Happy birthday, Mario!

     If you were to tell someone in 1980 that in five years, the world would be introduced to an Italian plumber that would some day hold nearly as much space in pop culture as Mickey Mouse, you would have some pretty weird looks coming your way. That is exactly what happened, however. First introduced in the arcade game, Donkey Kong (1981), as Jumpman, he was a carpenter who had to save his girlfriend, Pauline, from a giant ape. He wouldn't be known as Mario until he was introduced later on in 1985 in Super Mario Brothers for the NES where he had to save Princess Toadstool from King Koopa, and the rest is history. There are a lot of people who even attribute Super Mario Bros. for saving the video game industry as a whole, as there was a huge crash after the licensed ET game for the Atari ended up being so bad that they took copies off shelves and buried them in a desert in New Mexico. This year is the 35th anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros game, and to celebrate, I thought I'd give a little background to my connection with Mario and his games.

    As a little kid, my parents had an NES in their house and of course with that, they had Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3. Those two games were by far the two that I remember playing the most, and probably are what got me into video games in the first place. I never even got close to beating either of them as there was no save feature, and I certainly wasn't willing to sit and play the entire game in one sitting, but I loved the first two and a half worlds of Mario 3 a lot. The Sun that chased you through the desert constantly haunted my nightmares as a child, as did the fish that could eat you, killing you instantly. Mario games have been integral to my growing up experiences, although I never got a Super NES, or a Nintendo 64, so I missed out on Super Mario World and Mario 64. I got a Gamecube in 2002, and with it, I got Super Mario Sunshine, which was a great game, and interestingly enough, I think I enjoyed it more because I didn't play any of Mario 64, as most people really dislike Sunshine because they find it more clunky than that game. I've played every Mario game since then, and all of them have been great, with my current favorite being Mario Odyssey, although both Galaxy games and 3d World and Land are also fantastic. 

    Now it's time for the really exciting stuff (from my perspective), Super Nintendo World! Universal Studios is making a Nintendo theme park area in Universal Tokyo, based on the Super Mario franchise. It was originally going to be opened alongside the opening of the Tokyo Olympic Games this summer, but since those were postponed, Super Nintendo World's grand opening has been postponed indefinitely due to the Pandemic. There have been some videos of how the land looks, and it looks like it's going to be incredible just from how the land is designed. There are Thwomps going up and down, Yoshis run around a tree, clouds float around, and the land really feels like it's alive. They've talked about two rides so far, Mario Kart (which starts inside the portion of the land that looks like Bowser's Castle), and a Yoshi adventure, where you ride on a Yoshi's back through a dark cave. Although we haven't seen anything of either ride, I'm very excited for both of them, unfortunately, Japan is not close, but maybe some day I'll be able to take a trip! On the plus side, there are plans to make another Super Nintendo World in Orlando, although from what I've seen, that land is going to be more themed to be Donkey Kong Country.

    As part of the 35th anniversary celebration, Nintendo has been teaming up with all kinds of different companies. Lego, Levi, Puma, and other brands have joined with Nintendo for creating all kinds of merchandise celebrating the platforming plumber, and finally Nintendo has pulled back the curtain what they've been planning. Super Mario 3D World is being ported over to the Switch with some additional content called Bowser's Fury, although we haven't seen anything of that other than a sweeping overview of a rainy area. A new Mario Kart is coming out, utilizing an Augmented Reality camera mounted on an RC car so that you can set up your own tracks with little gates around your house. This seems like a really cool idea for kids, but I feel like parents are really going to hate that invention. The biggest announcement that they gave was that they're rereleasing Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, and Mario Galaxy as Super Mario 3D All Stars, essentially giving three great games bundled together for $60. Another game that just came out on October 1st was Super Mario 35, a battle royale version of the original Super Mario Bros where you play against 34 other players, certainly an interesting concept and one that I think people are really going to like.

    The one downside of the Super Mario 3D All Stars collection as well as Super Mario 35 is that they are time restricted for some reason. They are both only going to be available until the end of March. Why is that? No one knows. Nintendo is known for playing things close to the chest, as well as taking actions that really don't make a lot of sense. Lots of people have been speculating that they are going to make a Zelda 35 for next year when Legend of Zelda celebrates it's 35th anniversary, but obviously there's nothing concrete about that yet. For now, we're just focusing on Mario, though let's keep our fingers crossed for next year.

     Truly it's amazing that Mario only came onto the scene ten years before I was born, it seems like he's been around forever. I remember when I was in first grade, we had a show and tell day and for my contribution, I brought this pencil pouch that had Mario on it with the classic NES art style, and I told my friends that it was 100 years old, because I really didn't know how long the property or the concept of video games had even been around.

     Happy birthday, Mario! It's been a long time, but who knows where the video game industry would be today if it wasn't for you! Here's to another 35 years of platforming excellence. Thanks for reading this post and I hope you all have a good day! Feel free to share in the comments your favorite Mario memories or anything that you'd like me to talk about in future entries. Thanks again, and I'll talk to you next Friday!