Great Games: Super Mario Bros.
NOTE: This piece was originally published to commemorate 30 years of Super Mario Bros. in 2015.
“Perhaps the classic game remains an IGN favorite because it helped revitalize the videogame industry in the post-Atari era of gloom and doom. Or maybe it’s cherished above all others because it so effortlessly represents everything that makes us love Nintendo-developed games in general: an unwavering attention to play control and level design. The game, which stars Nintendo’s classic mascot hero Mario in 30-some levels of inspired 2D platforming, introduced millions of players to videogames and left them captivated. Super Mario Bros. remains one of the most pioneering and influential titles to date. More importantly, it’s every bit as addictive, enjoyable, and satisfying today as it was two decades ago.”
Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Bowser have only been with us for thirty years, and yet they have grown to be as iconic in the eyes of children as Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Superman, Spider-Man, Kermit the Frog, and Snoopy. Video games have taken over a substantial segment of American pop culture, and this doesn’t seem to be dying down any time soon. Much like Chess, Go Fish, or Monopoly, they’ve become a game for the next generation, the computer generation. As society became more technologically advanced, it only made sense that our diversions would grow right along with them. The initial leaps into the area of video games were simple, but enjoyable, with Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man,and Tetris. Though eventually, video games grew into storytelling devices, something you can’t quite get in Battleship or Checkers. Older persons dreamt of the narratives of Odysseus, Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, Zorro, Batman, Flash Gordon, and Luke Skywalker. Maybe today’s young people dream of Link, Sonic, Samus, Cloud, and Mario.
For a game that was released in 1985, Super Mario Bros. has a freshness to it that many of today’s top-selling shooters, or role-playing adventures seem to lack. Even though I’ve been exposed to countless Mario-related media for a long time now, picking up the original game itself never gets tiresome. Perhaps it’s the appeal of the Mushroom Kingdom, immortalized in the pixels of the Nintendo Entertainment System, that had landscapes as diverse as distinct green pipes, towering spotted fungi, undersea mazes and fiery dungeons. Though this journey would be nothing if not brought along by Kenji Kondo’s world-famous theme music, one that has been a ringtone on everyone’s cellphone at least once. You can play as either Mario or Luigi, Italian plumbers who have to rescue Princess Peach from the hands of the dragon-like Bowser. Your trek has many obstacles, Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Lakitu, Bill Blasters, and Piranha Plants among others. Though there are many skills at your disposal to challenge them. The mushroom that doubles your size, the flower that lets you throw fireballs, and that rare invincibility star. At the end of each stage, Bowser is there to greet you the flaming halls of his dungeon, and after defeating him with speed, the Toad is there to tell you that Peach is in another castle. She’s always in another castle, isn’t she?
Super Mario Bros. came at a time when video games were on the decline. Jeff Gertsmann of Gamespot has said, “It’s the game that essentially brought console gaming back from the brink of destruction after Atari buried all those copies of E.T. in the desert and the Atari 2600 console was crushed under the weight of a million unsold Pac-Man tapes.” Mario himself had his origins as “Jumpman” in Donkey Kong, Shigeru Miyamoto’s debut arcade game, in which the protagonist was meant to be Popeye (until licensing got in the way). In an interview with Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, Miyamoto, Mario’s director, said when crafting the new game, he knew that the fun would come from the player’s frustration. This anger, however, had to come not from the perceived unfairness of the game, but the perceived inadequacy of the player’s own skill. This is because many of Mario’s actions are simple, it’s just putting different actions together that can be difficult, as Miyamoto says, “Now, a fun game should always be easy to understand — you should be able to take one look at it and know what you have to do straight away. It should be so well constructed that you can tell at a glance what your goal is and, even if you don’t succeed, you’ll blame yourself rather than the game.”
This is very true. Super Mario Bros. is simple in the sense that anyone can play it, but tricky in the sense that it requires some practice to get used to the new levels and enemies. As the gamer goes forward, they may get killed by a bottomless pit or a flinging hammer, but the redos become practice, and the player can sense their skill growing. Few moments in gaming are as satisfactory as leaping onto that green flagpole or pulling the ground from underneath Bowser’s feet.
In the thirty years since its release, the video game industry has grown into one worth millions of dollars, and Mario himself, Nintendo’s flagship character. One could argue, even, that Mario has come to represent video games as a whole. He has gone onto to become a doctor, fly through the galaxies of space, race over rainbows, fight in the area with Pikachu, star in a (terrible) Hollywood film, play in the Olympics alongside Sonic, and even get a cameo in The Simpsons. Luke Plunkett has said that part of Mario’s appeal is his familiarity, “while other companies and characters either disappear into the history books or undergo awkward changes as they cling to relevance, Mario remains almost exactly the same. Still wearing red overalls, still with that goofy moustache, still risking life and limb to rescue the same, careless Princess.” Of course, the other characters in the game were able to ride the coattails. Luigi often did much the same things as Mario, later coming into his own with games like Luigi’s Mansion. Nintendo even dedicated the year of 2013 to him. Bowser has gone on to be one of gaming’s most famous villains, ever persistent in keeping the Mushroom Kingdom in peril. He’s even aided by a son, Bowser Jr. Princess Peach has gone on to star as a formidable character in Super Smash Bros, Super Mario Strikers, and her own game, but is still very much a helpless ditz.
Super Mario Bros. is the best example of what a video game should be: fun. Sometimes we forget that. Like Pac-Man, Mario also sought to make the joyful experience of gaming more accessible. Miyamoto told TIME that, “Ideally we should be making things that can be enjoyed by the widest possible range of people,” adding, “Even when we make something that we want children to enjoy, we always aim to achieve a level of quality and content that even adults can appreciate, so in other words, making something for children might even be more difficult than making something specifically for an adult audience.”
Originally published at http://sansuthecat.blogspot.com on June 2, 2015.
