sense since the walking system is very complicated. But even if they do work, they don't do anything because they don't have a weapon or they're so slow they're never going to hit anybody! In the history of Robot Wars, only two walkerbots had scored victories against non-walkerbots to this point. There was Jim Struts, who won the Reserve Rumble in Series 2 because honestly everything just broke down beside it, and there was Clawed Hopper, who, to its credit, scored a legit knockdown win over Twister in Series 5. There are just a lot of inherit downsides to walkerbots and, honestly, the weight increase just isn't ever used in an interesting way. And honestly, it's not that great because in exchange for building what's usually a slow bot with exposed legs. the extra weight isn't that great of an aid. Weapons are getting more powerful. especially flippers and spinners. Like, even the bot Gravity could flip a House Robot, so that extra weight by itself isn't really that useful! Now, there is one exception to the "walkerbots are bad" rule, and that's Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors competitor Drillzilla in the American Wars. They had a ton of success winning the Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors Annihilator and Tag Team Terror, and also finished runner-up in the Second World Championship.

So good it was illegal

But Drillzilla is a weird case because they're weren't a traditional walkerbot; instead they were what's called a shufflebot. They used a different type of mechanics to have rubber feet which shuffled to generate movement. This gave them much higher speed so they didn't have the same drawbacks as a regular walkerbot. But this design would essentially be outlawed when it was ruled that shufflebots aren't walkerbots and therefore would no longer be given the extra weight increase. Robot Wars politics is wild.

But Mike Franklin was a very highly regarded engineer and if anybody was going to make a great traditional walkerbot, it would be… George Francis! But George is off doing Chaos 2 stuff, so Mike Franklin will have to do! Luckily for Mike Franklin, he already had not only experience with walkerbots but, he also already had a pretty good design for one in the form of his Techno Games entrant Scuttle.

For those who don't know, Techno Games was like a robot Olympics show where robots would compete in different events like tug-of-war, football, and sumo. It was just different events like that and there would be medals given out. It's pretty cool and it had a lot of Robot Wars teams on there either competing with weaponless versions of robots they used in Robot Wars or with brand-new robots created specifically for those events. A particularly fun one was the Plunderbird team, which once competed with a robot called Junior under the guise of the Smith Twins while furiously denying that they'd ever been on Robot Wars!

Anyways, back to Anarchy! So using Scuttle as a base design, Anarchy was an eight-legged grey box-shaped robot! The legs themselves were made out of 6082 T6 aircraft-grade aluminum and would move two pairs at a time for maximum stability. Attached to each leg were feet made out of hose rubber for extra grip. Powered by two Bosch 750 watt motors, Anarchy had a top speed of 5mph, which, while yes, that sounds slow, was the fastest speed a traditional walkerbot ever reached on Robot Wars! The legs were protected by 12mm thick sides of polycarbonate. With the weight increase, Mike Franklin tried something weird. He actually put weapons on his walkerbot. Anarchy sported three weapons, these being an angled static scoop, an axe, and finally a full-powered flipper. The axe and the flipper were both pneumatically powered and were powered using separate pneumatic systems. The axe system sported 2,400psi of thrust or, in the words of Mike Franklin, "the power of Chaos 2's flipper", and was capable of going through up to 14mm of polycarbonate or 4mm of steel. The rear-mounted flipper, on the other hand, was capable of flipping over any heavyweight in the field and could even possibly throw a robot out of the arena with the right angle. All of this weighed only 167kg, meaning that Mike Franklin still had a theoretical 33kg left to play with. Either way, Mike Franklin, along with his daughter Amy Franklin and friend Steve Bickle, accomplished a great feat. Anarchy was easily the most impressive walkerbot ever seen on Robot Wars.

As a reminder, all pictures are sourced from the fantastic Robot Wars Wiki. If you'd like to watch any of these fights, check out this video. Timestamps are provided in the section.

In the qualifiers, Anarchy fought a melee against Mr Nasty, Brutus Maximus and Ruf Ruf Dougal. Apparently, nobody knows who won this fight, but my guess is Anarchy did because I've seen those other three robots and they are bad, especially Ruf Ruf Dougal! Regardless, all four of the melee competitors would be given a spot in Series 6 because there's no justice in the world. Anarchy would be placed in Heat G, where it would face off in another melee, this time against newcomers Revolution 2 and Thor, as well as the experienced Judge Shred 2 ½. Anarchy would start the fight (1:37) by going after the hammer of Thor! Thor would miss its first blow of the fight and Anarchy made them pay, putting their axe right through the front of Thor. Anarchy then noticed that Revolution and Judge Shred were stuck together and decided it would be pretty cool to get involved in that. So Anarchy waltzes over and hits the top of Judge Shred with their ax. But they decided to do it from the front of Judge Shred, so Judge Shred gave them the ole "get the hell out of here" flip, lifting Anarchy off its wheels.

A good old fashioned double-team!

Thor then drives up and just misses the piss out of a hammer blow to Anarchy as Judge Shred lifts Anarchy again. This time Anarchy gets the message and decides to go after the still-stuck-on-Judge-Shred Revolution. Anarchy rains blows on the stuck machine. Judge Shred then spins around and again flips Anarchy! Finally, Thor, offended by Judge Shred's behavior, gets to the side of Judge Shred and starts raining hammer blows! Then Anarchy gets to the other side of Judge Shred and the axe and hammer bots work together, raining blow after blow on Judge Shred until Judge Shred drives away in fear!

The camera starts focusing on Revolution 2 being, I don't know, useless and dumb with a stupid worthless weapon, but we just manage to see Anarchy land another axe blow on Judge Shred for some sweet, sweet aggression points! Everyone realizes Judge Shred is the weak link and Thor pins them to the wall for some more hammer blows as Revolution 2 hits them with their spinning blade… which just stops on impact. That's what you want, right? Blades that stop the second they hit literally anything? That's how spinners are supposed to work, right? What do you mean they aren't supposed to work like that????

Getting back to the action, Anarchy briefly gets stuck on the flame pit before escaping and using its rear flipper to throw that weakling Judge Shred. Revolution 2 starts trying to push Judge Shred, so Anarchy starts pushing Revolution 2! This pushing chain ends with Anarchy flipping Revolution 2! Thor and Anarchy then once again take turns smashing the top of Judge Shred as, oh boy, watch out, Revolution 2's spinner is up to speed! Revolution 2 rams Judge Shred, which again causes its spinner to just stop. Oh, also, this attack leaves Revolution 2 just stuck, which allows Dead Metal to go at it! As this is happening, Anarchy flips over Judge Shred, and, the second Judge Shred recovers, Thor just demolishes part of its top armor with its hammer! Nothing happens for a little bit as the robots just drive around. Revolution 2 just dies as Anarchy flips it again for good measure.

Anarchy would be the mortal enemy of the judiciary.

Judge Shred attempts to flip over Anarchy but barely gets it off the ground. Then Thor tries to hammer Anarchy but doesn't even make a dent. Judge Shred comes in and flips up Thor, allowing Anarchy to drive its axe into Thor as revenge for the hammer attack. Revolution 2 is counted out, and as soon as it's made official, the fight ends going to the judges. Looking at style, damage, control, and aggression, it's not even close. Judge Shred spent the whole fight getting destroyed, so Anarchy and Thor go through!

In the Heat Semi-Final, Anarchy faced off against Inshredable, a robot who is only in this fight because, true story, in its first-round melee Tornado thought Inshredable had been counted out so they pitted Terror-Bull for fun! Inshredable starts the fight (7:00) with its disc not moving and the robot itself barely doing anything. Like, they're getting out maneuvered by a 5mph walkerbot! Anarchy gets to the back of Inshredable and cleaves it with its axe. Anarchy then easily gets to the side of Inshredable and just wallops it with its hammer!

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN TERROR-BULL!

Inshredable manages to escape and reverses right into Growler, who just shoves the shit out of it. Anarchy pursues the barely-moving Inshredable, landing a pretty good flip with its rear-mounted flipper, a flip that, if it was on the arena wall, I think it would have sent Inshredable out of the arena. Anarchy then lands a second flip, sending Inshredable into the jaws of SGT. Bash! As SGT. Bash bites down on the back of Inshredable, Anarchy flips Inshredable up yet again! At this point, Inshredable is dead, but for good measure, Anarchy lands a few more axe blows before again nearly flipping it out of the arena. Inshredable is counted out, sending Anarchy to the Heat Final as the first and only walkerbot to ever make a Heat Final.

Unfortunately for Anarchy, their Heat Final matchup is one of the worst robots they could possibly draw. the dreaded Tornado! Tornado is one of the greatest competitors in the history of Robot Wars, especially post-weight increase. Tornado is basically an incredibly fast and powerful brick capable of pushing just about any opponent with ease! They also have interchangeable weaponry, allowing them to strategize for any opponent. For the Heat Final, Tornado would go with an extending stationary spike. This is because it allows them to push Anarchy while making it easier for the body of Tornado to stay out of the range of the axe. Honestly, outside of maybe Razer or maybe one of the most powerful flippers. there is no robot more designed to counter Anarchy's strengths than Tornado. The Heat Final (12:14) starts with Tornado putting on a clinic in driving.

Tornado crashing and bashing the heavier machine

Tornado utilizes a bump-and-run strategy, using its superior to speed to land ram after ram as it looks for an opening while running away before Anarchy can fire its axe. Anarchy tries to respond with its axe, but a combination of Tornado's speed and pushing radius extension prevents the axe from having any effect. Finally, Tornado manages to get to the side of Anarchy and, in a display of just raw power, easily pushes the 167kg machine the length of the arena before slamming them into the wall. But Anarchy responds, seizing on Tornado attempting a push from the backside which allows Anarchy to flip them up and over. Then Anarchy flips them again. Then they get them again, which scatters Tornado! Tornado than does one of the slickest moves I've seen on Robot Wars. They go in for a charge at the backside of Anarchy, but it's a feint! They stop short and Anarchy greedily activates their flipper.

It just looks like it hurts.

Tornado takes advantage of this and rams its spike right into the insides of Anarchy before pushing them into the wall again. Tornado and Anarchy get into a bit of a pushing match (which I think Anarchy technically wins) before Tornado is forced to stop because their engines start smoking. This allows Anarchy to briefly push Tornado, but Tornado easily escapes. The rest of the fight is just Tornado dominating. The fact is that Anarchy is just too slow to compete with a robot with the speed and pushing power of Tornado.

At least Anarchy went down fighting!

Anarchy can't attack or maneuver fast enough, and Tornado repeatedly makes them pay for it by pushing them into the wall or getting the spike into the exposed underside of the flipper. Anarchy does manage to land one more flip on Tornado, but that's all it can achieve. Anarchy does hold on until the fight goes to a judge's decision, but it's quite simply not close and Anarchy is eliminated in the heats. But still, they're the most successful walkerbot in history and that's pretty cool!

Anarchy was a very good machine and the best pure walkerbot ever seen on Robot Wars. I don't think it was a true title contender because it's just too slow, but I think there are several heats it could have won. I think it could have won Dominator 2's, 13 Black's, Wild Thing's, and Spawn Again's heats. I don't think it would have gotten far in the Semis, but still, the fact that there's a walkerbot that was even remotely viable in any heat is something! Unfortunately, we'd never see Anarchy fight again. It wasn't entered in Extreme 2, and, while it was going to appear in Series 7, Mike Franklin took a job with the production team and wasn't allowed to enter a robot. Which was unfortunately because Mike Franklin was actually let go before Series 7 after the qualifiers.

Nobody would ever build a walkerbot this good again, and honestly nobody probably ever will. Nowadays, walkerbots only get an extra 35kg weight instead of 100kg, and that's basically nothing. Any high-powered flipper is going to send that flying! So nobody really builds walkerbots anymore, with zero entering the reboot seasons because there just isn't any viable way to do them anymore. So all walkerbots have now is that distant memory in Series 6 where Anarchy came out and was like "hey, maybe walkerbots don't have to suck", but sadly it was only for a moment.

That's all for this month's campaign. Join me next month as I look at another robot!

Is there a section you'd like to give a shout-out? Get a section in front of Poochy by filling out this form!
The 'Shroom: Issue 216
Staff sections Staff Notes • The 'Shroom Spotlight • Poochy's Picks • Poll Chairperson Address • Credits
Features Fake News • Fun Stuff • Palette Swap • Pipe Plaza • Critic Corner • Strategy Wing
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