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.
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.
I’m a 2D Mario guy. Everything 8 and 16 bit is awesome, except the crying baby island simulator one.
64 was of course amazing. Sunshine I like only because they tried something different. I never finished it though.
Imma get some hate for this: Galaxy and Odyssey aren’t that good. I did like Galaxy 2 a little though. I did finish Odyssey but man it has to be one of the most gimmick driven games in the series. Crap ton of one use only power ups.
New Super on Wii, and especially newER on Wii are a lot of fun (which is cheating but whatever lol). The WiiU game though? Oof huge fail.
The catsuite 3D land game is interesting to me. It has a ton of really great ideas, and lots of fun sections. But it falls flat overall somehow. I can’t put my finger on it. Good memories with it though.
Honorable mention: Yoshi Story on the 64. That game was great.
Edit. Wonder has been out for awhile. Still haven’t played it. I actually completely forgot about it.
Super Mario World 2 is a really amazing game in both the mechanics and graphics. The game did some awesome stuff with both. It really set the way for Yoshi being a main character instead of a side character as well. Don’t sleep on it because the baby crying is annoying.
Super Mario Bros. 3 was the first game I ever played, waaaay back in the early 90s. That hooked me into gaming for life, and every few years, I do a no warp playthrough of the game that started it all for me.
Then, a few years later, I tried Super Mario 64 in a Toys R Us. It blew my mind and I absolutely had to have an N64.
I despise Nintendo’s business practices, but there’s no doubt they had a formative influence on my childhood.
SMB 3 was a big deal when it came out. Not only was the game a delight to play, but they had a whole ass movie where they “debuted” the game at the end of it. The whole movie was pretty much a long Nintendo commercial showing different games and the power glove and all. The end was a video game competition and SMB 3 was the surprise game. They even showed where to get the first warp whistle.
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.
Super Mario is today what Mickey Mouse wishes it still was: a joyful, universally recognizable character deeply entrenched in the childhood of millions.
There is a special place in my heart for the infamously strange Super Mario Bros 2. Many connoisseurs will justly mention that it is merely a reskin of the lesser known Doki Doki Panic. What is often left out is that Doki Doki Panic was created as well by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and that it originally contained references to its previous work on Mario, such as the POW blocks. In the long run, I feel that Nintendo of America’s decision to adapt DDP as SMB2 for the occidental plebs boosted the series with several charming monsters, a more interactive world, as well as multiple playable characters. We owe Bobombs, Shyguys and Ninjis to this very title.
super mario advance was my first mario. looking back, its good when sequels try new things. and the mario franchise is better for what doki doki brought in
I remember first trying the original when I was like 11 or something.
At the time, I didn’t really understand much beyond “shooty shooty” when it came to games with guns (it would be shortly after this that I’d find stealth games and have that passion ignited), so I was given guns, used them how I usually did at the time and proceeded to get obliterated in the first level and gave up.
A few years later, after I’d gotten into stealth games, my love affair with immersive sims began.
Along with playing the Thief series, I went back to give Deus Ex a try and it all just clicked. I think it and Thief II were instrumental in cementing my love for the genre.
After playing and enjoying the first one, I played them all over the next few years and Mankind Divided is probably my second favourite after the original. Loved every moment.
Then fucking Square Enix does their bullshit, and then fucking Embracer ruined it for good.
All in all, I love Deus Ex and I’m super glad I found myself getting into stealth games and immersive sims, otherwise I would have missed out on it so many other of my favourite gaming experiences, Deus Ex being one of them.
What’s weird is that it’s like the only Looking Glass/Ion Storm/Eidos Montréal immersive sim franchise that doesn’t have a clear spiritual successor. For System Shock we got not only BioShock, but Prey (2017) as well. For Thief, we got Dishonored. For Ultima, we got Arx Fatalis/Libertatis (and early Elder Scrolls to a very lesser extent).
But for Deus Ex, we’ve got… I don’t know, Cyberpunk 2077, maybe? But the whole open world thing doesn’t really fit in with the usual gameplay loop of Deus Ex. There are a fair amount of great cyberpunk games, but none seem to really scratch that immersive sim itch. I guess Prey is pretty close as well (in addition to its System Shock influences), if you consider some of the body/power upgrades, but it’s not all that similar thematically.
I’d love for someone to come around and pull a Thanos by just going, “fine, I’ll do it myself”. If the franchise is dead, maybe now there’s more motivation for that, since, before a few months ago, we were still clinging to what little hope remained for the third Adam Jensen game. Or maybe someone already has and I’ve missed it.
There’s an indie game called Shadows of Doubt that does the whole immersive sim in a big hub stuff pretty well. Kind of jank and unfinished, but I think it’s the closest thing I’ve seen in recent times to Deus Ex.
That’s that procedurally generated detective game, right?
I really need to try it because it seems right up my alley. From what I understand, it can get pretty intricate when it comes to the detective work which seems really interesting.
Yeah, that’s the one. And yeah, the cases can get pretty complicated at times, I’ve had one case for instance where I had to find a person by their description… Except the description was literally their job title and their first name initial letter (or something very similar). I had to go to a gubermint building, hack into a computer and manually cross-reference the health history of literally everyone in town to find the person. And that was just the first step of the case.
Check out Core Decay. It’s still in development but from what I’ve seen it follows the Deus Ex formula down to a T. Probably the game I’m most excited about at the moment.
The successor to Deus Ex is Deus Ex. Mankind Divided was released in 2016, so it’s roughly as old as the other games you listed as successors to the other IPs.
But for Deus Ex, we’ve got… I don’t know, Cyberpunk 2077, maybe? But the whole open world thing doesn’t really fit in with the usual gameplay loop of Deus Ex. There are a fair amount of great cyberpunk games, but none seem to really scratch that immersive sim itch. I guess Prey is pretty close as well (in addition to its System Shock influences), if you consider some of the body/power upgrades, but it’s not all that similar thematically.
Check out Cruelty Squad by Ville Kallio on Steam. Aesthetically and spiritually it scrys into the future on the same level Deus Ex did and delivers an even more dire prophecy that feels as disturbingly prescient. It takes the open ended levels of DX and adds insane verticality and mind bending traversal. It plays more tactically than Deus Ex but the augment system is really rewarding and enables the player to munchkin their way to their target.
You may notice it looks artistically like a 13th century Christian piece with a Jackson Pollock splotch of New Years Eve stomach soup all over the canvas. I retort that so did DX1 most of the time. The CS playerbase refers to our ability to parse and navigate this style of level design and eclectic color composition as the ‘CEO mindset.’
But seriously I am a big Deus Ex enjoyer and other than Thief nothing has come as close to the full breadth of experience that world evokes in me. It is both terrible and beautiful to behold.
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