Pauline has been officially confirmed as a new playable character in Super Mario Party Jamboree.
Pauline was introduced all the way back with Mario and Donkey Kong in Nintendo’s 1981 arcade hit, Donkey Kong. Back then, she and Mario were simply called Lady and JumpMan, and she wore a pink dress with a black belt, and really had more of an orange haircut that spread out. That Pauline is one of the earliest instances of a damsel in distress in video games, and is also completely unrecognizable from the character everyone knows now.
There’s a lot that has been said about Pauline’s status as one of the first damsels, but there’s some confusion on how she’s been used through the years. She reappeared in Pinball and Famicom BASIC, both for the Famicom in 1984, and then went unused for a staggering 22 years.
Her modern day comeback finally arrived in 2006, in Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis for the Nintendo DS. This is the first time where we see her in her modern day incarnation, with the brown hair and red dress. Donkey Kong still kidnaps her in this game, but throughout the Mario vs. Donkey Kong franchise she slowly changes her role, as she becomes an investor in Mario’s Mini-Mario toy business.
Finally, Pauline officially returns to the main Mario platformer franchise in Super Mario Odyssey, released on the Nintendo Switch in 2017. Nintendo plays around loosely with the lore here, but as we now see, Pauline has become an elected public official, who happens to also be a good lounge act.
And that started Pauline’s incorporation to more Nintendo games. She appears in Super Smash Bros’ Ultimate as part of the New Donk City stage and a collectible Spirit. She became a playable character for the first time as a DLC character for Mario Tennis Aces in 2019. She was then added as a playable character for Mario Kart Tour, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Golf: Super Rush and Mario Strikers: Battle League.
Pauline is the second newly announced playable character in Super Mario Party Jamboree, after Ninji. That’s an even deeper cut than Pauline, and it certainly hints that Nintendo will add even more oddities from Mario’s roster of characters. But we do expect that Daisy and Rosalina are definitely still in the mix.
Super Mario Party Jamboree is releasing exclusively on October 17, 2024, exclusively on the Nintendo Switch. You can watch the official Pauline announcement trailer below.
