Pauline's history as Mario's girlfriend was noted by Mike Fahey of
Kotaku, who commented that while Mario and Princess Peach have become "iconic" characters in gaming, "no one gives a damn" about what happened to Pauline.
IGN commented that Pauline was the character that "started it all" by being the captive of Donkey Kong and likened her tight red dress to
Jessica Rabbit.
ABC described her as "the great forgotten character of the Nintendo universe" and charted Pauline's relationship with Mario, highlighting that Nintendo clearly illustrated their love in
Donkey Kong by a pink heart but afterwards she was completely forgotten and later downgraded to Mario's friend. Christopher Hooton writing for
The Independent noted that Pauline had been swiftly replaced by Princess Peach as Mario's love interest for over 25 years, while Pauline "has remained drifting on the fringes of
Mario titles, her story only being advanced by the unrequited libidinous advances of Donkey Kong". Writing in
Popular Culture Review, G. Christopher Williams and Brady Simenson considered Pauline's lack of nobility to be significant. Drawing parallels with the fictional
King Kong filmmaker
Carl Denham who seeks an actress in New York City and finds Ann Darrow, they argued that Mario, as a working-class character, climbs up to reach Pauline as a method of
social mobility, particularly as Pauline is depicted with a slightly higher social status. Author Nathan Altice highlighted the similarities in Pauline's design to Fay Wray, the archetypal damsel in distress of
King Kong, but also opined that her long dress, long hair and boots bore similarities to the 19th century
Wild West. He also compared her attire and role as damsel to the silent film serials of the 1910s, particularly
The Perils of Pauline. Ethan Gach from
Kotaku described Pauline's role in the 1981
Donkey Kong game as "one of the earliest examples of the 'damsel in distress' trope that would haunt games for decades to come". He opined that although Shigeru Miyamoto had explained Nintendo's reliance on damsels by stating that the game has been designed for male gamers in arcades, it was actually the result of applying "outdated notions of identity and gender roles after the fact instead of at the start". Tim Mulkerin of
Mic said that Pauline diverged from other love interests of Mario by being a "run-of-the-mill, absurdly-beautiful-yet-helpless human woman" rather than a princess, but thought that her conversion from damsel to empowered politician in
Super Mario Odyssey was a "fun inversion of a tired trope". After her reappearance in
Super Mario Odyssey, her character was praised for overcoming the damsel in distress archetype to become a woman of power.
Bleeding Cool wrote about how it was a "big deal" for Pauline's sudden return, feeling it was an injustice that she had been relegated to merely a plot point until then, citing it as "one hell of a patriarchy-smashing comeback".
Paste writer Holly Green included Mayor Pauline as one of the best new game characters of 2017, stating that her career and talent as a singer made her an aspirational figure, while also describing her as "one of the oldest and most overlooked characters in the
Mario universe". Nadia Oxford of
USGamer included Pauline in a list of best new Nintendo characters of the past decade, commenting that she admired the character for ruling New Donk City with a "perfumed iron fist".
GameRevolution highlighted that following her appearance in
Mario Tennis Aces, players responded positively to her sex appeal and noted that she had inspired a dedicated fanbase. In 2013, game developer Mike Mika ignited a gender role debate on social media after writing about his
game mod of
Donkey Kong, which he developed for his daughter who said that she wanted to save Mario in the game and play as Pauline. After replacing the game sprites to make Pauline the player character, his progress was posted online. ==Notes==