We look back at how Mario has grown for Super Mario Day
10th March 2016Mario Day (March 10) is the day of celebrating the extremely popular pizza loving plumber guy we have came to know throughout the years.
Since his introduction in the game Donkey Kong in 1981, Mario (created by Shigeru Miyamoto), has became Nintendo’s main mascot, which already shows how popular the Mario universe has become; successfully selling over 210 million units worldwide.
After Donkey Kong Mario went on to star in his first video game with his brother Luigi, that was appropriately named Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros became a huge hit for the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) which led to numerous games and spin offs afterwards.
Mario has starred in over 200 video games in his gaming life; a lot of the scenarios are revolved around the character Princess Peach which often becomes abducted by the evil villain Bowser and so it is up to the task of Mario to save her ‘every time’.
There have been a plethora of different genres besides the plat former games that Mario was largely known to be, for example Mario Kart is a racing/action game that has it’s own franchise of games.
The Super Mario Brothers games were a part of a lot of kids childhoods including my own, there was nothing more satisfying than getting a star in one of the levels and being invincible from enemies allowing to run straight on through them.
I asked a student what their experience of Mario games was.
I spoke to Kalum Longhurst who originally played the Mario games on the NES and Nintendo 64 systems, his favourite things he enjoyed most were the unique levels on the original Super Mario bros and the simple but fun gameplay.
Fans all over the world will be playing all types of Mario games everyday but Mario day gives the creators, fans and of course Mario himself the honour of celebrating the Mario series as Mario is largely known as the most popular character in video gaming and has had a massive impact and success in the gaming industry.
Words by: Eamon Richards