She told us to stay fresh…we didn't listen.

Oddly I'm reminded of the Donkey Kong 64 beta. Before they gave all the Kongs the wooden weapons, Rare was originally going to give them real guns, like Diddy would have dual pistols and DK was going to have a double barrel shotgun. Nintendo told Rare to change it to something else because they wanted the game to have an E rating, and the realistic guns probably would have been enough to bump it to T. This is one case of "executive meddling" I feel actually was a good thing because the wooden fruit shooting guns feel like they fit in better given the game is cartoony and silly.

I say this little anecdote because now I'm imagining "what if before paintball inspired weapons, the devs thought of using M-16s and the like, but kept the art style the same?"