Super Mario Bros. is 25 years old today. To put that into perspective, Super Mario Bros. came out the same year my wife came out... That's kinda creepy.
I never played the original arcade version very much; the one where Mario and Luigi race across the single frame screen, trying to hit the Pow box first. But the Nintendo Entertainment System version consumed much of my childhood. Especially when I had to wait to play as Luigi... It's nice that they decided to make it a two player game, but if the person playing Mario was any good at all, it basically meant watching someone play Mario all night. Sometimes you never really saw Luigi. And by the time you did, you didn't really feel like playing anymore. And it took me 20 some odd years to finally beat Bowser. Scaly bastard...
I never liked Mario 2 very much. It just didn't feel like a Mario game. Probably because, it really wasn't. Super Mario Bros. 2 was really a Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic. A sequel to Super Mario Bros. with the same game play style as the original was developed and released in Japan, but distributors felt the game was too difficult for American audiences. So they took Doki Doki Panic, inserted the Mario characters, and released it in the U.S. as Super Mario Bros. 2. The Japanese sequel was later released as "The Lost levels" on the Super Nintendo system in the U.S. I liked the music in Super Mario Bros. 2, but I could never get very far in the game. I didn't understand the concept of using different characters for different levels. And I still have no idea what Toadstool's ability is. It was cool being able to choose which character to start with though. Although I suspect a bit of feminist propaganda went into that game, as Princess Peach was the best to use in most situations.
And then came Super Mario Bros. 3. Oh man did I love that game. I still do. And I even still have the issue of Nintendo Power Magazine that includes hints for beating each level. And when I saw the movie The Wizard with Fred Savage, I discovered the warp whistle. And then the white block warp whistle trick. And eventually, I could beat the game in an hour or so. But still, I hold it as one of the best games ever made, and I play it more than most modern games. Then came the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. And Super Mario Bros. cereal. I loved the show as a kid, but I recently watched the first episode again as an adult, and... It doesn't hold up. Much love to Captain Lou Albano (rest in peace), but it was pretty stupid in retrospect. But I watched it faithfully, along with The legend of Zelda animated series, and Captain N: the Game Master. And the cereal... Well, it was basically a cheap Cap'n Crunch knock-off. And not very good as I recall.
And that's kind of where my love for the Mario games ended. Mario didn't do anything wrong; I just wasn't ready to make the jump to the Super Nintendo. I opted for the Sega Genesis instead. I mean, the original NES controller had a directional pad, an A button, a B button, a select button, and a start button. The Super Nintendo controller jumped from that beloved simplicity to a directional pad, an A button, a B button, an X button, a Y button, select, start, and two EXTRA buttons on top! X and Z?! WTF, man! Where's C-W? What's the point of the two top buttons? It was too much, too fast. Sega was much less scary. Directional pad, start, select, A button, B button, and C button. And it had Sonic the Hedgehog, in mind blowing 16 bit. That's TWICE as awesome as 8 bit. And by that time, I was entering the blood code into Mortal Kombat anyway. Pipe plunging and koopa clobbering just didn't have the same appeal as spine removing fatalities. And the Mario Bros. movie... I knew enough to stay far, far away from that one back then, and I still haven't seen it to this day.
I never owned a Nintendo 64, and I'm still struggling with the concept of the Wii. What can I say? I'm old. Technology scares me. But man, those original Mario games were fun.
Happy birthday, you crazy adventuring plumber you.
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