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Maou

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"Super Mario at 25!" , posted Wed 15 Sep 12:00:

Meanwhile, we are all terrible people as we forgot to wish Super Mario Brothers a happy 25th birthday yesterday!!

We can atone by posting first memories of Mario 1, which in all odds was a good many posters' first video game...or not?

Most people had a story where it was at their friends' house and they went insane with desire for their own Famicom shortly thereafter. Oddly enough, the first time I saw Mario was in my third year of elementary school, but it was actually a colleague of my dad's who had the fantastic 8-bit wonder system and Mario! I remember wondering about the nomenclature (World 3-1...world number 3? What world?), marveling at the excitment and tension of dropping Koopa into the lava, and the fresh delightful sounds---which still sound infintely better in their punchy, crispy 8-bit sound than in the insipid SFC remake that cribs Mario World's soundboard...as I think I mentioned once before.

I think I beat the game for the first time several years later...I had since gotten my first system, the SFC, and was properly trained enough in Mario World that I could go back and conquer Mario 1 at last. I was seriously disappointed when I didn't get much of an ending and instead had to slug through a harder version.

But who cares! Mario 3 is still my favorite, but the raw excitement of my first encounter is hard to beat. Oh, to end this, here is a delightful fanmade trailer for Mario Galaxy that touches on the joy of every game, including 1. The way the scenes from each game link together is wonderfully done.

人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．

[this message was edited by Maou on Wed 15 Sep 13:34]

Replies:

karasu99

429th Post

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"Re(1):Super Mario at 25!" , posted Wed 15 Sep 12:10

quote:
Meanwhile, we are all terrible people as we forgot to wish Super Mario Brothers a happy 25th birthday yesterday!!

We can atone by posting first memories of Mario 1, which in all odds was a good many posters' first video game...or not?

Oho, I was going to mention this yesterday but I got sidetracked by work and forgot.

Oddly enough my first memory of Super Mario Brothers was in an arcade cabinet at a pizza restaurant-- I'm assuming that it was some variation of Vs. Super Mario Brothers where I was actually able to play it quite often for a few months. I didn't end up playing it on an actual NES until around 1989 when my university roommate bought one (I should explain that I was an Atari computer guy for most of the 80's).

So who here will buy Super Mario Collection for Wii? I have determined that it's required that I do so, given the combo of great nostalgic games and excellent SNES era graphics, and who knows what else? Hopefully nintendo will include more that just the original package-- maybe Doki Doki Panic? Eh, I ask for too much I suspect.

Maese

603th Post

Red Carpet Regular Member

"Re(2):Super Mario at 25!" , posted Wed 15 Sep 18:18

quote:

Oddly enough my first memory of Super Mario Brothers was in an arcade cabinet at a pizza restaurant

I'm not sure if I like these kind of threads that remind me how old I really am... But since it's Mario what we're talking about I guess I can make an exception and indulge a little bit.

I'm surprised to see that Super Mario memories are kind of similar around the world. My first exposition to SMB was in arcade form at a small cafe-bar right below my parent's house, around 1988 or so. If I recall correctly it was one of those 10-in-one cabinets which only let you play for a limited amount of time. Now that I think about it that cabinet was probably my very first experience with videogames.

As the little brat I was, I felt at first more attracted to games such as Kung fu Master, Ninja Gaiden and the like, which seemed "edgier", but then one day I saw a young fellow, bespectacled and well on his twenties, playing World 1-1 on Super Mario Bros... And it was awesome. I couldn't understand very well what was going on, but it sure looked amazing to me. Suddenly that tiny moustached man took a mushroom, grew up, and became powerful enough to break the brick blocks hanging above his head. Later he took that strange flower and gained the ability to shoot fireballs. Man, it was incredible. Yet it all felt coherent and natural. Altough it was the very first time I saw something like that, I had no problem to accept the bizarre rules of that bizarre world.

Years later, as I began to be genuinely interested on videogames in early 90s, I used to play SMB3 at a friend's house. From time to time we plugged in the good ol' Super Mario Bros cartridge as well, just for the heck of it, and never failed to marvel at the richness and complexity of the game. So much of the freshness and originality of SMB3 was already present on the first SMB! It blowed my mind to think that, on the very dawn of videogaming, somebody had managed to pull together such a complex and deep game. If there's a videogame that deserves to be called a masterpiece, that's Super Mario Bros.

A few years later I finally managed to beat the game (without resorting to warp zones) thanks to Super Mario All Stars on my SNES, and my impression of being in front of an ageless masterpiece only grew stronger. It didn't feel like a 10 year old game at all. Even after having played Super Mario World and SMB3 to death, SMB still seemed new, fresh, surprising, amazingly clever, terribly fun to play. Even now I can try my hand at it and enjoy the ride like the first time. To me, very few games can boast such an eternal youth... but most of those have been created by Shigeru Miyamoto after all.

tl;dr: damn, that Mario guy has aged really well!

shindekudasai

357th Post

Silver Customer

"Re(3):Super Mario at 25!" , posted Wed 15 Sep 23:01

Y'know, I couldn't tell you about my first memory of Mario. My family owned a local video store when I was young, so Nintendo and Mario had always been part of my life - as natural as breathing and eating and numbers and colors. I remember my mom being really good at the game, able to beat it without dying in a time I could barely grasp 'hold B to run'. Gramma didn't like Mario, but she kicked ass at Zelda and Bomberman.

Nobinobita

807th Post

Red Carpet Regular Member+

"Re(1):Super Mario at 25!" , posted Thu 16 Sep 03:24

I don't really have much to add. My first video game was Twin Bee for the Famicom, and it was love at first site, but I've always enjoyed Mario. That game only gets better with time. It is so elegant and perfect and monumentally important.

Thanks for sharing all these stories! They're very heart warming!

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sfried

564th Post

New Red Carpet Member

"Re(3):Super Mario at 25!" , posted Thu 16 Sep 06:30

I remember when my grandma (who is probably seeing Mr. Kon) came back from the States and brought us our first videogame system that came bundled with Duck Hunt and Mario. My older sisters were the ones to initially play it, since I was only 5 and didn't know how to do "complex" movement such as holding-down the button to run "super speed". Eventually one of them finally beat the game (it took a while to figure out how to get to Koopa King in 8-8), and there were a huge screems of joy. I could only go as far as 1-2 before that huge pit sucked up all my lives.

I always kept going to my cousin's house to play (or maybe just watch) Mario 3 and once again see their attempts on going further through the game. Part of the excitement came from discovering what the new worlds there were (seeing Korobo Shoe), and what new areas we would die in.

quote:
tl;dr: damn, that Mario guy has aged really well!

It's kinda odd how most of this can be attributed to how Miyamoto has handled each successive game with care (and by that, I mean the whole "upend the tea table" incidents I keep hearing) as opposed to merely focusing on one's "vision" like how Yoshio Sakamoto did with Metroid. It almost like each game was a half-hazard experiment that was further refined untill it produced the exact desired results. Listening to the acclaim Galaxy 2 got against all the criticism Other M recieved seemed to corellate to why Miyamoto doesn't see games as "art": Crafting great titles are not bound by "artistic integrity" as some would might think, but rather on focus testing and seeing which mechanics click and create a flow, coupled with some interesting stepping up of ideas.

It's pretty tough when the most famous mascot's games are accused of "rehashing" but its not that any other character has kept the reputation intact as good as he has. Even "spin-off" (i.e. Yoshi's Island) games ended up being memorable favorites.

Ishmael

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"Re(4):Super Mario at 25!" , posted Thu 16 Sep 11:56

Funny, I can't remember the names of all the people I interacted with years and years ago but I can still remember the opening refrain from SMB; a jingle that was invariably interrupted by the "buwing" noise of Mario jumping.

quote:
It's kinda odd how most of this can be attributed to how Miyamoto has handled each successive game with care (and by that, I mean the whole "upend the tea table" incidents I keep hearing) as opposed to merely focusing on one's "vision" like how Yoshio Sakamoto did with Metroid. It almost like each game was a half-hazard experiment that was further refined untill it produced the exact desired results. Listening to the acclaim Galaxy 2 got against all the criticism Other M recieved seemed to corellate to why Miyamoto doesn't see games as "art": Crafting great titles are not bound by "artistic integrity" as some would might think, but rather on focus testing and seeing which mechanics click and create a flow, coupled with some interesting stepping up of ideas.

I don't want to derail this thread with the whole "games as art" thing but Miyamoto's position does bring up an interesting point. A good number of games that are shooting for art-house status are auteur works where the vision of the director takes precedence over everything, including what may be best for the game. Too often it is forgotten that the process of creation requires a realized vision, a lot of hard work, and ruthless editing. Take World 1-1 in SMB for example. It's a terrific introduction to the mechanics and world of SMB. The precise layout of 1-1 may not seem poetic the first time you're first hopping around kicking turtles but when compared to the long-winded tutorials that games often force a player through SMB is a model of clarity. It could be argued that well done craftsmanship is not artistic prowess per se, but the enduring popularity of SMB shows that it does have its fans.