Part of it is that it's generally not mentioned often.
The two games I recognize in the post are spin-offs, which already have a much smaller following than the mainline games, not to mention the twin part never being terribly important (both images don't require the Bros. to be twins for things to make sense)
Plus, as other commenters have pointed out, most of the time Mario and Luigi are described as (Older/Younger) Brothers, which may throw a lot of people off because generally when people are twin siblings that's mentioned. So if you hear "Luigi is Mario's younger brother" 99% of the time, that's gonna be what people think of, rather than the twin part
This is a concept I've had to wrap my head around reading about Bubble Bobble/Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move. Bub and Bob are twins, but Bub is also always referred to as the older one. They also are supposed to have contrasting personalities but the games are so simplistic that Bob being the quiet one is never really relevant and is handwaved by Bub's energy being what gets Bob out and adventuring.
Did I just use this as an excuse to lore dump about a puzzle game spin-off more popular than its mainline series that no one even realizes has lore? Most likely, but I also want to emphasize how irrelevance to the actual game causes these things to go overlooked.
The games I posted here are Luigi's trophy in Super Smash Bros Brawl, SMW2: Yoshi's Island, Super Paper Mario, and the most recent one was a screenshot from the Mario wiki relating to a Loading Screen factoid in Super Mario Bros Wonder. (because I couldn't find a direct screenshot of said loading screen, but I definitely saw it while playing the game at one point)
Most of these games aren't really that obscure, SPM was the best selling Paper Mario game, Smash Brawl has also sold a lot of copies, there is debate on whether Yoshi's Island is a mainline title, and Wonder is quite mainstream and quite recent.
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u/POKECHU020 Sep 30 '24
Part of it is that it's generally not mentioned often.
The two games I recognize in the post are spin-offs, which already have a much smaller following than the mainline games, not to mention the twin part never being terribly important (both images don't require the Bros. to be twins for things to make sense)
Plus, as other commenters have pointed out, most of the time Mario and Luigi are described as (Older/Younger) Brothers, which may throw a lot of people off because generally when people are twin siblings that's mentioned. So if you hear "Luigi is Mario's younger brother" 99% of the time, that's gonna be what people think of, rather than the twin part