Super Mario games are way better than what they look at first glance, in my opinion. E.g. even the 16-bit SNES Super Mario World, with its modest looking by its time, has a huge amount of work below everything: the games are so good because there is way more than the first impression. Perfect game play, lots of secrets, pretty amount of freedom, etc. make you enjoy and love them over time. Pure genius, pretending being just simple video games.
Shigeru Miyamoto named SMW the game he was most proud of. I can see why that is.
SMW, Super Mario Kart and The Legend Of Zelda on the SNES are milestones of the genre, never again has this level of perfection been reached in 2D gaming imho (excluding SMK here).
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is no. 1 on some all-time best of lists. Maybe its the impression it made on many of us in our youth, but a year ago I played it again, and it was still great. The music, the art style, the controls - its the stuff that nostalgia is made of.
How old were you in 1990? Because I was 12 and remember SMW's arrival very clearly. I had played video games enthusiastically for years. Super Mario World was not at all modest looking for its time. It was absolutely mind blowing. It was gorgeous and everything was so smooth, and the number of different animations Mario had, plus being able to ride Yoshi, it was a total revelation.
I don't recall the game being "modest looking" at the time. I remember being impressed with the greatly improved graphics and all of the beautiful colors. You have to consider Super Mario World as a predecessor to Super Mario Brothers 3. Perhaps removed from its historical context, it may look modest, but I was blown away at the time.
I remember watching some silly Hong Kong movie on TV one night when I was living in a hostel in Taiwan in the late 1990's. The people staying at the hostel were all fairly young and included Americans, Brazilians, French, Germans, Japanese, South Asians and whatnot. Most of us were chatting in whichever languages we happened to have in common, or halfway paying attention to the TV. I forget what the movie was about, but at one point there was a dream sequence or something and suddenly the actors are wearing overalls and hats with big fake mustaches and they start running around big green pipes and jumping on turtle shells. And suddenly the whole room started laughing because everyone understood the reference. Mario was a cultural touchstone we all had in common.
Super Mario Bros supercharged my interest in appdev and eventually indie game making.
My first computer was an IBM PCjr with various games on floppy, a cartridge BASIC, and a spiral-bound programming manual. Not sure how old I was, old enough to read, but as I was flipping through the manual one day, I noticed one of my brothers had scribbled words next to the colors in the section on drawing to the screen: brown had "block", cyan had "sky", etc. It was a mapping of Super Mario Bros tiles to BASIC colors. It was at that point that I realized I didn't just have to play games made by others. I could make my own!
A couple decades later and I'm still making them. I like to think my skills have improved some since those days :)
I lived through Mario taking over the world and it's really no mystery; the main line Mario games have been universally really solid. The one black sheep, Super Mario Sunshine, is still a solid game it just was too big of a change from Mario 64 for people to handle at the time.
Particularly Super Mario Bros 1, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 really pushed games forward. Each one of them really opened up new possibilities in games that the rest of the industry was influenced by.
The amazing thing is that Nintendo did that with the Zelda series as well, but this thread is about Mario.
Super Mario Sunshine holds up pretty well. I still really enjoy going back to it today. Even more than Mario 64 (although that's still a great game too). The controls were a lot tighter than Super Mario Galaxy, I feel, because it didn't use any motion controls.
The nieces still play Super Mario Kart with their friends. It would be cool if Nintendo could release a smartphone version of this, with multi-player over Bluetooth.
NES clones are still going strong in India :) Summers spent playing pirated games on 8-bit cartridges - what joy!
SNES sadly was a rarity, even if it was much better (I'd personally rate SNES higher than Wii). Frankly, if there were nice touch interfaces for SNES emulators, I'd gladly pay $10. Carrying a bluetooth gamepad is definitely an alternative.
If you can, try to get ahold of 'Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered The World' book by David Sheff. I got it eons ago as a freebie along with 'Arcade' magazine and proceeded to read it as I had nothing better to do at the time. It has to be one of the best game-oriented (industry) book I've read.
Sadly there was a real-actors saturday morning TV super mario show in the early 90ies which forever spoiled the character for me. (Even worse then the blockbuster movie). The games are the best there is, but he never became cool - in my humble opinion.
Thanks to Netflix, my 8-year-old and 5-year-old think it's a good show. It's cheesy, but it's hard for me to get too, err, emotional about it when I compare it to the other things I watched at the same age. (I never did see that when it was out.)
My wife was on the verge of putting the parental veto on it, but the kids moved on to other things. I didn't mind it so much, but the Netflix version has the Legend of Zelda stuff yanked out (presumably licensing issues), which probably helps out overall, as I gather that part of the show was legendarily (pun intended) annoying.
[+] [-] faragon|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrBuddyCasino|9 years ago|reply
SMW, Super Mario Kart and The Legend Of Zelda on the SNES are milestones of the genre, never again has this level of perfection been reached in 2D gaming imho (excluding SMK here).
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is no. 1 on some all-time best of lists. Maybe its the impression it made on many of us in our youth, but a year ago I played it again, and it was still great. The music, the art style, the controls - its the stuff that nostalgia is made of.
[+] [-] ebbv|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Donzo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scuds|9 years ago|reply
Super Mario did for video games like Star Wars did for sci-fi and special effects.
[+] [-] cpach|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hiepph|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] loudmax|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mysterydip|9 years ago|reply
My first computer was an IBM PCjr with various games on floppy, a cartridge BASIC, and a spiral-bound programming manual. Not sure how old I was, old enough to read, but as I was flipping through the manual one day, I noticed one of my brothers had scribbled words next to the colors in the section on drawing to the screen: brown had "block", cyan had "sky", etc. It was a mapping of Super Mario Bros tiles to BASIC colors. It was at that point that I realized I didn't just have to play games made by others. I could make my own!
A couple decades later and I'm still making them. I like to think my skills have improved some since those days :)
[+] [-] ebbv|9 years ago|reply
Particularly Super Mario Bros 1, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 really pushed games forward. Each one of them really opened up new possibilities in games that the rest of the industry was influenced by.
The amazing thing is that Nintendo did that with the Zelda series as well, but this thread is about Mario.
[+] [-] gohrt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cableshaft|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Bros.
[+] [-] godzillabrennus|9 years ago|reply
Super Mario Galaxy redeemed them.
Biggest issue of the Wii U has been no solid open world 3D Mario title.
[+] [-] chiph|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Waterluvian|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JonnieCache|9 years ago|reply
info: http://bombch.us/giU
(yes, speedrunners have their own, zelda themed url shortener.)
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] akssri|9 years ago|reply
SNES sadly was a rarity, even if it was much better (I'd personally rate SNES higher than Wii). Frankly, if there were nice touch interfaces for SNES emulators, I'd gladly pay $10. Carrying a bluetooth gamepad is definitely an alternative.
[+] [-] Keyframe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] franze|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerf|9 years ago|reply
My wife was on the verge of putting the parental veto on it, but the kids moved on to other things. I didn't mind it so much, but the Netflix version has the Legend of Zelda stuff yanked out (presumably licensing issues), which probably helps out overall, as I gather that part of the show was legendarily (pun intended) annoying.
[+] [-] lostgame|9 years ago|reply
Maybe better not to be cool?
[+] [-] gohrt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kellet|9 years ago|reply