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3) Broque Monsieur
First Appearance: Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (Nintendo DS, 2009)
Mario RPGs are known for featuring creative character designs, but perhaps none other is as wildly surreal as Broque Monsieur, who is a living, breathing stack of two yellow blocks with arms, legs, eyes, and a mouth. Speaking in a comedically thick French accent, Broque is a connoisseur of the iconic question mark blocks littered throughout Mario’s games. Broque spends his time collecting them like one would fine wines and bemoans Mario and Luigi for degrading their value by constantly hitting them. Broque finds Bowser (who he calls Monsieur Turtle Bits) to be a much more agreeable fellow, lending his giant block dog Broggy to him for assistance and doing what he can to power up and help the Koopa King. A great visual gag comes from Broque’s ability to flip his head upside down, which swaps the positioning of his eyebrows with his mustache and creates a fierce scowl! Broque, with his block body, pets, and shops, is a post-modern joy to behold.
I was about to complain that Geno wasn’t number one, and then I saw Fawful and realized that, yes, Geno is not as awesome as Fawful. He had Fury! And as he would like to remind you:
“But…the day comes soon when Fawful rises again, and then no baby’s candy has safety! I am counting chickens before they are even eggs, before the chickens are even chickens!
I miss Jr. Troopa. He had a very brief cameo in TTYD, though. I miss Paper Mario in general. Like… REAL Paper Mario type stuff. I was a big fan of Super Paper Mario, and was glad to see the change in gameplay. I expected Sticker Star to be like the first two games, but it really wasn’t. Not to say that Sticker Star wasn’t a great game in its own right, but I want another Paper Mario with a long story, crazy partners and action commands, and a seamless world.