Why We Play Mario

If one video game character has withstood the
test of time, it's Mario. Despite playing second fiddle to a giant ape
in his 1980 debut, Donkey Kong,
everyone's favorite Italian plumber went on to star in the
world-changing NES classic, Super Mario Bros.,
and subsequently saved the video game industry from itself -- a much
greater feat than rescuing some ditzy princess.
Granted, Mario's initial adventure in the Mushroom Kingdom wasn't the
first side-scrolling 2D platformer, but it was the first 2D
side-scrolling platformer done right. It might be hard to imagine with
our modern-day emphasis on realism and grit, but 25 years ago, the
carefree journey of a squat, mustachioed man in overalls brought video
games away from their status as a passing fad, and soon turned Nintendo
into a household name. Without Mario, it's entirely plausible that we
folks of the future would treat video games with the same patronizing
terms we reserve for something like air hockey. That's a pretty big
deal.
If Mario simply arrived to rehabilitate the video game industry and
fade away into the ether, he'd still be an iconic figure of the medium;
after all, Pac-Man simply offered a few minor variations on a simple
theme before taking a decades-long leave of absence, and most would
argue that he's just as recognizable as Mario. But Mario creator Shigeru
Miyamoto didn't decide to rest on his laurels after creating his
pop-culture institution; as the years passed, each Mario sequel expanded
and refined the possibilities for 2D gaming, all with a level of polish
and care that made Nintendo stand out against so many imitators. And,
as times changed and consoles made the inevitable jump to 3D, Mario's
polygonal debut was far from clumsy; Super Mario 64
had the same level of system-selling momentum as Mario's first NES
outing, mostly by virtue of being leagues better than any other 3D game
of the era. It would be years before anyone came close to catching up.




While Mario's 3D adventures haven't been quite as prolific as his 2D
ones, each title has offered a refinement and unique spin on the
framework built by Super Mario 64. Mario's latest outing, Super Mario Galaxy
2 -- a rare Mario sequel within the same console generation as its
predecessor -- promises to deliver further improvements on the original
Galaxy, which is widely regarded as the best 3D platformer around
(admittedly, there's not much competition nowadays). So what better time
than now to take a walk down memory lane and figure out what makes this
Mario guy and his collection of games so appealing?





He's Got Character


With today's collection of angry, bald, anti-hero protagonists, the
roly-poly, falsetto-voiced Mario seems like a bit of an anomaly --
though he did come straight from an era where video game stars could
range from bubble-blowing dinosaurs to circus clowns. Still, there's a
certain timeless quality to Mario, and the idea of a working-class
underdog hero isn't likely to lose popularity anytime soon. Looking into
the circumstances around his creation, Mario can be considered the
quintessential video game protagonist, as his iconic design is entirely
the result of the technical limitations of early arcade hardware.


In an interview for the 1991 Nintendo Power supplement, Mario
Mania, Shigeru Miyamoto gives details on the creation of Mario's
design: "We gave him a mustache rather than a mouth because that showed
up better. We gave him a hat rather than hair because that looked
better, too. Mario wears overalls because that shows the movement of his
arms, and he's wearing white gloves because the white contrasts better
with the colored backgrounds." These highly-identifiable features may
make Mario appealing to the eye, but there's also a lot of heartwarming
humility packed into his husky little figure. When asked why Mario took
on the profession of plumbing, Miyamoto replied, "We wanted him to be a
character that works very hard," adding, "Also, we wanted him to be
shorter than enemy characters and the princesses he rescues."




This affable and approachable quality definitely makes Mario unique
to the world of video games; in a medium caught up with being "cool,"
Nintendo's mascot hasn't ever strived to be anything other than himself.
Even in the dreaded '90s, when backwards baseball caps, sunglasses,
skateboards, and sneers were cynically grafted onto video game
characters in an attempt to appeal to kids looking for entertainment
that would undoubtedly annoy their parents, Mario and his games remained
untouched by the fleeting movements of pop culture, safely sealed in
their own whimsical bubble.



1UP user doggerel also sees the same sort of timeless
goofiness in Mario: "He's kinda like that cousin with A.D.D. you see at
family get-togethers. Jumping around all over the place and yelling.
Really fun to goof off with for a while and you know he's always there
for a good time."


But Mario games aren't about Mario alone; from the very beginning,
they've always been an ensemble affair. It's true that the Mario
universe has grown so much in the past 30 years that its amount of
secondary characters have grown to rival that of The Simpsons, though
the games still revolve around the same core handful of characters that
came into being way back in the '80s. Take a look at the character
select screen for Super Mario Bros. 2
and you'll see the main players of the Mario series haven't changed,
even with the passing of two decades. It's true that each sequel manages
to introduce its own tertiary cast, but when you pick up a Mario game,
you expect to see the same characters that've been traversing bottomless
pits since the Reagan era -- and Nintendo never disappoints in this
respect.







He's Got Style



If you need evidence as to the timelessness of Mario's core
mechanics, you only need to take a gander at the sales of New Super Mario
Bros., both on the DS and the Wii. While these games are certainly
more complex than the 1985 classic -- which itself is still downloaded
en masse over Nintendo's Virtual Console service -- the fundamentals of
Mario are basically unchanged in these new takes on a very old premise.
Very few games from the mid-'80s hold up to modern tastes, but jumping
back into the original Super Mario Bros. barely requires any adaptation;
from its inception, Mario's debut adventure marked one of the first
instances where a humanoid video game character wasn't impossible to
control.

Sure, by that point arcade developers had mastered the art of flying
spaceships, but moving anything on two legs was anything but graceful.
Even in Donkey Kong and the original Mario Bros.,
Mario feels like he's at the complete mercy of gravity. But Super Mario
Bros. was akin to a left-to-right scrolling ballet, as it allowed the
player to stop on a dime, turn around in mid-air, and perform any manner
of derring-do to get from point A to the end of a Princess-free castle.




So amazing were Mario's acrobatic feats that gamers simply played the
sequels to see what new tricks he has up his sleeve -- and they still
do. Each successive sequel adds a few additions to Mario's move set, all
while never veering too far from what makes Mario Mario. His variety of
costumes may be a far cry from the simple Starman and Fire Flower
power-ups of 1985, but the essential running, leaping and bouncing
haven't changed much in the past 25 years, despite the addition of a
whole new dimension. In simpler times, we were wowed by the fact that
Mario could fly, since vertical exploration was something that had
rarely been done before in a 2D platformer. And this simple addition to
the Mario formula (advanced even further by Super Mario World)
expanded the potential for secrets and exploration -- both hallmarks of
the Mario series.




Today, even as jaded adults, Mario still manages to hijack the whimsy
center of our brains by going places and doing things we never thought
possible, with Super
Mario Galaxy's gravity mechanic being the latest advancement. And,
as with all Mario games, Miyamoto and crew didn't need a few attempts to
get this idea right -- it was perfect the first time around.


But this perfection isn't just a happy accident; it's something that
Shigeru Miyamoto strives for in all of his games -- which may be the
reason why we have to wait so long in between sequels. When Mario first
made the transition to 3D, the potential for complete failure was always
a possibility; just think of how many former franchises failed to live
on in the 32-bit world. But by pinning down the fundamentals first -- a
Miyamoto trademark -- Super Mario 64 set a standard for 3D gaming back
when there was none. And even though Miyamoto has since moved on to more
of a mentor position at Nintendo, his acolytes still practice their
master's techniques -- though Miyamoto is still very much in control. In
the Super Mario Galaxy-focused installment of Wii.com's
"Iwata Asks," director Yoshiaki Koizumi explains the development of
several prototypes for Mario's first Wii outing via a food-based
analogy:?





"We sent every plate to Kyoto for [Miyamoto] to sample, and he would
comment back by saying things like, 'this is a little too hot' or, 'this
tastes better.' Towards the end of development, we had him come visit
our 'restaurant' in Tokyo. While he was here, we had him sample an
unbelievable number of dishes. We had him eat until he was very full."



Koizumi and crew's efforts to perfect the gravity-defying action of
Super Mario Galaxy more than paid off; the game is widely regarded as
Mario's finest 3D adventure, if not the greatest 3D platformer of all
time. And it's this level of quality that brings people like 1UP user kentdoggydog
back to the Mario series time and time again. "For the most part, the
Mario name has become synonymous with quality," says kent. "If you are
looking for a certain type of gaming experience, it's a safe bet that
the game with "Mario" in its name is going to have a level of production
quality well above those with the latest DreamWorks SKG movie..."


1UP user spunky_d_99
agrees: "I play Mario games because each new one gets better. But best
of all, there isn't a Super Mario [platformer] game that I can point to
and say, 'Ugh...I don't want to play that one anymore.' Each game
manages to be as good now as they were years ago."


He's Got Versatility



From the very beginning, the Mario series has been overflowing with
ideas, including some that had to be put on the back burner until time
was right. Miyamoto wanted Mario to ride a dinosaur in the first Super
Mario Bros., but technical limitations pushed this concept forward in
time to the superior power of the Super Nintendo. Even more famously,
Miyamoto hinted at the possibility of Mario wearing metal clothes in his
Mario Mania interview; five years later, this fanciful suggestion
became reality in Super Mario 64.

And this latest Mario sequel is a result of the Galaxy team having
too much creativity for a single game. When asked in a 2009 Wired interview why we're seeing another game
so soon within the same console generation, Miyamoto simply stated, "The
biggest reason is because we simply hadn't run out of ideas within the
system that we'd created for Super Mario Galaxy."




From the very beginning, Mario has been the Whitman's Sampler of
gaming; when most people were used to simple screen arcade games, Super
Mario Bros. took them on a tour of land, sea, air, and dungeon -- all
while never lingering too long in any specific environment. And as the
games grew more complex, so too did the variety. Mario 2 featured three
new playable characters with new and unique abilities, an entirely new
cast of enemies, and settings that varied from snowy peaks to dusty
deserts. Mario 3 upped the ante by seemingly cramming more content than
thought possible into an NES cart; each of the game's eight worlds offer
their own distinct setting, complete with enemies and styles of play
unique to these areas. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a modern
(non-Mario) game with the sheer amount of variety found in Super Mario
Bros. 3, and later, Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island
-- as of this writing, still criminally unavailable on the Wii's
Virtual Console.


While Super Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine
shouldn't be discounted entirely, Super Mario Galaxy is the true
successor to the legacy of the 2D Mario games. Building on the lessons
learned from Mario's first two 3D outings, the Galaxy team developed a
game more in line with the short, snappy, and always-surprising levels
of classic Mario. In the tradition of Mario past, Galaxy never tarries
too long on a single idea; and the game's somewhat open ended nature
allows you to pick and choose the type of experience you want at your
leisure, from manta ray surfing to creeping through ghost houses. Galaxy
2 might not possess the same revelatory qualities of the original, but
it can be considered the Super Mario World to the first Galaxy's Super
Mario Bros. 3: an exercise in variations on a very solid theme.






He's Just Plain Fun

Ultimately, the reason why we play Mario games is the reason why we
play video games themselves: to explore, to experiment, and to be
entertained. And it's hard to find a franchise that fulfills these three
requirements much better than Mario. Since the days of the NES, Mario
games have been shaping the face of game design and setting new
benchmarks for quality and creativity. And while you can easily write
volumes about the philosophy behind what makes Mario games so appealing,
nothing speaks more words than that unmistakable feeling you get upon
digging into Mario's latest adventure.
1UP User dilutedme
says it all: "I play Mario games because they are fun. What other
reason do need?"











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