It’s the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros.! I’m sure you have loads of fantastic Mario moments that shaped your life as a gamer. To celebrate the sheer awesomeness of Nintendo’s Mario games, I’d love to hear your favorite Mario moments. Please share!
Playing super Mario 64 for the first time
First time I played Mario Galaxy. I was amazed at how well it played, the premise and the colors used. Great game.
Strong second would be beating Bowser on the SNES 2 years ago. It was still gratifying.
When I realized that the premise of Mario revolved around doing drugs.
You eat the shrooms… you're a giant.
Ingest the poppy flower… you're on fire.
Practicing (and wasting god-knows-how-many-lives) trying to fly with the cape. It took me soooooooooooooo long to master flying with that damned yellow cape. Specifically, trying to get that secret exit on the Cheese Bridge where you had to fly underneath a gate and then "bounce" back up to go through the second gate.
For those of you with trying to repress certain childhood memories, this is what I'm talking about:
(Start at 2:45) and see where hours of my childhood went. Those who were able to pull this off know of no better sense of satisfaction.
Don't even get me started on Star World…
-M
I loved playing Super Mario Bros. at my grandparents house a long time ago, along with the other two original NES titles. Then having a babysitter who had an N64 with Super Mario 64 and playing that all day long almost everyday. We were all supposed to share the N64, but being the oldest I dominated the console and only handed the controller off in front of the babysitter when she asked how long I had been playing. The second she left the area I took the controller back….I was mean I know. lol.
Then getting all 120 stars on SM64 on all four save slots when I was a little older. Also, beating SMB in under 5 minutes was pretty cool too.
@ Iceman
The wing suit in Crackdown 2 works the same way.
I'm also reminded of the dodo planes in GTA3.
My favorite Mario moment was the first time I YA, WAH, YAHOO'D!
I posted this article on Facebook and one of my friends from elementary school — that I only recently got back in touch with — brought up playing SMB in my parents' basement as kids. Good times.
I don't like 3D Mario games, but SM World, Yoshi's Island, and Smash Bros. ruled my childhood for three console gens. (Smash Bros. owning two) Man, my only regret in not owning a Wii is Brawl.
@Sandrock;
Trust me, you're not missing much.
-M
@Iceman That's blasphemous. Super Mario 64 was incredibly important to 3D platformers. Super Mario Galaxy is pretty amazing.
@Mr. Padilla;
I think you misunderstood my comment to Sandrock. I meant that he's not missing much with Super Smash Bros. Brawl since it wasn't that much better than Melee. Also the single player "campaign" was damn near a joke (on us).
Now, if you really want me to be "blasphemous", then you should know that I really didn't care for Super Mario Galaxy like I did for Mario 64. To me, Mario Galaxy was pretty much on par for what I was expecting. There wasn't really any "oooh, ahhh" moment. It also didn't really challenge you like Mario World and Mario 64 did (with the exception of that one star you have to get on vanishing platforms in the shape of Luigi's head). That may be in part because I've grown up and are much better at Mario platformer games now than I was when I was younger. Regardless, Mario World was amazing and the epitome of 2D platform gaming. Mario 64 took it to the next level and was an evolution. Mario Galaxy just feels like a more polished Mario 64, although I would prefer a regular controller to play the game and not have to look like an epileptic monkey having seizures every time I want to jump. Mario Galaxy is not so much as a step forward for the franchise as it is a step to the side. It's still an entertaining game and I enjoyed playing it, but once it was over and got most of the extra stars, I never had a reason to go back to it. There are other, better games out there now that deserve my time and money.
-M
Haha I probably have tons of Mario moments, but I can't remember them all. So here's a mini list:
Playing Mario 64 for the first time. Buying my own SNES when I was young, and getting Super Mario. Watching my hubby beat the first Mario in 15 min. Or was that 3…. Oh and last, remembering having Mario/Duck hunt. Even tho it didn't have anything to do with Mario itself, I tried turning the lens over in my gun to see if it would spread shot when I was a little girl hahahaha
@Cami
That could have been either time. My personal best was just around 5 minutes or so, but I warped. I think 15 minutes is about the speedrun time for not using warps between levels or something like that.
@Iceman I did indeed read your comment out of order. Sorry about that!