The iconic character in video game history made its mark in a Donkey Kong arcade game as the ID of Plumber. He became more than that in the decades to come. From Platformers, any sport in the books, RPG’s even, you name it and they have it in store for you to try.
Mario transcends in the world phenomenon to be engaging to video game goers alike including myself. One of many was Super Mario 64 that taught children how to learn basic instructions. A simple matter of review, using it to progress through the game to defeat a long stride video game bad guy Bowser to save the princess. Toadstool was its original which still is used from time to time, but now she is namely Peach as many of you know her by.
Super Mario RPG was the first RPG in the Mario series in my opinion to show off that part of the generation of traditional games such as Final Fantasy and various others. You get a sense that Bowser isn’t really a bad guy in this one, better yet he joins you to take out a sinister threat that made his castle not usable for his evil ways. To make matters more interesting, a non-Final Fantasy character to this day I am not sure where he came from goes by the name Culex. It ironically plays Final Fantasy music when being fought which at the time was really cool. Onto the next genre of the series.
Super Smash Bros. is accountable as one of the best things to happen in video game history. It brought characters from iconic to unknown individuals that would end up eventually in their own game to become popular for a time. Various companies competed with this with games such as Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat, and more. A world phenomenon saw an even bigger picture on this given game that it made gaming communities to come together to create branches of various communities which is amazing.
Returning to RPG’s, Paper Mario really out done itself in its time. The 1st one is what you could expect: memorable Mario characters, areas, Bowser himself, and others. In the 2nd Paper Mario (known as Thousand Year Door), things took a very different turn which makes it the most intriguing thing in a Mario game. Very sinister plotting in this game was really something. When you come across something that is dangerous, they really mean it. When you successfully collect all seven relics known as Crystal Stars, the Thousand Year Door opens in a dark and disturbing matter. When entered, it plays a stinger that says you should not be here. Even your party members say something feels wrong and we probably shouldn’t be here. That means something in a video game, but you continue onward to see horrors that will transpire at the end of the tunnel. It turns out there was a being known as an Eldritch Abomination that came out of the tomb. It took over the host (that being Peach), and became the one thing Mario wanted to save only to see her as this thing taken over. For the first time in his hero career (and plumber), he lost. Eventually something remarkable happened. The people including his brother Luigi were encouraging him to not give up on the struggle against the ancient being known as the Shadow Queen. Mario did succeed but made it so he got help by others to guide through the fight. So it comes to show you that even Mario cannot always be on a winning streak and must call it quits from time to time.
I name many others but I would be ramble on and on so I made it clear that Mario became an icon in many ways in every video game goer’s view. To the question being what did you see when Mario came into the world of gaming? What is your favorite Mario genre and game thus far? Do you think it will continue to strife through more decades to come?
Thanks for your time and have a great week.
