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The Toad Brigade
The Toad, the being that's forever captured by Bowser just to tell Mario that the princess is in another castle. The being that's constantly being turned into floating bricks by a form of black magic. You almost feel sorry for these beings, until you play Mario Party and Toad starts cheating! But what about the hapless band of Toads that fought this tradition and looked to the stars in search of treasure, and landed themselves in galaxy sized touble!
We first see our starry eyed Toad Brigade in Mario's space adventure Super Mario Galaxy. The Toads that make up the gang were enjoying the Star Festival, but spoiler alert Bowser intends on ruining the event by using a UFO to steal Peach's Castle. The Toad Brigade, along with Luigi, chase after the castle but manage to lose Luigi somewhere in the universe and themselves as they turn up in the Honeyhive Galaxy. They eventually make base on Rosalina's Observatory and seem to completely give up on trying to fing Luigi in the cold depths of space. They do leave the Observatory, however, when they decide to Galaxy hop in the hopes of finding treasure and helping mario find the grand stars to help power up the Observatory. Their leader, Captain Toad is portaryed as bravely running in the opposite direction of danger, however, if you beat the game as Mario and then as Luigi (but who seriously did? No one) they appear in the Grand Finale Galaxy with a promotion to Royal Guards.
By the time of Super Mario Galaxy 2, however, they have either lost this title or the new job is excactly like the old one. They go back to hunting for treasure across space, but also getting into trouble. What great Royal Guards they are! However, some members of the Toad Brigade have moved on from adventuring across the universe, one Toad has retired from treasure hunting to become a postman. He'll give you letters from Princess Peach which leaves one question: if he knows where Peach is why doesn't he lead the Faceship (that's the name of the spaceship!) to her? Perhaps the Toad Brigade are really working against Mario! Maybe that's why Toad keeps cheating in Mario Party! Or maybe I'm just paranoid.... no, Toads are evil. Another Toad will hold your Star Bits like a Bank. That's useful I guess.
The Toad Brigade have gone their separate ways, what a tragic end to our hapless heroes. Captain Toad begins his adventure going after treasure alone, but his friends come along to help at times. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker sees Captain Toad taking Toadette on a romantic trip, but tragedy strikes when Toadette is kidnapped by a giant bird! Now Captain Toad must find her, and gather all the treasure he can. At least he still has his priorities. The end of the game sees you bringing down this romantic trip ruining Vulture! But in the game you can also run through a tower filled with golden coins whilst being hunted down by a Mummified Toad. But reach the 50th floor and you get a crown, but maybe you should save Toadette first, maybe.
Chronologically Super Mario 3D World comes next even though it was released the year before. This game is by far my favourite Mario game ever made! This was the first game I ever had the drive to reach 100% completion. I 100% completed some games like LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game but Super Mario 3D World was the game that made me want to go back through each level and unlock Champion's Road! But Champion's Road is the reason I haven't 100% completed this game. The level is insanely hard! You have to beat it with all 5 characters! Does this relate to Captain Toad? Yes, at the end of the game we see that Captain Toad initially followed Mario, Luigi, Blue Toad and Peach through to the Sprixie Kingdom in the search for treasure and most likely to sabotage the adventure! Captain Toad plays an unusual role here, his levels are prototypes of what we would see in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker a year later in 2014. He can also be found in peril in various levels and remains true to his origins in Super Mario Galaxy by being a cowardly adventurer! He's scared of a cradboard cut out of Bowser! Why there was a cardboard cut out of Bowser is a mystery but if he was terrified why is he trapped in an alcove being blocked by the blasted thing? How did he get there? Maybe he planted it and scared himself with the realism, maybe he's just a strange mix of cowardly and idiotic. This game remains as my favourite Nintendo game of all time and Captain Toad breathes fresh life into the Mario formula. The Toad Brigade may have disbanded but their legendary adventures of being stranded on the planet of the bees and doing nothing to help theirselves will remain forever! You may well be telling your grandchildren how the Toad Brigade bravely abandonned Luigi in search of treasure. Or how one of them retired from standing around doing nothing to being a postman, or you could look at it as him getting a job... yeah, the Toad brigade weren't the best heroes, and they weren't really that good... but still... at least Captain Toad got a game out of it.
