Since I bought up the Mario mandates yesterday, I guess I should say my current opinion - they're probably real, but not all of them are unjustified. If we're to believe they exist, the rules relating to character designs and cameos are unreasonable, but the ones relating to plot elements and tone are 100% justified. I don't think things like the weird sci-fi font, Horror Land losing the ketchup blood joke, or WarioWare games having less atmospheric levels are mandate things but rather (bad) artistic choices.