Random: Nintendo, why are you making Pauline shorter and shorter?

Nintendo has been doing things behind our backs again. Well, not really — companies adjust video game character models quite often, usually between console generations or when graphics engines improve. But people can get quite protective of certain character models. Some people prefer Sonic’s Sprite in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles as it’s a bit more pointed and has smaller eyes, and Pikachu started losing weight between Pokémon Red & Blue and Pokémon Gold & Silver.

With that in mind, we have a question for Nintendo – why do you keep making Pauline shorter?

Super Mario Variety Blogger @MarioBrothBlog is known for discovering the weird and wonderful from the mushroom kingdom. And he recently shared a handful of Pauline’s character models since her return in Super Mario Odyssey 2017. And there’s a suspicious trend among them – each one is smaller than the last!

Okay, we think we can understand why Pauline is so tall in Odyssey. She lives with other life-size people in New Donk City. Of course, we don’t mean to imply that Mario isn’t human, but anyone is taller than Mario there. It makes sense in a weird way. She is almost twice the size of the Italian plumber

So when Pauline returned for the Mario Kart Tour, it made sense to reduce her height a bit. A head and a shoulder is shorter quite a lot although don’t you think so? Maybe there wasn’t a car model that was big enough and it would probably be a bit unfair for Pauline to get a jeep when everyone else had small karts. She also appeared in Mario Tennis Aces around that time, and while we don’t have a picture of her alongside Mario (we like that Mario scale, to be honest – how many Marios tall are you sounds better than feet, inches, centimeters , etc.), we can see in this Tumblr blog post by nintendos-pauline that she is at least taller than Princess Peach and Daisy.

But Nintendo wasn’t quite done with Pauline’s verticality, oh no. Pauline tees off with the rest of the Mario cast in Mario Golf: Super Rush, along with an adorable new golf outfit. Seriously, it’s just beautiful. But once again, Nintendo has downsized their character model – but this time by just half a head. So she’s only about two-thirds of a head taller than Mario. Nintendo essentially halved Pauline over the course of a few years.

But it isn’t completely the case. Pauline debuted waaaaay back in 1981’s arcade classic Donkey Kong, and she’s actually appeared in a number of Mario games since then – most notably the Mario vs Donkey Kong Series. She first appeared in Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis, and her appearances in those games seem to have her on a similar scale to Peach – and her scale in the latest Mario Golf game. You can see for yourself in this shot of Pauline, Mario, Donkey Kong and many others in Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars:

So Nintendo isn’t really shrinking Pauline, maybe just returning her to her original size? Pauline’s tall character model from Odyssey stands out because she has the Mario cartoon style design, but she is as tall as all the people in New Donk City. It was also her first appearance in a mainline Super Mario game. And don’t forget the 2021 madness surrounding Resident Evil Village breakout star Lady Dimitrescu. We’re pretty sure Mayor Pauline is nowhere near 10 feet tall, but that seems to be a trend!

Pauline will likely stay close to her Mario Golf size going forward, but hey, at least we can look back fondly to the time we found out Mario was a heck of a lot smaller than humans. New Donk City was fabulous, wasn’t it?