I highly recommend Mario Maker 2 to everyone who hasn’t tried it, especially if you have kids with an interest in learning game design. It’s a great tool.
My favorite game in the series was Super Mario 3. I first played it on the SNES when it was part of the Super Mario All Stars cartridge. I really liked the levels, especially the variety of landscapes and the secrets you could find if you had the right powerup.
Super Mario World is just as good imo. Everything I liked about 3 and more, plus the star road levels, that was a good game.
The most recent game I loved was Yoshi’s Wooly World on the WiiU. Excellent art style and super fun levels, especially the unlockable bonus levels.
Oh and let’s not forget Legend of the Seven Stars. That was a fun and bizarre story.
That being said, does anyone else think the Mario universe is just fucking weird? How did the creators come up with Italian plumbers who can jump really high saving a Princess from an oversized turtle in a fantasy land with walking mushrooms? Who thought that was a good idea? What inspired them? I think the only reason it became popular was because Super Mario on the NES was one of the first decent games, and most players were kids who didn’t care about the game’s universe and narrative beyond saving the princess.
If Mario wasn’t the first popular platformer in the 80s and was instead introduced today, nobody would take it seriously. Since we all grew up with Mario, it’s a thing we accept as is. Of course high jumping Italian plumbers discovered the mushroom kingdom and rescued their princess from Bowser, again and again and again. Of course little dudes with mushroom heads are ruled by a blond haired human. Of course giant pipes are a normal mode of transit. Of course goombas and koopa troopas are the baddies.
This universe came about because they would design fun gameplay first and then write an absurd story around it.
The “reasons” for things were usually dictated by gameplay and the stories reflected that.
It’s why Katamari Damacy is one of my favorite games, because it took that notion and really ran with it. It’s story is as absurd and over-the-top as the gameplay of rolling up objects to make stars in the sky. The gameplay is absurd and not in any way reflective of any reality except the reality of the game world itself.
The Mario series has always kept that ethos as well. The stories have grown and changed as long as the Mario gameplay has, each a response to a new set of moves, and at one point the move from 2D to 3D, all of it forever changing the path forward and the details of the canon Mario universe.
It’s a series where a dragon kidnaps a princess, and a plumber from New York must save her. To do so, he must gather mushrooms by hitting bricks while jumping with his fist, jump on turtles to make them hide in their shell, and dodge fire breathing plants.
In the most recent 2d incarnation, the fire breathing plants will sing at you.
Super Mario 64 has to be my favourite (and is also the most recent one I’ve tried). When that came out it rocked my world, and I didn’t even have my own N64 at the time. I would play at friends’ houses or Toys R Us.
There was a Canadian TV show called Video and Arcade Top 10 and they would frequently give games away. I wrote to them explicitly requesting SM64, and a year later it just showed up in the mail.
Wow I love this story, I used to watch that show all the time! I can still hear the theme song as if I just watched it yesterday. That was super cool of them to send you a copy. I hope you still have it!
Age of empires II is one of my first experiences as a child playing games. I used to play it on a computer in the back of my mother’s pharmacy. A friend of mine was a huge fan, but I truly sucked at it.
Later I bought Lord of the Rings: the Battle for Middle Earth II, and to this date this is the only RTS that I actually enjoy playing a lot (I later also played the first one which is also amazing).
Still, I played Age of Empires II a lot, mostly the tutorial levels and the early missions of Jeanne d’Arc. I think the micromanaging and constantly having to do multiple things at once (like constantly making new units, etc.) were to much for me (and it still is). Still, a classic in gaming history and a part of my childhood!
Loved AoE II. I still play it on occasion, and I grew up playing it with cheat codes (there’s some silly ones). I think it still holds up well to this day, even with my nostalgia glasses off.
If you’ve never played it, my only caveat would be to expect the AI to not compare to modern iterations. “Balance” in campaign missions sometimes comes in the form of giving the AI an unfair advantage, but everything can be overcome, and you can always save-scum your way to victory. It’s fun, and I definitely recommend a play if you are into retro gaming or RTS’s.
Recently got into playing AoE 2 with some friends and had a good time with it. I didn’t grow up playing it but a couple of those friends did and boy were they good at it. I think I would enjoy it more if I didnt have to constantly micromanage all of my units, as that seems to be where their experience would beat out mine as a newbie. Still had some fun game nights with it though despite getting trampled when we do a pure pvp match
Definitely one of my favorite series as a kid! I used to play it more as a city builder to be honest. AOE3 is still gorgeous, and apparently a Age of Mythology remake is about to come out
I played the 3 CD OG Age of Empires III with my brothers as a kid. It was great. We rigged up Hamachi to create a private network and manually edited some AoE config files with our Hamachi IP addresses to be able to have LAN coop sessions. Half the session was getting everything installed and working.
Now it’s even easier and we play regularly, decades later.
i remember getting age of empires ii at compusa in rhode island while i was in university and playing multiplayer with the rest of my roommates all the time. it was the best.
i already remember not being very good at conquest but loving the design aspects and being so sad when i got raided. blobcat, sad
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