Game Stooge

Biography of Mario

• Scribbled on August 17th, 2007 by Derrick Schommer
• Filed in Action, Adventure, Editorial Content, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Game Boy Advance, Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo Wii, Off Topic, Platformer, RPG, Retro

The game designer Shigeru Miyamoto invented one of the most powerful gaming mascots of all time: Mario. For the last 25 years, Mario has brightened the lives of gamers all over the world. In 1981, Mario made his first screen appearance in Donkey Kong and followed with Donkey Kong Jr. In 1983, Mario would get his own feature title Mario Brothers. From that watershed point, there was no looking back for this shining star.

Mario and his brother Luigi take credit for some of the worlds most popular game titles. They did not do this all alone. Mario and his friends guest-starred in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, where Mario donned a referee outfit to provide assistance in the ring. His friends appeared in the crowd as onlookers while Little Mac pummeled his opponents to the mat over and over. This 1984 arcade game was just a stepping-stone for great advancement in Mario’s career.

In 1985, Mario would star in the best selling game of all time, according to The Guinness Book of World Records (1999). One cannot deny Mario’s fame in Super Mario Brothers. The name “Super Mario” would be synonymous with classic gaming. Mario, Luigi, Princess, Toad, and some of the world’s most renowned enemies would set foot into the history books. The 1980s would never be the same.

It is hard to nail down one key feature that made Super Mario Brothers an ingenious work of art. The game laid the foundation for the side-scrolling genre, and future side-scrolling games duplicated many of the features of this classic. The beauty of Super Mario Brothers lies in its simplicity.

Mario does not wield a gun, sword, or black-ops gear. His most powerful weapons, excluding the invisible star power, are his abilities to shoot ranged fireball attacks and hop his enemies into submission. Mario uses his steroid-like “magic mushroom” effect to grow larger and more powerful, stomping his way to victory. This one title vaulted Mario’s career to magnificent proportions and children of the 1980s would recognize Mario more than they would recognize Disney’s Mickey Mouse, something of which was no small feat.

At first glance, we base Mario’s outstanding success on the fact that Super Mario Brothers shipped standard with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). However, Super Mario Brothers 3 may be the best selling non-packaged game of all time, proving he helped console sales and not vice versa. The success in the NES product line and the recovery of the video game crash of 1983 may be to the credit of Mario himself. How can one little plumber be responsible for such great feats? It was a time when everyone needed a hero like Mario.

Mario claims to be the inspiration for many game designers. Case in point, the designers at ID Software say they developed Commander Keen in the likeness of Super Mario Brothers. Wikiepedia.org claims that this game began as a PC port of Super Mario Brothers 3! That type of inspiration sent Mario to new heights. He then went on to produce a sequel to his Super Mario Brothers success and got himself on the cover of the first issue of Nintendo Power for his efforts. Mario was becoming a fictional living legend in the making.

Super Mario Brothers 2, released in 1988, was not the true second sequel to Mario’s claim to fame. Japan
saw the release of Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels in 1986, which never made it to the United States. People say this release is one of the most challenging games produced in the NES Super Mario series. The US release of Super Mario Brothers 2 was unique because Mario brought on new supporting roles for Luigi, Princes Peach, and Toad. The player could select one of these characters every time they chose a level of play. Each character had traits that made them desirable or best fit for a given stage. Mario was, of course, the most well balanced character, but Princess Peach could levitate, Luigi could jump high and drift (which he also could do in Lost Levels), and Toad could pickup items faster than any other selectable character in the game.

This game also introduced a life meter similar to that of Zelda, but more simplified. Gamers could now take more than one or two hits before losing a life. This gave the game a little more “adventure” type game play than the typical Mario action arcade approach.

Although Mario experimented with different game genres before his Super Mario Brothers 2 release, none of them brought him as much fame as his own side-scrolling action adventures. He enjoyed some time in Nintendo’s Golf game and Wrecking Crew, both released in 1985. These games simply reinforced the idea that Nintendo had chosen their platform mascot. It was Super Mario Brothers 3 that proved, beyond any doubt, Mario could sell copies without being a bundled game solution.

Super Mario Brothers 3, released in the US during February 1990, was a departure from the Super Mario Brothers 2 game style. Mario decided to seek the roots of his success, which meant losing Princess Peach and Toad in their roles as playable characters. Peach found herself captured again in the clutches of King Bowser. Toad became a helper character that made appearances in “Toad Houses” throughout the world, but would not be playable by the gamers. This version contained a new feature that replicated itself through many other Mario adventures: the ability to move around the world backwards and forwards. This concept put Mario in more of an action adventure genre more than simple arcade side-scrollers.

After a small stint earning his PhD and gaining the title Dr., Mario returned to the US in brighter colors during the late summer of 1991. His new title Super Mario World contained 16-bit graphics and ran on the new Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) platform. Mario could see the success in the SNES console and wanted a piece of that coin. He knew this time he would have to work hard to keep the fans interested. After many screen castings, Yoshi was chosen to add a unique game play experience to Mario’s popular franchise. Yoshi filled the void Mario saw in his side-scrolling mayhem. This placed Yoshi on the front cover artwork for the Super Mario World box. Although Yoshi would go on to create his own spin-off game in 1992 called Yoshi’s Cookie, he never experienced the same fame as he did in Super Mario World.

Up to this point, Mario had guest-starred in many Nintendo platform games, found an arch enemy known as Wario, and created spin-offs using his name to bring up Nintendo sales figures. Mario tried many roles in the gaming industry but always felt typecast as that wacky plumber. Then 1992 saw the release of Super Mario Kart, where Mario suits up and competes against some of his co-workers in a race to the finish. This classic racing game used a new technology known as Mode 7 to show off the impressive graphics of the SNES. Mario was finally included in a game considered a success story that didn’t involve him constantly jumping and side scrolling around the world of mushrooms.

Mario said, “I might not be the star of the show, but it breaks me out of the action adventure genre.” This game helped launch Mario into a new genre of gaming, but it wasn’t the boost he was hoping. The next year Mario was back to his side-scrolling role.

Many retro gamers can recall the Super Mario series clearly in their minds. However, it is important to differentiate the graphical changes that occurred to the classic games over time. Lucas Films most likely got the idea of re-releasing their films with revised coloring from Mario’s historical decision-making. Mario was no fool. When he complained to the producers that his old games needed a severe face-lift to bring them “into the 90s,” it was immediately put into production. In 1993, the Super Mario All Stars SNES cartridge was an instance success. The original Super Mario Brothers fit the look and feel of the 1990s with clean cut lines, bright 16-bit colors, and a few minor tweaks and fixes in the game system itself. This bundled cartridge contained enhanced versions of Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 2, and Super Mario Brothers 3. After some struggle, Mario convinced the producers to re-publish it again a year later to include Super Mario World.

After his successful remake, Mario burned most of his coin on drugs and alcohol. His various roles in games involved tennis on a failed Virtual Boy system, Mario Clash on that same failed device, a few Japanese only releases on the SNES, and other games that contained his name but not the fame. A few years of trying to find his way back into the industry as a star looked bleak. One quickly forgets a mascot lost in the shadows and Mario was becoming a classic history legend, but history does not bring in bright yellow coins. Mario was becoming a Nintendo platform legend and it wasn’t until 1996 when he saw his chance to bounce back.

In 1996, the fifth generation of US consoles rescued Mario from the bottle. His flagship “killer game” pushed the initial sales of the Nintendo 64 through the roof and sold a total of 11 million copies. This is the first three dimensional (3D) Mario game in the series. Mario had the chance, once again, to become the foundation for the new 3D platform adventures. Mario claimed to have birthed the side-scroller genre and now he was claiming the 3D environment as well. The 3D realm was all new to gamers around the world but this game held true to its signature look and feel. Mario again was in the coin.

Mario used the Nintendo 64 platform to launch a remake of his popular Kart game with Mario Kart 64. Racing now occurred in a beautiful 3D world with colorful landscapes, hills, bumps, and unique track locations. New items were added to bring in more dynamics, CPU racers were made slightly more realistic (no longer having infinite weapons) and the Karts could now drift! This was a great remake of an original classic, but it did not break Mario into a new genre. Mario broke into the RPG scene with Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64 to bring in some additional cash to pay for his game-fame lifestyle. This game met critical acclaim from a number of reviewers and was one of the Nintendo 64’s only RPG games.

The following years gave Mario a chance to reflect on his success and spend some of the coin he had pulled in from these new platforms. Yet again, Mario was the mascot for many more Nintendo 64 and handheld games. Most of these were simply sequels to NES and SNES games with the number “64” tacked on the end (i.e. Dr. Mario 64). The last great genre breaker for Mario was Super Smash Brothers, but his role in this game was as a selectable character – nothing special. He once told a reporter “I wasn’t even an unlockable character!” – The ego of Mario was swelling. He even scoffed at Luigi for having his own Luigi’s Mansion hit title a few years later.

The Nintendo Game Cube gave Mario his chance for another great action adventure. The next well-received game, Super Mario Sunshine, boasted high scores by IGN, Gamespy, and GameSpot. However, many game critics called it a rehash of Super Mario 64 with no ground-breaking features. Others said it lacked innovation and the addition of FLUDD, the water backpack, was simply a gimmick. Mario fell to the shadows again, wondering to himself if this was finally the end.

The next few years saw Mario in the drink once more. A famous star now making cameos in games like Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and a few Paper Mario RPG games helped keep him floating with positive financials, but much of this went up his nose. A lifestyle of the rich and famous can be tough on a superhero like Mario and a few too many magic mushrooms could put him in the gutter for good. In 2003, Mario produced yet another Mario Kart sequel known as Mario Kart: Double Dash! for the Game Cube. This exciting Game Cube racer was yet one of many racing games for the new console. It seemed to compete well with the likes of Need For Speed, but many called it more of a “kids game” and not a true racing classic. Die-hard Nintendo fans knew otherwise, but it is hard to face the wrath of a few cynical critics. This did not help Mario’s habitual mushroom problems.

In 2006, Mario returns with his old friends from Super Mario Brothers to build a hand held classic game known as New Super Mario Brothers. The title is a little plain, but the game content holds this title true to the Mario series. Mario finds himself back to his old tricks with some of his good friends on a smaller hand held device. If he could have seen how far the game production technology would go back in 1981 he would have fallen dead on the spot. Mario now arrives on a cartridge a little larger than a quarter!

Rehabilitation has gone well for Mario and he will be returning in the next ground breaking classic on the Nintendo Wii. Mario Galaxy is supposed to be his next innovative creation that no competitor will beat. When confronting Mario, he simply states, “all is on schedule, but due to my NDA I’m not allowed to comment further on the project.” Mario may be getting up in years but his enthusiasm still remains. Perhaps we’ll see him again this Holiday Season.