Super Mario Love

[stan]

Me:

I used to be pretty poor. My mate had a NES and Mario 1 and 2 - we used to play it on a huge black and white TV (one of the old wooden vaneered ones) I begged for a NES for two Christmases in a row but my parents couldn't afford it. I used to stare at my mate's manual reading about all the different enemies. Mario 3 came out and I begged the next christmas and eventually got one. I remember a few months after I bought a copy of Total (old Nintendo mag) which showed the first pictures of Mario world and the new pad. I couldn't believe the pad's buttons were four different colours. The mag only had two small pictures of Mario World - I remember staring at one of the pictures every morning for months whilst eating my breakfast. A picture of Mario standing by some water, the water had that halftone effect which made it look transparent. I couldn't believe how good it looked.

I managed to get a SNES the first Christmas it was out and obviously I played it to absolute death.

I remember the first time I saw footage of Mario 64 was on Gamesmaster and I was like "FUCK".

[andrewwd]

I wonder if anyone here played all major mario games at an early stage of their release?

Reasonably close for me (in PAL terms). I got a NES with SMB1 in 1989 or 1990 and SMB2 shortly after (I'd have been about 10). I got Mario 3 for christmas 1991; which was pretty much the most excited I have ever been about a video game in my life. I found out where my mum had hidden it and took to sneaking home at lunchtimes, breaking into the house through the utility room window and conducting surreptitious gaming sessions during the run up to Christmas.

I got a SNES with Mario World at launch, but I was a few months late with Mario 64 (I was never that excited about it, not sure why). Mario Sunshine I got at launch.

Mario is easily my all time favourite gaming franchise; for me, Galaxy is a return to the pre Mario 64 golden age. Although I recognise that 64 is a lot of peoples favourite, it never had that elusive 'Mario Magic' in my opinion.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

I think I played my first Mario game in 1998 or 1999. It was Super Mario 64. Later I got SMW, SMB3 and Yoshi's Island on the GBA and I loved them.

I don't think I've ever completed a Mario game.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

I always enjoy playing Mario games, but I always end up at a level I just can't do, then get frustrated and stop playing.

So far Galaxy is holding up well though, so I got high hopes for that.

[robdood]

(in the order I experienced them)

Super Mario Bros

I'm so old that I used to play this in the arcade. It was back at the time when I had no idea about Nintendo/Japanese games at all really, since I was an Amstrad CPC boy. I eventually completed it (since I could only ever play on occasional weekends at the local seaside arcades), thanks mainly to the warp pipes - which at the time I remember thinking were a genius idea.

Super Mario Bros 2 (USA)

I didn't own a games console until the Super NES was released, but spent a lot of weekends living at my mates house playing NES with him. I have the fondest memories of Mario2, even though it turned out to not be a 'true' Mario game. It still had plenty of genius little ideas, the music was also fantastic.

Super Mario Land

I didn't own a Gameboy until after I got a SNES, but remember playing SML at lunctimes at school with people on their machines. What a game! Though as others have said, it was fairly easy, so we ended up playing it as a highscore game; seeing who could complete it with the highest score during lunch, or doing races (ie four people on four gameboys) through it

Super Mario World.

Yes, I managed to play World before 3, and that could very well be the reason World is my fave. I will never forget the day; I came home from school one day, to discover my parents had randomly bought me my first ever games console - my VERY OWN Super NES! I was ecstatic! (apparently I'd been nagging them for time, but I don't remember ) Within 5 minutes of Mario World I was quite sure I was playing the first 'real' videogame I'd ever played. Everything about it was incredible; the controls, the art design, the secret exits, everything. I literally played it for MONTHS, and never got bored. Even once I'd found all the exits, my brother and I would regularly start a new file just to see how quickly we could finish (ie star road) or how quickly we could do it without using star road, etc etc Probably my most played game ever.

Super Mario Bros 3.

So, after the joy of Mario World, and caning my SNES hard for a while, I loaned it to my mate, who in return loaned me his NES. I was eager to play more of these amazing Nintendo games I'd never really got to experience! Mario 3, after World, obviously looked a bit old, but god damn it was still excellent. The items/etc seemed a little more inventive than World, though for me, the controls and inertia on Mario feel so much more right in World, Mario 3 felt a little sticky or sluggish or something. Still excellent in basically every way though.

Lost Levels.

Played this eventually once I got hold of Mario Collection on the SNES. Remember finding it much easier than everyone had made it out to be - but that was also it's failing I found; most of the game's difficulty was built around too much 'trial and error' for my liking.

Mario Land 2.

Now this game, gentlemen, was utter genius. It was essentially a scaled-back, portable Super Mario World and was brilliant, sadly my drug-addled mind is too hazy to remember most of it. I remember thinking Marios sprite looked AMAZING though (bless)

Ok, well it's lunch time now, so that will do If I remember/can be arsed, I will do 64 and Sunshine later

FEEL THE MARIO LOVE.

[Yobo Ahoy]

Mario Land 2.

Now this game, gentlemen, was utter genius. It was essentially a scaled-back, portable Super Mario World and was brilliant, sadly my drug-addled mind is too hazy to remember most of it. I remember thinking Marios sprite looked AMAZING though (bless)

Agreed, I was a late Game Boy adopter and I got a fat yellow GB with SML 1&2 after saving about 5 weeks' paper round wages... it was totally worth it.

SML1 was good, but 2 was the absolute bollocks - you're right, Mario did look incredible compared to the tiny sprite from 1. The music was great too, and the levels were so varied for a GB game.

Oh and Rabbit Mario (at least, I think it was a rabbit) was excellent. I wish they'd carried the spring-jump thing (down & A) over to New SMB, I loved that move...

[divine visitor]

My first exposure to Mario games was back in the late 80s when one of my older bros got an NES with the Mario1/Duck Hunt combo cart. We were really poor and so it was the only game we had for ages (apart from Robocop, which was a christmas present from an Aunt who didn't know any better). As a result, we got pretty good at it, but could never manage to beat world 8. When we kept dying we'd tell our youngest brother (there were 4 of us) to look away or leave the room until we'd beaten that bit, because he was jinxing our play. Kids are so harsh!

We skipped Mario 2 because we couldnt afford it, but we collectively managed to save enough money over a few years to buy another game - which we boiled down to a choice between Simpsons: Bart vs the Space Mutants, or Super Mario Bros 3. Being kids that couldnt buy games magazines and so wernt very clued up about games, it was a tough choice! We got Mario in the end though, and it was so amazing we'd sneak it out of my parents room to play at 3am on a school night.

In fact, we loved it so much, that one time when I was having an arguement with one of my bros, I held the Mario 3 cartridge above my head and threatened to drop it unless he agreed with me. This shocked him to his very core.

First time I ever played Super Mario World was in Debenhams in Croydon on a timed demo pod. I could just about get to the Donut Plains 1 level before it reset. I remember first using the cape and thinking it was rubbish because you just go up and then straight down again, unlike the raccoon suit. I had no idea how to open it out and glide.

We didn't ever 'buy' it though, because we couldn't afford it. We did get a SNES with Street Fighter II (World Warrior) eventually, through part-exchange, but that was the only game we ever owned for it, so we had to borrow/swap games from other kids to be able to play Super Mario World.

[lancashirebambaata]

I got the Mario Bros 2 NES Pack, got the original mario shortly after.

Mario world was the best one for me, loved that game.

[Qazimod]

In no real order:

Playing Super Mario Brothers was a curious experience for me; when we bought our Nintendo Entertainment System, the third Super Mario Brothers game was getting hyped up like nobody's business. Consequentially, the third game and the first game were bundled with the NES, and so the original was kind of ignored. When I finally played through it, I didn't think too much of it to be honest; it seemed more like a framework for what was to come, like the developer was still formulating the perfect Mario experience (some would argue that this is still happening today and that each sequel has been another step towards perfection); it wasn't bad, but it got unfairly ignored at the time. Despite this, I was able to revisit it thanks to things like the GBA re-release and emulation, and it still played fairly well.

Super Mario Brothers 3, on the other hand, was quite startling. The hype and advertising were promoting things like the Racoon Suit's flight powers, hinting at a more elaborate, more expansive world, and the game certainly delivered. There were cloud platforms in the sky, numerous pipe-based diversions, several worlds that were a lot more diverse than SMB's, each with their own sense of character and style...but underneath all these promises of expansion was, in fact, a framework of tight, short challenges. Everyone knows the eleven-minute run now, but when you go back and realise how brief the individual stages are. it's quite interesting. Personally, I loved the idea: a stage can be over before you've tired of it's theme, and so you were always encouraged to find out what was next.

Super Mario World was a curious one. I chose the path of Sega back in the days of Ye Olde Console War, and so I was hooked on the Megadrive. It wasn't until price cuts, emulation, re-releases, that I started to get a feel for SMW. The first time I played it to completion, I think I declared it one of my top three games ever, and whilst it felt more like an evolution of Super Mario Brothers 3, I was still fascinated by the game because of it's sense of character. Whilst the Super Mario Brothers trilogy was fairly limited in style, SMW took you to all kinds of places, meeting loads of different enemies, with more new abilities opening up plenty of different strategies. I had the feeling that it was the 2D Mario game they'd been waiting to make, and finishing it for the first time was a lovely experience. However, it's only recently that I've discovered it's true genius, having completed the GBA remake leaving no stone unturned. The hardcore platforming challenges of Star Road and the Special world were way ahead of their time; having created a brilliant control system, these ridiculously tricky extra stages took Mario's fluid running and jumping antics to their limits, and the feeling of frustration as I fell for the 74th time had it's equivalent measure of joy when it was all over.

Super Mario Land 2 was, thinking about it, the true evolution of Super Mario Brothers 3 - a sequence of incredibly short stages that were compartmentalised into worlds that took less than ten minutes to complete if you knew what you were doing. The thrill of holding the B button down for as long as you dared to was as prominent here as it was before, and there was much fun to be had from nimbly darting from platform to platform because you knew you could. Like the other games, in Super Mario Land 2 you have all the control you could wish for, and so you can launch yourself off projectiles, float to secret areas in the sky, dart under bosses before they crush you, and more besides. The final castle was also quite memorable; the number of traps and puzzles made for quite a fearsome finale, and if you lost your rabbit ears too early the journey was ten times harder (oh, and damn those invisible-trigger-downward-punching-Wario-fist things! Damn them!)

Super Mario 64 is up there with Super Mario World as my favourite Mario. Predictable, I know, but once you've figured out the star system (I remember when I didn't know where to go having completed each course once and not knowing why I couldn't visit Bowser yet) and explored enough worlds, you find that it shares SMW's immensely satisfying sense of control and love of secrets; in terms of joy and awe, few gaming moments have come close to the time when I explored the sunken ship in the Jolly Roger Bay, found secret rooms in Big Boo's Haunt, checked out the igloo in Snowman's Land or the pyramid in Shifting Sand Land. Meanwhile, the controls make wall jumping and backflipping curiously moreish, and the flying and swimming never gets old. Whether it is perfect or not is debatable; whether or not you should at least give it a go, less so.

[Capwn]

I'm glad I did this thread now, really interesting.

Question 1 : What is the best and worst powerup in all games you have played?

My fave is the good old mushroom. Really liked the idea of visually seeing your 'damage'. If I were small I would know to be careful and yet if I went past something that could only be done with big mario I would want to go and replay the game making sure I was big when I reached that point. Very clever game mechanic and something which I miss from the new games.

My worst has to be

ghost

from galaxy. Allows you to

go through walls

, whats fun about that?

[andrewwd]

Favourite would probably be the cape from SMW or the tanooki suit from SMB3. I'll go with the tanooki suit as it's slightly more elusive. Worst is probably the giant mario mushroom from NewSMB, Mario should never be about skill-less rampaging.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

The best - The fire flower thingie which allows you to shoot (all 2D games). Very cool that you have to build up for it so you'd be extra careful not to lose that power.

The worst - The FLUDD and its additional nozzles (Sunshine) which just made the game more confusing, the controls fiddlier and the game less fun. The best bits of the game were those where all your powers were taken away from you. Always a bad sign.

[Liquid Myth]

Best - the hammer suit in SMB3. It's fucking hammers and invincibility on demand.

Worst - the bee suit, no shit.

[noizu]

Always loved Metal Mario from 64. At the time the metallic sheen looked fantastic, the daft hi-NRG cheesy dance version of the powerup music still makes me smile when I think about it, and I loved the look of the little underground cavern place where you first get it. Always thought it was one of the most Mario World-styled areas of Mario 64.

Worst - FLUDD, just for its voice. Didn't mind the mechanics of it, but god every time it spoke my nerves went haywire.

[Nate Dogg III]

The cape from SMW, easily. Completely opened the game up in a way its predecessors just didn't have. Top Secret Area, the secret exit on that Cheese Bridge level...amazing.

Least favourite is FLUDD if it counts, and the mega mushroom from NSMB.

[Joyrex-J9]

What about the Super Mario Land series?

Super Mario Land on the GB has the best ending theme of any Mario game.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVOCVQj95w" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVOCVQj95w</a> 2:55 onwards

Just watch that and tell me the end theme isn't absolutely glorious. I dare you!

EDIT :

</a>

Awesome rocked remix of the theme... honestly, I think this is one of the most simple and beautiful ending themes ever. I can remember the first time I heard it when I was but 5 years old. After getting over the awesomeness that was the final level of Super Mario Land (which I thought Kirby SuperStar paid a very lovely homage to) I didn't think it would get any better... until the charming little plinky plonky "you've saved the princess yay : D" theme went upbeat and evolved into that. PURE LOVE!

I'd forgotten that!!! Mario Land on the GB was my first Mario game, I seem to recall finishing the game as a kid, sat in the bathroom listening through headphones. It seemed like a massive achievement at the time - in fact it's one of the first games I can recall finishing

And that theme is awesome

[Massive Invisible Dog]

The worst one is the shell from NSMB. "Hey, now you've got a shell! No running for you!".

[Guest]

The Best Power up IS the feather from SMW. When you first got it, and started "flying" it was just awsome. Real take your breath away stuff. The sudden sense of freedom and speed as you launched yourself skywards was such a joy. Thing is, it wasn't so easy to fly - unlike the racoon suit in SMB3 which was [too] easy. First of all you needed a good run up. Then after launching yourself into the air the swooping, dipping, floating, gliding action had to be practiced to be perfected. This wasn't a cheap power up, this was something you had to master.

Plus, lest we not forget, it allowed you to float - and also float while on Yoshi...All these things combined made it an essential tool to finding the hidden level exits to acheive all 96 "levels". The ones that spring to mind are the Ghost house in the 2nd section, and having to either fly under the gate, or float on yoshi then jump off his back once under and past the standard exit gate, on the bridge level.

Yeah, and you could also spin attack with the cape to kill baddies. Brilliant stuff.

All of that in one Power up? Again - Awesome stuff.

The Worst Power up would of course be the thing that turns Mario into Stone in SMB3. It's just so boring. "Awesome! I'm now a statue and can't move".

I think Capone is mental when he says the Ghost power up is rubbish. At least it looks cool

[Liquid Myth]

The Worst Power up would of course be the thing that turns Mario into Stone in SMB3. It's just so boring. "Awesome! I'm now a statue and can't move".

No way. Used correctly, you can eliminate chain chomps (!) and thwomps (!!). It's power untold.

[Vemsie]

The worst one is the shell from NSMB. "Hey, now you've got a shell! No running for you!".

Agreed. That thing was a pain in the ass.

Best? Probably the cape. And the fire flower of course.

[andrewwd]

The Worst Power up would of course be the thing that turns Mario into Stone in SMB3. It's just so boring. "Awesome! I'm now a statue and can't move".

Thats the Tanooki suit, which also allows you to fly. It's just the racoon suit with an added element of awesome.

[Qazimod]

The worst one is the shell from NSMB. "Hey, now you've got a shell! No running for you!".

Heh, that's actually one of my favourites: it lets me improvise and create new challenges for myself; usually being inside the blue shell for as long as possible in a stage, which I've done successfully for the entirety of 8-1, 8-5 and 8-8, among others.

Anyway, it's either that or the Wing Cap from Super Mario 64.

The worst would have to be that fake mushroom thing you got in Lost Levels, I guess.

[ckny]

Best - For me it would be the Tanooki suit or the P Wing, both from SMB3. The P Wing got me through the hardest levels just by flying at the top of the screen and avoiding everything. The Tanooki was just cool, you could fly and turn to stone, thus avoiding damage. I also used to adore that level where you could get into a wellington boot and hop around. Not really a power up but I loved it when I was little.

Worst - The fucking frog suit. Gah it was awful. I could never get to grips with the mechanics of it, the jump distances changed and it all became confusing.