The remake has officially changed the name of Mallow's "Psychopath" ability, which lets players see what enemies are thinking, to "Thought Peek".
Considering the original Super Mario RPG released nearly three decades ago, it was inevitable that a few things would be changed for the 2023 remake. Up until now, we hadn't seen that many changes (aside from ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚthe somewhat controversial new direction the art sty๊le has taken), but that's just changed thanks to an innocuous tweet from .
, the official Nintendo UK account shared an image of Mallow using his Psychopath ability to read the mind of a Wiggler, who says, "I'm just a friendly, harmless caterpillar". Only, this time around Mallow's ability isn't actually called Psychopath, as the tweet reveals that it's been renamed to "Thought Peek".
The tweet reads, "Want a glimpse into your enemies’ innermo𒁏st thoughts? In Super Mario RPG, use Mallow✨’s Thought Peek ability to reveal their weaknesses and see what’s going through their heads during battle!"
Nintendo hasn't yet brought up this change when discussing Super Mario RPG, but it's one that makes sense. Not only does Psychopath not accurately describe what Mallow is doing when he reads his enemy's minds, but the connotation of the word has changed a lot in the 27 years since the original gam🎃e🦋 released and is likely no l𓃲onger viewed by N𒐪intendo as appropriate for a Mario game.
Not only that, but it seems that this change is a bit more accurate to the Japanese name for the ability. According to the Super Mario wiki, the original name for the move in Japanese roughly translates to, "Whatcha Thinking?", which makes sense for a mind-reading ability. "Psychopath", on the other hand, is a more confusing way of describing the ability, and seems to be trying to combine the words "psychic" and "pathway" to describe what Mallow is doing. That, or it's a translation error.
Either way, it's a confusing name for a fairly simplistic ability, so the change to "Thought Peek" not only makes more sense when considering the Japanese name, but also more accurately describes what Mallow is doing. Let's just hope that most players view it that way instead of calling it censorship, eh?
Thankfully, most players seem to be reacting well to the change so far. Beyond a few memes jokingly saying rest in peace to the old name, responses to the change underneath the tweet and mostly seem to agree that it's the right decision.