It All Ends Up As Mario by SNES Master KI

As I write this sentence, it has been about a day since Nintendo’s 2009 E3 presentation, and the excitement of two Mario platformers being announced still hasn’t completely sunken in. No other series gives me the same kind of thrill when a new entry is unveiled that the Mario platformers do. As I described in a previous article, many of the defining events of my gaming identity revolve around Mega Man. As I also mentioned, the only two series I currently love more than Mega Man X are Mario and Zelda (I’m sure I’ll get to that soon). The Mario series has a huge amount of memories for me, and in honor of the recent announcements, I’m going to share how my identity as a gamer was more or less completed by Mario.

The first Mario game I played was Super Mario World in 1993, on my cousin’s legendary SNES that introduced me to Mega Man X and countless other games. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it was just another game to me at that point, I didn’t enjoy it that much more than Bubsy, which I also first played at that visit. Later that year I chose Genesis as my first console, and became loyal to it. Naturally, this made Mario the enemy. I was as un-jaded as humanly possible when it came to games after subsisting on my DOS games (of which Mega Man 1 and 3 were the best) for a year or so, so I couldn’t really judge quality between games that well. I suspect my choice between Nintendo and Sega came down to image, Sonic was cooler in my 7 year old eyes, and so the Sonic games were better. I don’t mean this as an insult to Sonic, the Genesis games are still great and I think most of the 3D games are underrated, but measuring up to Mario just isn’t something easily done. And so, for about a year, Mario was the enemy, the only thing I knew about the evil Nintendo.

As I mentioned in my previous article, hedgehogs were no match for super fighting robots, and Mega Man X eventually got me to switch loyalties to Nintendo. The SNES I got from a friend of my parents’ came with Super Mario World, so naturally, I sunk my teeth into it. My journey at the tender age of 8 to fully explore Super Mario World was my first truly defining Mario moment. I read in the manual something about Star World, and it leading to an even bigger secret. To my 8 year old self, that was akin to being told today that the secret to time travel might be waiting to be discovered, if I got a doctorate in quantum physics and devoted a few decades to it. But there was no reason not to try, and try I did. Over the course of months, I tried to conquer dinosaur world. The Castle 3 message about the green switch palace haunted me, but I solved a devious puzzle (going into an unmarked pipe? Am I supposed to be psychic!?) and found it. I got through all the ghost houses and their madness inducing coin/switch puzzles. I figured out that a blue Yoshi could get me through Tubular (I beat it normally for the first time in 2002. I feel no shame whatsoever in admitting that) with ease. I unraveled secret after secret, and months after I started, I had done it: 96 exits. I had achieved 100% completion on my first game. Needless to say, this went down as one of my proudest gaming moments.

I had gotten my SNES in 1995, so as soon as I had it the gaming media started hyping the next generation and predicting the death of 16-bit. This was the first generation shift I participated in, and I didn’t want to believe that SNES would die. By late 1996, however, I couldn’t deny it any longer. Being loyal to Nintendo, my pick among the new systems was of course Nintendo 64, but I wasn’t sure if even that was for me. I was very action and linearity oriented as a young gamer (more on that in the Zelda article), and I didn’t like what 3D was doing to gaming. I rented a Nintendo 64 to give it a chance, and of course, the game I rented was Super Mario 64. At first I didn’t like it, not having level endings was frustrating and I didn’t understand why the 7 star file that was on the rented cartridge kept giving me these black stars that didn’t increase my star count. After an epic journey to the top of Whomp’s Fortress, I defeated the titular boss and finally got my 8th star. I entered the first Bowser level, and something clicked. I loved the more linear level design and epic boss fight, and N64 was officially added to my Christmas list. I got the system and Super Mario 64 for Christmas, and a Super Mario World style epic journey began. Months later, I had all 120 stars. Mario had done it again.

After completing Super Mario 64, I purchased Super Mario All-Stars (I had gotten Yoshi’s Island a year earlier) and worked my way through every game in it, completing my Mario platformer experience. But after that, dark times started. The Mario drought of 1997-2005 began, with only a single new Mario platformer released in those years. At the time I didn’t really notice it, but when GameCube’s launch lineup was announced in 2001 with no Mario platformer, around the same time Mario Advance turned out to be a port, it sunk in how freaking long it had been since a new one had been released. The games that would become Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, and Zelda: Wind Waker were confirmed to exist at Spaceworld 2001 with very brief clips of them. I loved all three series by that point, but seeing all three announced made me realize how much more exciting a new Mario platformer was to me. Super Mario Sunshine was probably among my five most anticipated games ever, and the summer of 2002 slowly crept by as the late August release date approached. I greatly enjoyed the game, although in hindsight it was in the lower Mario tiers (stupid blue coins). With the one console Mario having passed and no sign of a new 2D one in sight, the drought continued.

There was a silver lining, however. You don’t really appreciate what you have until it’s… by itself for the near future, I guess. I replayed the Mario platformers several times, and their true brilliance revealed itself to me. Super Mario World rose to its deserved place as my favorite game of all time. Needless to say, I was very, very excited when at E3 2004 DS broke the GBA port curse and a new 2D Mario was finally, FINALLY announced. This wasn’t the end of the Mario drought though, for the next year I anxiously awaited further information on New Super Mario Bros, and got nothing. Watching for news closely, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that absolutely nothing was revealed about the game between E3 2004 and E3 2005. At E3 2005 we finally got a new trailer, setting to rest the horrifying theory that it was just a remake of the first Super Mario Bros. Info trickled out through late 2005 and early 2006, and finally, after nearly two years, a release date was set.

During the post-SMS part of the Mario drought, another Mario project captured the imagination of fans everywhere. The mysterious Super Mario 128 was confirmed with nothing but occasional provoked mentions by Miyamoto, and everyone put their faith in it. Originally planned to be a GameCube game, the years passed and we realized that wasn’t going to happen. Super Mario 128 was the biggest secret in gaming, for me at least it was more enticing than the secret of Revolution’s controller. After being promised a look at it during E3 2005 and getting absolutely nothing, we were forced to pray that E3 2006 would finally reveal the secret. As it turned out, E3 2006 was only a week before the release of New Super Mario Bros, which had been stringing us along about as long as a peek at SM128.

My description for E3 2006 from a Mario perspective is trudging through miles of hot desert to get to one glass of water, than having a tidal wave hit you when you’re a few feet from the glass. Along with the soon to be released New Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Galaxy, Yoshi’s Island DS, and Super Paper Mario (which appeared to be pure platformer in the E3 demo) were all announced. In one of the happiest days of my gaming life, the Mario drought had ended and all was right with the gaming world (I was happy that Nintendo made a comeback, sue me).

My Mario hunger finally sated with New Super Mario Bros, my primary focus turned to Super Mario Galaxy. This game was clearly the closest to Super Mario 128 we were going to get, and so it had years of legend and rumors to live up to. The E3 2006 demo was very early, showing only the small, spherical worlds that caused dooms saying about it not feeling like a real Mario. I had faith in it not to disappoint me, and in the otherwise barren E3 2007, that turned out to be completely justified. We saw plenty of larger and more traditional levels in the near final version, but what really thrilled me was the announcement that there would be over 40 levels and a linear level structure for getting stars. Shortly after finishing Super Mario 64, I fantasized about my ideal sequel, and it was made up of linear levels similar to the SM64 Bowser ones. Watching the evolution of 3D platforming in the decade that followed, I had given up hope of seeing such a Mario. Super Mario Galaxy’s direction seemed nothing short of miraculous, and my hype levels became critical. The 100 purple coins in each level made me shiver, but I kept my hype going throughout the agonizing months, weeks, days, and hours until SMG finally came out.

I tore into it the second I had it, and fell in love. Levels like Toy Time, Dreadnaught, and Matter Splatter were the absolute apex of 3D platforming. Far too soon, I had 105 stars, and it was time to face the purple coins, which I was afraid would be the type of filler that had plagued SM64 and SMS in the later parts of the games. The first challenge I played was Good Egg, no real collecting, just a tutorial to get you used to the format. Honeyhive felt like getting 100 coins in the previous 3D Marios, although their conspicuous appearance improved it a good bit. Then, I reached the Battlerock challenge, and magic happened. Every single coin was in plain site, forming a path on a basically 2D ride through the level that required perfect platforming to master. It wasn’t the filler of Super Mario Sunshine, it was the Special World stages of Super Mario World! I happily collected the remaining stars, and all question in my mind was erased: this was better than Mario World. Having turned 21 shortly before Super Mario Galaxy was released, this was a powerful statement on both a gaming and personal level: the best 3D game had beaten the best 2D one, and had managed to surpass my childhood memories even after the 90s and my childhood had ended (I know 21 isn’t that old, but as I mentioned in a previous article, accelerated nostalgia gland). It wasn’t just the best game of all time, it was a comforting sign that gaming was going to keep getting better no matter how old I got.

That’s probably the most climactic part of my story, but being a gamer, I always hunger for new announcements. I was strongly hoping that this wouldn’t be another once a system Mario fling with a new drought beginning as I collected my 120th star. Throughout 2008 I kept hoping for at least a New Super Mario Bros 2, but E3 had forsaken me and everyone else (it reached Refuge in Audacity when Capcom devoted their entire conference to a movie). Miyamoto hinted that he might do a direct follow-up to Super Mario Galaxy, since common opinion agreed with me that it had perfected the 3D Mario formula and we needed more. More was exactly what I wanted, with some more Super Mario World elements (especially Yoshi, he had been getting ignored), since NSMB and SMG had taken so much from Super Mario Bros 3. There were rumblings that E3 2009 would be a return to form for the conference, but I had been burned before (Reggie lied, E3 2008 died) and tried not to get my hopes up.

Well, as you probably already know, the miracle happened twice. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was EXACTLY what I wanted, and we got a new 2D Mario for Wii (with Yoshi!) as well. E3 is completely redeemed from that alone, and the Mario drought is officially dead. And on that happy note, my Mario story is over, for now. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of new memories from New Super Mario Bros Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and whatever other platforming centered worlds Mario finds his way into. Until next time, keep jumping on stuff.