This is a portable spin-off so the protagonist is smol

This weird trope where handheld games in a series feature characters shrinking, baby versions and small sidekicks as protags. Because portable consoles are small you see, we have to emphasize that.

Suggestions and ideas on what to call this trope are welcome.

Look at these Muppet babies
Is this game even a spin-off? No clue, but size does definitely matter in this one.
It also represents other numerous instances of this trope in Mario:
- Yoshi's Island becoming a wee baby series with babies on the ds. Yoshi's big games past the og ditch babies, interestingly enough.
- Mario Party DS, everybody is small, thank @Drax for these
- Mario & Luigi love to get inside Bowser and have babies
- Mario vs Donkey Kong comes into its own on the DS by way of Mini Mario Lemmings
Ditto Tactics Advance, Crystal Chronicles DS, World of FF and XV Pocket Edition
Chibis

Yes I know Etrian Odyssey

9 Comments


8 months ago

if you count mobile as a handheld console you could put mighty doom here as well

8 months ago

@kleptomato Great input, thanks!

8 months ago

Mario Party DS might fit the bill here considering the premise is shrinking characters and exploring different parts of a house.

You might also want to include Bowser's Inside Story since Mario & Luigi get shrunk, though it's not the first game in the series so I'm not sure how applicable it is for the list.

8 months ago

@Drax Mario has a bunch: Yoshi's Island with its damn babies got turned into a ds series, nsmb had the mini mushroom along with the mega one (so that kinda balances out), Partners in Time has babies too, Vs DK 2 has the Mini Marios as the main thing. I need to think on this so that I don't overclutter the list.

8 months ago

@unaderon: You actually addressed a lot of the other suggestions I had in mind but didn't bring up, kinda crazy how Mario has this many examples. Had another thought by the way: would Mega Man Battle Network count since half of the game is played with mini Mega Man as a NetNavi inside computer networks?

8 months ago

@Drax I dunno, I haven't played BN. To me a world inside the computer isn't small, it has its own dimensions

8 months ago

I feel like Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition would fit this list well.

Maybe World of Final Fantasy too? It was released on Vita.

1 month ago

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror for GBA introduces the "Mini" copy ability... it's still the only Kirby game that includes it.

1 month ago

(It's not a spin-off but since you included NSMB which is also not a spin-off I think it's fair game)


Last updated: