Finally, It high time we got around to celebrating that which deserves our respect the most. Without Mario, Video Games would not be where they're at now. When you think of the history of video games and the most important developments that allowed it to spread with the wealth of culture it has now, there are only three things that come to mind. The Arcade, the womb with which gaming grew before birth, the home Console system, which was it's birth, and Mario - the Face that all people world wide have given to gaming as a whole
As you are aware, Mario has spent the past two months celebrating his 25th Anniversary with Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo Mastermind, and the rest of the company and it's diehard fans. With this advent, naturally, came the communist reaction of painting everything Red and putting Mario's original sprite on the box image. That's not important though. What is important is that gamers are now coming together to celebrate Mario's history.
But while Mario is celebrating 25, it's not his true age. Born 1981 from the Arcade game "Donkey Kong" (In which he was still named "Jumpman" for his ability to jump higher than a normal human, a trait later flanderized in Squaresoft's Super Mario RPG), Mario began as an innocent Carpenter, attempting to save an ordinary woman by the name of Pauline. The sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. feature Mario as the antagonist for the first and last time in his known career. After having rescued Pauline, and captures the gorilla, Kong Jr was introduced in a similar position are Mario, attempt to rescue his father.
There was a Donkey Kong three, which started a man named Stanley who was dressed similarly to Mario. The game however never made the same level of success as the first two, and as a result, Stanley was left to rot in obscurity. The game is available on the Wii Virtual Console for those interested, but it's not really recommended for a buy.
But compared to where he is now, Mario's role in the Donkey Kong series was still just a concept in the works. Mario Bros. Released 1983 (The same year as Donkey Kong 3) was where this concept took to it's final design. Mario was given the ability to fall from a supernatural height. The gameplay was designed around Mario's increased jumping power. The idea was thrown around that Enemies should be defeated from below, and they worked with that idea. This eventually gave birth to the turtle enemies, that were eventually popularized as "Koopas". This game also gave birth to Luigi, who started out as nothing more than a 2P palette swap.
But the game everyone knows him from, and the game that is celebrating this 25th anniversary is the popular side-scrolling platformer known as "Super Mario Bros." As I'm speaking now, I'm sure a majority of you can already play the first two levels in your head. Released September 13th, 1985 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Mario and Nintendo rode each other to the furthest reaches of the stars, and became invincible for a short period while playing a 5-long second music loop.
And so I would like to join everyone in the festivities, and join you as-err... as we ... wait, why is everyone speaking Russian? :ohdear:
