The Glory of Mario: A Gamer's Rant

[Ñólendil]

There was a time when I couldn't get that super-jumping Italian plumber out of my head. In elaborate dreams Mario and his brother Luigi would figure prominently in quirky tales that lingered on in waking life, and soon after I opened my eyes I would concoct a plan to write it all down, to put some good fiction to the most popular video game character of all time.

A few hours later I would come to a couple startling realizations. First of all, Mario would make a horrible story--you just can't make a worthwhile fantasy about a fire breathing dinosaur villains named Bowser Koopa. Second of all, and most disturbing, I was not a Mario fan. Why was I dreaming about this mustached hero? What was so intriguing about "Itsa me, Mario!"?

But I remembered my childhood with the Nintendo, moving the brothers up through tiers to save the princess from an oversized ape named Donkey Kong, one of the original platform adventure games. And I remembered so many other wondrous Mario games, and the strange and yet somehow miraculously interesting characters, like Toad and Princess Peach, and her father that always managed to be transformed into something bizarre. And I remembered, too, some later games, and the first Mario game of the RPG genre: Mario RPG, Legend of the Seven Stars (for the Super NES). That game had depth, in gameplay and story telling. No other development company could pull off such a world, could make such characters in such an environment work. There was Geno, and incarnation of a spirit from above, inhabiting a child's toy, and Prince Mallow of the clouds, raised by Frogfucious, believing always that he was a tadpole who couldn't grow up. And I remember the parade to celebrate Mario's victory over an entirely new threat, a parade led by Luigi, who despite his happy, optimistic demeanor seemed deep, deep in his brother's shadow. He was always left out.

Was I a Mario fan? Certainly, I had never played a Mario game that I did not enjoy. Maybe I was, but I left it to peculiar dreams.

Until this morning.

I hadn't slept in many hours, and to pass the time I picked up a copy of Electronic Gaming Monthly at about 3am. Flipping through, I saw some information about the new handhelds being released: the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS. The Nintendo DS attracted me: the dual screens, the stylus-touch pad chat system, and namely the line up of games. At the launch was a platform adventure title by the name of Mario 64 DS, a remake of Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64. It looked fun. It looked very fun. Then I looked at the release date of the Nintendo DS, and the Mario game. They had the same release date: the 21st of November. Interesting ... wait a minute ... "today's the 21st". And after that I never had a chance. I called my local GameCrazy and made sure they had some extra copies for those who hadn't reserved it, and I arrived at the store five minutes after they opened, and bought my Nintendo DS (which comes with a demo of Metroid Prime, a first-person shooter), and my Mario game. I was hooked, and I fell in love all over again with Mushroom Kingdom, and it's childlike, endearing qualities.

Yes, I now realize, I'm a Mario fan. Always have been. And I've got furious ideas racing through my head ...