Some info about Mario. Past, present, and future.
People all around the world play video games and if you do too, then you’ve probably heard of Mario! But, do you know what he’s going to do next? Or do you wonder what he’s done in the past? Dive into this article to see the point of view of people who study video games and the past, present, and future of Mario. You will see reviews of past games and predictions of future games. You can also listen to some classic Mario music while you read. So, “Let’s a go!”
One of the most recent Mario titles is Mario Maker 2 (3D World + Bowser’s Fury had not come out at the time of this writing). In this game you can build your own Mario level with many different combinations. You can even play courses made by other players. There is also a story mode where you can play different levels to rebuild Princess Peach’s castle. Overall, it’s a very fun game, its best part being the level building.
Another good Mario game is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It is my favorite Mario Kart game ever. You can race family, friends, computers, and online players. You can do races or do a battle mode. It’s super fun to race and it is a very good family game. But, another game, Super Mario Party, isn’t the same. This Mario Party isn’t as good as past Mario parties because it’s repetitive and not fun. The game just has you running around a small map and collecting coins to get a star. But you can easily get a star, so it isn’t fun. The minigames aren’t nearly as good as minigames in past games. Overall, I would recommend other Mario party games over this one.
The winning title for one of my favorite Mario games ever has to go to Mario Odyssey. It’s a fun game where you get to travel all over the Mario world to save Princess Peach. You get to take control of creatures and solve puzzles in order to reach the goal. But there is so much post game stuff that goes on for a long time. To beat the game you need 124 power moons, but you can collect 756 more moons! It is one of my favorite games and it is the Mario game I would most recommend. If you want to play Mario, please play this. Below is an interview with Nicholas Ware. He was in a PHD program for video games. Here is his perceptive on Mario games.
Q: Can you list the different types of Mario games?
A: Mario has been in nearly every type of game there is. The earliest Mario games were platformers, but very quickly Mario appeared in racing games, sports games, party games, fighting games, puzzle games, RPG games, creation games (like Mario Maker), and even educational games (Mario Is Missing). There was a very unique game for the Super Nintendo called Mario Paint in which the user could create pictures, animation, and music using Mario-themed tools. Some genres have not featured Mario directly (like Fortnite-style shooting games or Zelda-style adventure/sandbox games) but he has appeared as custom outfits or costumes in those kinds of games. Mario is most frequently associated with platformers, as his earliest hit games like Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World were that genre.
Q: What do you think the most popular type of Mario game is?
A: Historically, Mario platformers have been the most successful (especially in the 1980s and 1990s), but I think the Mario Kart series of racing games may be more popular now.
Q: What type of Mario game is least popular?
A:It’s hard to say, but probably the Mario/Mario-related puzzle games (like Yoshi or Doctor Mario) may be the least popular overall of the games that still get made. Of the genres that are no longer active, definitely the educational Mario games were the least popular.
Q: What are your favorite Mario games?
A: My favorite Mario game of all time is Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo system.
Q: What Mario games do you think will release next?
A: I think we will always see Nintendo release new Mario platformers, Mario Kart racing games, and Super Smash Bros. fighting games, as they are consistently the most popular games that Nintendo releases.
Q: Do you think new types of Mario games will be released?
A: I think a Mario adventure game, like Zelda: Breath of the Wild but with Mario characters and themes, would be really interesting. However, I think it’s more likely that Nintendo will experiment with a new genre and use Mario to make that game more appealing.
Q: What do you think these new games will look like if they do exist?
A: Mario is always colorful, silly, and family-friendly in his games, so no matter what new Mario games are made in the future, I think they will have that kind of high energy, cartoony feeling.
As said in that interview, Ware believes there will be new types of games, but they will still have the same Mario theme and design. He also thinks new games will continue to be popular and they will be on the Switch until they have a new console, which he thinks might be made in 2023.
Next up, we have an interview with Dr. Mark Kretzchmar. He was also in a PHD for video games. You can see his perceptive on the games as well.
Q: What are your favorite Mario games?
A: My very first system was the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) , so I played Super Mario Bros. way back in the late 1980s. However, after a while, I thought it was boring.
That changed in 1990 with the release of the third installment. To this day, it remains a very fun game. Since I love RPGs, I have a soft spot for Super Mario RPG. It’s not as deep and complex as other RPGs, but does have some great gameplay mechanics.
I’m also quite partial to the 2-D remake re-released on the Wii. Statistically, it’s not one of the better Mario games, but I have very fond memories of it as I played it with my mom, nieces, and nephews. To date, it remains my mom’s favorite game.
Q: Do you think any Mario games will stop being made?
A: Mario is one of Nintendo’s cash cows. The franchise is not going anywhere unless Nintendo goes bankrupt and shutters all gaming operations.
Q: What Mario games do you think will release next?
A: For the foreseeable future, we can bank on Nintendo developing and publishing platformers, Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Super Smash Brothers. Nowadays, most Mario-inspired games have multiplayer support. I would guess that until Nintendo is forced to play their hand (for example, Mario games suddenly plummet in popularity), the company is under no real pressure to let the plumber and his friends venture into another genre-bending game.
Q: Do you think new types of Mario games will be released?
A: Like my previous answer, Nintendo will probably continue to play it safe and release predominately platformers with multiplayer support. In fact, one has come out for the Switch called Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury. It really depends on what genres Nintendo deems are most fruitful for Mario because many of the games (at this point) have tried and true formulas that make them successful. Diverging from such a business model is typically frowned upon when things are going well for a company.
Q: What do you think these new games will look like if they do exist?
A: I think it’s going to be a while before I can speculate what any genre-melding Mario games will look like since the franchise has already dabbled in multiple genres. One possibility might be a Mario game with darker themes down the road, but due to the series’ family-friendly themes and cartoonish aesthetics, that will likely never, ever happen (lol).
Q: How long do you think Mario games will be made for the Nintendo Switch?
A: Until the Switch is no longer profitable, and Nintendo creates a new console. To put this into perspective, the Wii’s lifecycle ran from 2006 until 2013. The Switch came out in 2017, so it’s still got a lot of gas left in the tank. Supposedly, an updated Switch that can compete with the PS5 and Xbox Series X is in the works. If it does come out (some say as early as this year), that will increase the console’s lifespan as well as future Mario games. Whether they will be entirely new creations or remakes of old games is another matter entirely.
Q: When do you think a new Nintendo console will be made?
A: As stated in my previous answer, an updated Switch could come as early as this year, but that’s still a rumor. A brand new system that isn’t the Switch, however, will not be announced for years if historical trends are any indication.
In this interview, Dr. Kretzchmar says that Nintendo will go and do more video games that have already been made because that makes them money. But the interviews have a lot of the same ideas. Mind you, these people were in PhD programs. They know a lot about video games so iff you don’t believe them, then who will you believe?
Here is a timeline of all of the Mario games. This will show when the games were released and when Mario games have come out. I hope when/if these interview answers happen, you are ready to enjoy these games and experiences. I hope you learned more about the games. Below are some fun facts about Mario and Nintendo.
FUN FACTS by Dr. Mark Kretzchmar
Did you know that Nintendo and Sony had an agreement to make a CD video game
console in the early 1990s? Nintendo backed out and went with another company,
Philips, who already had a console called the CD-i. Maybe you’ve heard this, but the Nintendo games on that console were so bad that Nintendo essentially doesn’t even recognize they exist. Sony was so mad and felt stabbed in the back that executives began to work on the PlayStation.
The American video game console industry collapsed in 1983 due to a recession, terrible games, and an oversaturated home console market. Japanese companies (à la Nintendo and Sega) saved the video game industry. However, the word “video game” was sort of a curse word after the American industry collapsed, and many people (mostly reluctant parents) thought that they were toys. One of the ways Nintendo tried to combat this stigma when they shipped the console to the West was by rebranding it the Nintendo Entertainment System. Is it a video game? Nope. It’s an “entertainment system!” Oddly enough, even though Nintendo wasn’t trying to market the NES as a toy, it formed a relationship with a defunct toy company called Worlds of Wonder that promoted Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer Tag. Eventually, the NES became so popular that it was able to break away from Worlds of Wonder. That was bad news for WoW, which had come to rely on Nintendo. WoW went bankrupt and ceased operations.
Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988) wasn’t even a Mario game. It was originally called Doki
Doki Panic in Japan and was reskinned with Mario sprites to make it seem like a sequel. It’s actually not a bad game. It’s just a weird outlier in terms of Mario’s history.
In the early 1990s, Nintendo’s biggest rival was Sega. Nintendo was a family-friendly company, but Sega tried to appeal to “extreme” gamers. As such, Sega games were more likely to have violence and gore. The Sega port of Mortal Kombat contained a code that gamers could put in to see fatalities from the arcade version. The SNES removed this feature. In 1993, video games were under heavy scrutiny in the U.S. and companies even had to appear before Congress. One of the results was a rating system for video games. Ironically, even though Nintendo tried to come off as “good guys” during these hearings, the SNES version of Mortal Kombat II was even more violent than Sega’s.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie was released in 1993, becoming the first live-action film based on a video game. It was also reviled and panned by everyone. Still, video game movies had to start somewhere!
When you think of why some video game corporations survive and some die out, take a look at the choices executives made. Some choices saved companies while others fell into obscurity because of bad decisions. For example, Sega has a fascinating history because many poor decisions in the 1990s forced them to eventually give up on home consoles. Sega still makes some awesome games and is a large company in Japan, but they have not made a console since the doomed Dreamcast in 2001.
Thank you to Polygon.com for the featured image!
Students of the Sidewalk 