Talk:Guided Bullet Bill

Merge
I fail to see why this is split from Bull's-Eye Bill. This is just a Purple Bullet Bill, but it is a different color, which is not grounds for splitting on its own. Let's merge this with Missile Bill. 21:10, August 21, 2019 (EDT)
 * Let's not. They function differently; Bull's-Eye Bills move in an arc until above the ground, and turn toward Mario if they miss him. Guided Bullet Bills still move toward Mario, but they stay in the downward arc movement. 21:27, August 21, 2019 (EDT)
 * Actually this is just a regular black Bullet Bill that now homes in on Mario and doesn't start blinking until Mario has landed the first hit on the bathtub, at which point it's launched more erratically, so let's merge this with Bullet Bill instead. SmokedChili (talk) 11:55, August 24, 2019 (EDT)
 * That's half-true. There are really two different colors of the Corona Mountain Bullet Bill: black and blue, which is mentioned in English sources. For some reason, Japanese sources seem to neglect the fact that there is a homing black version, and only mentions that purple is homing as far as I can tell. Regardless, Super Mario Sunshine sources treat the Bullet Bills as color variants, and this too has its own color variants. LinkTheLefty (talk) 13:21, August 24, 2019 (EDT)
 * The guides also don't cover the Bullet Bills in Mecha-Bowser battle; they fly along the tracks of Merry-Go-Round. Japanese source wise, SMB Encyclopedia says the regular Bullet Bills fly towards Mario (マリオに向かって飛んでくる), which sounds pretty generic and could be interpreted as chasing Mario for the black Guided Bills. SmokedChili (talk) 06:02, August 25, 2019 (EDT)
 * As i already told you, it's NOT just a normal Purple Bullet Bill with a different color. Normal Bullet Bills also looked like this in this game. They also act different. -- 06:04, August 25, 2019 (EDT)

Merge with Bullet Bill, or Bull's Eye Bill?
I started to think about this, and asked myself wether it should be merged with Bullet Bill, or Bull's Eye Bill... The latter lists everytime a Bullet Bill variant is shown to be red and chase the player, but mostly chase the player, since not all Bullet Bills that chase the player, are red, since the ones shown in Super Mario Sunshine are purple instead of red, like the SMB3 Missile Bill, or Bull's Eye Bill. So i've been hesitating where should it be merged. -- 08:18, November 3, 2021 (EDT)
 * Personally, I think this is fine where it is. Japanese sources (at least the ones we have on record) don't mention the other color of Guided Bullet Bill, which is already unusual. Guided Bullet Bill seems to technically be a separate in-game object from the previous Bullet Bills. We have at least one English source describing it as a special type of Purple Bullet Bill. And Purple Bullet Bill itself is the one most analogous to Missile/Bull's-Eye Bill. There's been much discussion in the past on how to handle homing Bullet Bills, and I feel that if we single this one out, we might as well call the Sunshine ones in general into question. I won't stop you, but I'm not sure we're at a point you can expect different results if discussion is reopened. LinkTheLefty (talk) 21:23, November 3, 2021 (EDT)

Merge to Bull's-Eye Bill or Bullet Bill (or both)
Let's look at what we have here. This is two versions of "chasing" Bills that are poorly distinguished from the game's other types, to the point that the more common black-with-blinky-nose ones are more often than not lumped with the standard solid black ones at Pinna Park (which move in straight arcs, or in the Mecha-Bowser fight go along roller coaster tracks and thus still travel on a preset path), and the less common solid blue one that is behaviorally identical aside from giving water bottles when beaten. They do not act exactly like the game's purple-with-blinky-nose Bullet Bills (also at Pinna Park), which we currently have listed on Bull's-Eye Bill's page due to them acting like a more persistent version of the original SMB3 "u-turn" Missile Bills (essentially the same as the SM64 Bills); rather, these follow on more dimensions akin to the Bullet Bills in Galaxy and the chasing ones in Galaxy 2 (identical to the non-chasing ones in that game), thus actually being quite similar to the red Bullet Bills in SMA3 and the "Search Killer" Bull's-Eye Bills from NSMBW-onward. As such, I feel this represents a good "turning point" for their behavior, though by the same token due to the SM64 and SMG2 notes above, I can also see a case to merge this and the purple ones simply to the Bullet Bill page, thus leaving only the golden ones split.

One last note: the name "Guided Bullet Bill" is taken from the BradyGAMES guide, which in general gives wonko names and is pretty low priority; the PRIMA guide instead calls them a special kind of Purple Bullet Bill, and Portal reflects the Japanese classification of having four Bullet Bills split by color (black, blue, gold, purple).

Proposer: Deadline: September 20, 2022, 23:59 GMT

Merge Guided Bullet Bill to Bull's-Eye Bill
I agree with Arend's "keep it simple" for now approach in the comments. We can rethink the broader Bull's-Eye Bill if we really want to later. Note that Galaxy Bills themselves were probably supposed to be one of the pre-NSMBW forms of Bull's-Eye Bills going by their internal "Homing Killer" name, but without the basic Bullet Bill in the same game it didn't make sense to distinguish their name in supplemental material, and then the New Super Mario Bros. Wii developers took that opportunity.
 * 1) - First choice
 * 2) See comments.
 * 3) It's a blinky chase-y bullet bill, so it goes on the blink-y chasey bullet bill page. I thought we were adamant about this on the Bull's-Eye Bill talk page.

Merge Guided Bullet Bill and Purple Bullet Bill (currently in Bull's-Eye Bill article) to Bullet Bill

 * 1) - Second choice. Note that I do not want to merge all of the pre-"Search Killer" items on Bull's-Eye Bill's page due especially to the naming case for Bouncing Bullet Bill, which is only named in English in one game and only differentiated in LoO Japanese in a different game.
 * 2) While the current state of the Bull's Eye Bill article sits well with me, i think they should be merged to Bullet Bill.
 * 3) Second choice, regarding to how Bullet Bills act in Super Mario Galaxy being quite similar too (as they home in on Mario on the spot too with blinker eyes). In any case, these guided Bullet Bills need to go wherever the purple ones go.
 * 4) Voting for this per official Japanese sources, they're pretty consistent about the names and this leans the least towards speculation.
 * 5) Thinking on it some more, this will be my choice. The problem with Guided Bullet Bills is that the black ones are lumped in with it, and by merging with Bull's-Eye Bill we'd be arbitrarily splitting the black ones out of the main Bullet Bill article when the vast majority of sources only mention color as a defining characteristic. Also refer to the original Shogakukan guide, in which the Bullet Bills only have one Killer entry and mention the color differences within the text (note also it states that Killer appears in Pinna Park and Corona Mountain). That makes it literally less split-worthy than the Electro-Koopas or Swipin' Stus. Additionally, purple, or blue for that matter, didn't even end up being Bull's-Eye Bill's color, and the homing is somewhat more primitive and akin to other 3D appearances of Bullet Bill.
 * 6) Both Guided Bullet Bill and Purple Bullet Bill have been referred to as simply color variations of Bullet Bill, and both are wildly distinct in design from any other appearance of Bull's Eye Bill.

Comments
Missile Bills are also covered in the Bull's-Eye Bill page (as in fact, that page started out as Missile Bills), but most of the time, they're generally considered the same as regular Bullet Bills too in Japan (same goes for the Yoshi's Island version); the Japanese name of "Search Killer" didn't make its rounds until New Super Mario Bros. Wii. So the wiki seems to generally regard any guided Bullet Bill as the same (unless they have distinct features, like Cat Bullet Bill). If we merge the Guided Bullet Bills from Sunshine to the regular Bullet Bill, then we need to do the same with the SMB3 and Yoshi's Island guided Bullet Bills for consistency's sake (although one can say that, because Missile Bill has an alternate Japanese name from the 1991 Super Mario Complete Encyclopedia, Missile Bill could be split off into its own article, but I personally think the 2015 Shogakukan guide book and the Mario Portal are closer to official). Personally, I think we should keep it simple and have this merged with Bull's-Eye Bill, like the purple variant does. In any case, this article needs to go wherever the purple Bullet Bill goes, because the black variant of the guided missile doesn't seem to act any different from the purple one, even having its own blinker nose to indicate it's guided, and the blue one's only distinction is that it releases water or 1-UP Mushrooms when defeated. Arend (talk) 05:16, September 7, 2022 (EDT)

Also want to point out that technically, Pre-Galaxy Prima has the same priority as other non-Nintendo Power guides. I guess the Versus/Brady issue just doesn't come up often enough to codify it into policy. LinkTheLefty (talk) 08:43, September 7, 2022 (EDT)