We’re at the club… Club Mario. Enjoy the club. Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-mario.
This is the place to talk about everyone’s favorite* plumber, construction worker, doctor, stage performer, racer, sports star, and board game enthusiast. (And superhero, I guess.) He loves money, cake, and picross. Mushrooms make him huge, flowers allow him to cast fireballs, he can demolish a brick wall with his bare fist, and in recent years he’s liable to prance about in a feline fursuit. That’s right, it’s the Italian from Brooklyn in over 200 Japanese games… Mario Mario.
(*or second-favorite, if you like his twin brother Luigi Mario better)
What Mario games have you played lately? It doesn’t even have to be starring Mario specifically, as Nintendo has made plenty of games starring his friends and frenemies, such as Luigi, Captain Toad, Peach Toadstool, Yoshi, and Wario.
And for another general conversation starter… What is your favorite Mario game? At the moment I think I’d have to go with Super Mario Galaxy from the Nintendo Wii. I’m in the camp which prefers it over its direct sequel, but that’s a great game too.
Uhhhhhh… hmmm. Im not sure on the 2D mario’s, ive only really played a couple of those. But 3D is probably Galaxy… which pains me slightly as i am a hardcore Sunshine fan.
It’s been awhile since I’ve played a Mario game. Every few months my Discord server will have a Mario Kart 8 tournament and that’s always a blast. I’ve only beat SMB 1 and that was only possible with save scumming but there’s plenty that I’ve played at family and friend’s houses growing up. I definitely prefer the 3D platformers. Exploring the vibrant worlds and discovering secret collectibles is delightful. If I had to choose a favorite, it would be Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. I love the wholesome chaos, the staggering amount of tracks that are (mostly) beautiful to look at, and the fond memories I have playing it with my friends.
Super Mario Bros. 3 is my favorite. Though I pretty much love all of them. Yoshi’s Island is the biggest challenger for the spot in my eyes, but I know there’s controversy over counting that as a “mainline” Mario game. Mario Galaxy, Mario 64 and Mario World are all very close to the spot, though.
I’m also in the same camp of liking Galaxy 1 over Galaxy 2. Don’t get me wrong, the sequel is awesome in its own right, but noting beats the first time experiencing that combo of gameplay and music.
To give a favorite for 2D Mario games, I have the unusual opinion of liking Donkey Kong (1994) for the Game Boy the very best. (A mainline entry or technically a spinoff? I’ll let you decide.) For those who don’t know, it is not just a port of the classic arcade game—it features 101 stages that require Mario to do all sorts of acrobatic platforming and a bit of clever puzzle-solving. I think it is the perfect old-school handheld game… after Tetris, of course. This game would get a spiritual successor in the form of Mario vs Donkey Kong on the Game Boy Advance, but tbh I didn’t care for that one as much.
My favorite 2D Mario is a jumbled tossup between Yoshi’s Island, the original Super Mario Bros, and New Super Mario Bros Wii. Yoshi’s Island is my nostalgic fave and I love its experimental spirit, SMB1 has a fantastically weighty sense of inertia that its many sequels abandon, and NSMB Wii is drab but plays really well.
For 3D it’s less complicated, Odyssey is my favorite by far! Mario has never felt better to control, and I never got tired of charting fancy lines across the playground levels.
Actually, Donkey Kong '94 is secretly the game that inspired the whole Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. It’s a brilliant evolution of the original Donkey Kong, but I think it goes under the radar because of the unassuming title. Definitely worth checking out!
Donkey Kong (1981) – The first game in which you play as Mario, a lowly carpenter who also went by the name of Jumpman. A giant ape who is definitely not King Kong and also not a donkey has nabbed a lady named Lady (or hey, maybe Pauline, who can say) and climbed up a very strange structure that’s under construction. Wearing the world’s squeakiest shoes, you must work your way to the top, jumping over rolling barrels and crushing fire beasts with a hammer. Fun fact: this was originally going to be a Popeye game. Imagine if that had happened?
How many of you have played Donkey Kong on an arcade cabinet? Have you experienced all four unique stages? And which of the home console conversions have you experienced, if any?
I played it in arcades as a kid. I also played a number of other versions as a kid, including the Game & Watch, Atari 2600, NES and I think my friend had the Intellivision version.
I don’t think I’ve ever played the arcade version but I recently play through the NSO version on Switch with a friend and I had a miserable time hahaha. By the time I beat the game, my friend had completed it four times.
I think the first time I played Donkey Kong must have been in Animal Crossing? That’s where I played a lot of NES games for the first time. I’ve played Donkey Kong at an arcade, but only as an adult.
I played a cheap rip-off on a handheld thingy from China (could only play that one game, he had three of them, one for Pac-Man that I loved, one for Tetris which he had such a high score on that I could never beat him and this one) that an Uncle of me owned. It was a close to 1:1 copy but instead of Mario it was a different sprite and the level was much shorter because it needed to fit onto one screen, also only one bit of music on repeat that sounded awful but you could not turn it off. I never made it to the top.
I’ve long thought a stealth-based game would suit Waluigi best, given his build and personality. Could be a Metal Gear Solid type of thing, where Bowser (or whoever*) has stolen a bunch of prized Mushroom Kingdom goods from across Mario gaming history, and Waluigi is hired to retrieve the items (for a price, of course). Instead of regular weapons, he could use sillier contraptions to solve puzzles and traverse various terrains (I’d imagine cartooney devices along the lines of what Wile E Coyote would use). The faster you complete a stage, the bigger your bonus in the payout.
*Actually, perhaps Wario would be the funniest choice here. I know we usually think of Wario and Waluigi as partners in crime, but IDK how much they’ve actually done together beyond sports and board games. They’d turn on each other for the right price, right? Could even have each level run by a different member of Wario’s Warioware posse, with Wario in charge of the final area. And along these lines, perhaps this could be the game to finally bring in Wapeach. A rival thief who you have to race to the loot, for certain stages?
A friend of mine had a table with DK and a couple other arcade classics like Pac-Man. I hated it! I prefer playing it with a d-pad. Mario moves slow as hell and you gotta have some quick reflexes. I hate slamming my wrist trying to not get hit by a barrell! Now with a d-pad, the game is different. Mario can maneuver quicker which makes the game a lot more barrel-ble. I’m like 90% positive you can control with the d-pad or the control stick on the emulation for DK64, and I literally moved my hand to the far prong for the second time for actual purposes.*
The four levels are good, especially the final level where you drop DK off the top of a construction site to bust his head.
The DK Gameboy game (1994) is so dang good. I’m pretty sure it isn’t on NSO as Nintendo hates me, but I have the original cartridge with a Super Gameboy and Super Nintendo in storage if I ever want to bust it out. I honestly might as that game really is “dust off an old console and find your vessel for an ancient cartridge to play” good.
*I believe you also used the D Pad for Yoshi’s Story and Kirby 64, but I honestly think I only played Yoshi’s Story before enjoying the N64’s D-Pad for DK64’s mandatory rethread of the original game.
I feel like if you wanted to do Waluigi as his own series, he has to bring a bit of his Waluigi essence. I think the easiest idea is to just do an odd ball game which matches Waluigi’s oddness, but the more that idea sits with any executive, the more they realize that is just Warioware again. So we need to dig deeper into who Waluigi is which for me- Waluigi is a romantic. Oddly more than Bowser who’s capture of Peach has been canonized as an action of distorted love. Waluigi puts a rose in his teeth. He’s fulfilling Greek literature with how flirtatious he is being. So I think Waluigi should have a dating sim where he tries to woo the many ladies of the Mushroom Kingdom. He’s a psycho so he’s fighting an uphill battle. He can suitor Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, Pauline, even Toadette. He could also have a canon new character who can function as his significant other for Mario Sports outings moving forward. She can be named Daffodil.
