Opinion: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse – The Mario Effect

DigitalNoob's Laura Mazerall writes: "There are few characters in the gaming world that have made it to a global level of acknowledgement. If you put a picture of Mario in front of someone, regardless of their age, there’s a good chance that they’ll be able to correctly identify the smiling face of Nintendo’s adventurous plumber. Mario is an icon, an icon that Nintendo has been successfully milking since he immerged in 1983."

[chadboban]

I agree with her on the more recent New Super Mario Bros games, but before that she's pretty much dead wrong. Super Mario 1,2 and 3 and Super Mario World were quite different from each other gameplay and artstyle wise.

Saying that Mario games are the same thing over and over because all Mario does is run, jump and save the princess is like saying Uncharted is the same game over and over because all you do is jump, shoot, cover, fall and accidentally destroy temples. That's just wrong to say.

The only 2D mario games I see with reused assets are the New Super Mario games and regardless of that I still enjoy them and will probably buy NSMBU when I pick up my Wii U next year along with Rayman Legends.

That being said, I would definitely appreciate a new artstyle in the next 2D mario along with all new power ups, a new world, a new villain and some new characters to play as in multiplayer(seriously give my friends better options to play as than two slightly different colored toads).

[DN_Vamp]

Just to clarify: In the article I am ONLY talking about the side scroller Super Mario Bros. game that has been ported repeatedly over the years. I am not talking about any other Mario games. "I’m not attacking the Mario franchise as a whole (though it should be noted that the character has been featured in over 200 games since his inception), we’re only considering the classic side scrolling Super Mario Bros. games for the purpose of this rant."

There is a lot of variety within the franchise, but much like you I wish they would at the very least update the art work for the Super Mario Bros. games if they are going to keep putting them out on each new console.

[RuperttheBear]

'In the article I am ONLY talking about the side scroller Super Mario Bros. game that has been ported repeatedly over the years.'

It hasn't. It hasn't been PORTED repeatedly. What is a port?

[chadboban]

The classic side scrolling Mario games also include Super Mario Bros 1,2,3 and World which were the ones I said you were wrong about. The New Super Mario games series started in 2006, that hardly qualifies them as "classics" in my book.

And yes I said I agreed with the points on the New Super Mario Bros games. Btw, there have only been 11 2D games where you play as Mario over the past 25 years, the previous 4 that I mentioned, The Lost Levels, The Super Mario Land games for the Gameboy plus the NSMB series. Oh yeah, and 2D Mario completely skipped both the N64 and gamecube generations, leaving a 16 year gap between Super Mario World and NSMB for the DS. Nintendo only recently started going overboard with the New Super Mario Bros series, probably because they sell well, I'm guessing.

[RETLAWx10]

Someone is confusing Mario with callofduty.