Mario Bros. Retrospective Part 5: Back to Basics
Welcome to Part 4 of our Mario Bros. retrospective! In this episode, we take a look at Mario's first 16-bit adventure, dive into his history with pinball, bid farewell to the Nelsonic Game Watch, and celebrate one of the finest Game Boy games ever made.
In this series, we aim to tell the story of the Mario Bros. series as it unfolded for North American audiences. We are not only looking at the games themselves, but the historical context surrounding them, and what it was like being a fan as these games were being released.
These are some of the invaluable sources that this project wouldn't have been possible without:
Video Works: https://youtu.be/cdUDvoGFp8s?si=8tZLecvzwVAtWLIJ
The Super Mario Wiki: https://www.mariowiki.com/
The Gaming Historian: https://thegaminghistorian.com/
Leonard Herman: http://www.rolentapress.com/
Supper Mario Broth: https://www.suppermariobroth.com/
Watch more Stone Age Gamer Archeology: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoWJAVdwC7Z_CCqXEIJTcDQhVoxTcmPU7
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Transcript of the video:
With the 16-bit console wars in full swing, Nintendo’s ongoing battle with Sega showed no signs of slowing down. The introduction of Sonic the Hedgehog leveled the playing field for Sega, and even the impressive popularity of both Super Mario World and Super Mario Land 2 weren’t enough to reclaim Nintendo’s previously uncontested top spot in the industry. Not only that, but the pace at which Sega was able to churn out quality Sonic titles was remarkably fast, as in only a few short years, they had managed to release four original games including two 8-bit versions for their Master System and Game Gear consoles, as well as a massively successful full fledged sequel on Sega Genesis, just in time for the 1992 holiday season.
But Nintendo had some big plans of their own, including a rather unconventional sequel to Super Mario World. But that game was still a few years off, and with Sonic firing on all cylinders, Nintendo was going to have to come up with some new ways to keep their most popular platforming icon in the spotlight, one of which came by way of a proposed Hollywood Blockbuster. Mario was heading back to the movies, this time in a starring role, and as misfortune would have it, it would not go well.
With the enduring popularity and marketability of the Super Mario brand across multiple mediums, Nintendo unsurprisingly drew plenty of attention from filmmakers. Plans to make a movie out of the Super Mario Bros. series were pitched for years, with Nintendo eventually greenlighting a project in 1991. But it didn’t take long for things to go south.
Years of tumultuous production problems, delays, rewrites, overblown budgets, directorial changes, and more turned the project into a headache for everyone involved, including Nintendo. But the production persevered, eventually taking shape enough to be ready for release, and in volume 48 of Nintendo Power was formally introduced to the world. The 4 page spread showed some very promising images of the Mario Brothers dressed in colored outfits similar to their established appearances, and a behind the scenes look at the movie’s animatronics that would bring creatures like Yoshi to life. The substance of the article, however, gave many readers pause, as they told a tale of multiple dimensions, a place called Dinohattan, and many other details that seemed vastly different from the games the movie was supposedly based on. Regardless, with a brazen confidence bolstered by the inherent bankability of the Mario license, a marketing blitz soon hit televisions everywhere with the tagline “This aint no game!.” Trading cards and action figures were produced in anticipation of the movie’s all but guaranteed success. The stage was set, and the Mario Brothers were ready to make their live-action theatrical debut.
Super Mario Bros. released in movie theaters on May 28, 1993 to critical and commercial confusion. In place of the colorful, lighthearted fare of the games that came before it, Super Mario Bros. was a deeply strange and dark film that bore very little resemblance to its source material. Mario Mario and Luigi Mario formed the plumbing duo of the Mario Bros., portrayed by Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. One day while on a job, Luigi met an aspiring archeologist named Daisy, played by Samantha Mathis. Unbeknownst to her, she was actually a princess from an alternate dimension where dinosaurs instead of apes, had evolved into humans. That alternate dimension’s version of Manhattan, Dinohattan, was ruled by King Koopa, played by Dennis Hopper. When Daisy got kidnapped and brought to her homeworld, Mario and Luigi chased after her, eventually finding themselves involved in a quest to revive the Mushroom King and free the world from the clutches of the evil King Koopa.
Besides its premise, extreme liberties were also taken with nearly every other aspect of Mario’s existing lore. Luigi was adopted, Goombas were lumbering turtle creatures instead of mushrooms, the giant fish Bertha was a large woman in a spiky dress, Mario’s girlfriend was Daniella instead of Pauline, and so on.
There were still plenty of fun video game references, like Koopa using a Super Scope as a de-evolution gun and a relatively game-accurate portrayal of Bob-Ombs, but on the whole, audiences and critics agreed that it just wasn’t very good, with even the movie’s star Bob Hoskins having gone on record saying “The whole experience was a nightmare.” It failed to make back its budget at the box office, and while it’s earned itself an impressive cult following in the decades since thanks to its solid performances and memorably bizarre world, it’s still often considered among the worst major Hollywood blockbusters ever made.
The Super Mario Bros. movie was a gamble that didn’t pay off, and ultimately didn’t do much to help Mario’s image, particularly in the face of Sonic the Hedgehog’s still increasing popularity. But Mario had one thing that Sonic didn’t, history. So while Sega continued to lure in customers with a steady stream of new games, Nintendo would counter with a single cartridge containing a collection of some of the best platformers of all time.
Super Mario All-Stars released in August 1993 for the Super NES, and served as not just a collection of Mario’s previous home console adventures, but a full-on remake of the games, complete with new visuals, sound, and quality of life features.
Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3 were lovingly recreated with a fascinating level of detail, bringing them more in line with Super Mario World, and in some cases, beyond.
Super Mario Bros. featured the most comprehensive visual overhaul. Plain colored backgrounds became sprawling landscapes, lantern-lit mines, and terrifying fortresses. Sound effects created echoes when underground, each world had a unique mushroom retainer segment at the end, Bowser encounters had boss music, and more. Mario and Luigi themselves also got significant makeovers, with each brother now featuring completely unique looks. Some of the original game’s glitches were left intact, while others were tweaked or removed entirely. It wasn’t perfect, with some players taken aback by the fact that the controls and physics weren’t a 1 to 1 recreation, but the game’s classic sense of fun had never felt more alive.
Super Mario Bros. 2, having already been presented with a bold cartoonish look, took to the Super NES’s color palette remarkably well, with multi tiered scrolling backgrounds, and beautiful character sprites. This one played nearly identical to its NES counterpart, but featured some unusual color changes, including a new blue makeover for the boss Triclyde. On the whole though, the enhancements to Super Mario 2 were quite impressive.
As for Super Mario Bros. 3, it had what some would consider the toughest transition to 16 bits. Where character sprites in Super Mario Bros. 2 included the whites of their eyes, the Mario 3 sprites maintained the simple black lines, which appeared at odds with the new level of graphical detail. The map for Grass Land was strangely brown, the sound effect for Mario and Luigi using the raccoon tail was distractingly over-pronounced, and the music in general featured some curious instrument choices. Even the Kings’ transformations were changed, now largely using recycled sprites from other games, with the exception of some fun new cameos from Donkey Kong Jr. and Yoshi.
But the biggest draw in the collection was the inclusion of a brand new game, or at least one that seemed that way, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Presented here for the first time in North America, The Lost Levels was actually the original Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, now featuring a new title, and numerous changes designed to make the game far more accessible than its original release on the Famicom Disk System.
True to form, The Lost Levels looked and sounded nearly identical to the version of Super Mario Bros. also included in All-Stars. But now, players started with more lives, and a proper save feature was added. Where in the original release, you would have to start from the beginning of the game when you got a Game Over, The Lost Levels allowed players to start at the beginning of whichever stage they left off at. The requirements to reach the hidden 9th and 10th worlds were considerably less difficult as well, making this what many consider the best way to play the game, even today.
Remakes of classics are commonplace in modern gaming, but back in 1993, taking NES games and bringing their graphical fidelity up to current standards was a relatively new concept. Super Mario All-Stars was an extraordinary success, and quickly became a new pack-in title for most Super NES consoles. It’s still widely regarded as one of the best examples of a remake done right, and while it may not be as iconic as the NES originals in hindsight, it’s still one of the highlights of Nintendo’s 16-bit library.
The Super NES wasn’t Nintendo’s only system on the market though, and Game Boy fans were also ready for an all-new Mario adventure. The Super Mario Land games had set a precedent of being extremely weird, even by Mario standards, and following the success of 6 Golden Coins and its new villain Wario, a sequel was inevitable. But for as much weirdness as fans expected, nobody could have foreseen how unusual the game they got would ultimately be, as the third game in the Super Mario Land series wasn’t a Mario game at all.
In the January 1994 issue of Nintendo Power, a special preview section was dedicated to some of the more exciting games coming throughout the year. The segment led off with the newest installment in Nintendo’s Metroid franchise, but it closed with a game called Wario Land. The full page spread showed two new enemy designs and a handful of screenshots, explaining the basic premise of the game, which would place Wario in the starring role. As usual, it provided more questions than answers, but fortunately for readers, the wait would be uncharacteristically short. Just two months later, this new Wario adventure was ready to begin.
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 was released on Game Boy in March 1994. As advertised, it sidestepped Mario almost entirely in favor of placing the spotlight on Nintendo’s new lovable anti-hero Wario. After being ousted from Mario’s castle at the end of 6 Golden Coins, Wario decided that he needed to find a way to get himself a brand new castle of his own. In order to raise the money to buy one, he decided to steal a monument to Princess Toadstool that had itself already been stolen by a dreaded group called The Brown Sugar Pirates, led by Captain Syrup. This quest would take Wario across Kitchen Island, where he would explore and plunder various food-themed locations for all the treasure and gold coins he could get his hands on.
Where Mario’s movements always felt a bit off in his previous Game Boy adventures, this game took advantage of the platform’s propensity for slower, more deliberate movement by applying them to Wario’s more imposing physique. He could still jump like Mario, but his movements were far slower. He also had a powerful shoulder charge at his disposal which could send enemies flying in an instant. But the core tenants of a Mario game were still somewhat present, like shrinking when taking damage, and of course, a powerup system. Mario Bros.
In addition to the invincibility stars and 1-up hearts from previous Mario Land adventures, Wario could now wear a series of special hats that would grant him unique abilities. Jet Wario allowed him to use his shoulder charge move in midair to fly. Bull Wario let him perform a powerful ground pound and stick into ceilings with his horns, and Dragon Wario let him create a powerful stream of fire.
In the end, Wario wound up having to face off against not Captain Syrup herself, but a magical genie that she summoned when Wario finally arrived in her quarters. Once defeated, Captain Syrup tossed a bomb to blow up Wario and his surroundings, but the anti-hero managed to escape before the ensuing explosion revealed that the princess Toadstool statue was right there the whole time. Unfortunately for Wario, before he could claim the statue for his own, Mario, in what might be a callback to his appearance in Donkey Kong Jr., showed up in a helicopter, grabbed the statue, thanked Wario for his troubles, and flew away.
Wario though, managed to grab the genie’s lamp before his escape, and used it to summon him to grant his wish, and depending on how much money and treasure you managed to accumulate throughout the adventure, would trigger a different ending, ranging from Wario receiving a pitiful birdhouse, all the way up to his own planet with his visage carved into it.
While technically a continuation of the same timeline established in Super Mario Land 2, Wario Land was a Super Mario game in name only. More accurately, it functions as a starting point for Wario’s solo career. Wario’s Woods, a falling-block puzzle game, and Mario & Wario, a point and click puzzle/strategy game released exclusively in Japan for Super Famicom, both came out around the same time as Wario Land, but those games still featured Wario as an antagonist. This newly minted Wario Land series would settle him into the role of anti-hero, with his own cast of enemies, powerups, and more, eventually growing to span multiple titles across several different platforms. In fact, Wario proved so popular that he not only managed to maintain regular appearances in Mario spinoff games, but also got his own second spinoff series in 2003’s WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! for Game Boy Advance.
But while Mario’s new nemesis was setting out on a path of his own, something much stranger was happening elsewhere. A team completely unrelated to Nintendo was making a brand new Mario game, not on Game Boy, not on Super Nintendo, not even on the NES. This game would be exclusive to the Philips CD-i.
Back in 1988, Nintendo partnered with Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony to begin development of a CD-ROM add on for their then upcoming Super Famicom platform. This partnership resulted in the development of the Super NES CD-ROM, also known as the Nintendo PlayStation. Nintendo’s deal with Sony famously fell through, at which point Nintendo turned to their rival Philips to continue the project. The Super NES CD-ROM never materialized though, and Nintendo and Philips also parted ways, but not before Philips released their own CD-based machine in December 19991, the CD-i. It was a multimedia device designed to work as a central hub for movies, music, pictures, and of course video games. Thanks to their previous contract with Nintendo, Philips found themselves with a brief window to create original games using Nintendo’s IPs. This resulted in a series of bizarre titles featuring Nintendo’s most iconic characters that were never released on Nintendo platforms and didn’t have any official involvement at all. There were reportedly a total of six Nintendo projects that began development for the CD-i. 3 based on The Legend of Zelda, and 3 based on Super Mario. All three Zelda titles eventually saw release, but only one of the Mario games did. Mario Bros. Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds, a 2D platformer styled after Super Mario World, and Mario Takes America, a game about Mario trying to make a movie about himself, were both canceled. The third was an unusual throwback to one of the hero’s earliest adventures.
Hotel Mario was released on Philips CD-i in April 1994, bearing more than a few resemblances to the gameplay established in Wrecking Crew.
This being a CD-i game, its most advertised feature was its story, which was told through a series of fully animated and voiced cutscenes, a first for the series, that drew heavy inspiration from the various North American Super Mario cartoons. On a trip to visit Princess Toadstool, the Mario Bros. discovered that Bowser had once again kidnapped their friend, and managed to transform the Mushroom Kingdom into his own personal resort. Each Koopaling was placed in charge of one of seven different hotels, and it was up to Mario to close all the doors inside, an objective that made very little in the way of sense, but worked as an analog to knocking down walls in Wrecking Crew. Unlike Wrecking Crew though, Hotel Mario retains Mario’s ability to jump and stomp on enemies, allowing him far more offensive and maneuverability options than before.
Each Hotel culminated in a boss battle with a different Koopa Kid, with the final encounter being a faceoff against Bowser himself.
Similar to the other CD-i Nintendo projects, Mario Bros. the artwork in the game was strikingly off-brand, but at its core, Hotel Mario provided a decent amount of fun for any CD-i owners with a proper controller to play it with. And while its cutscenes are easy to look back on today as somewhat embarrassing, they were still considered very impressive for the time, as full motion video in home console games was still far from common. Their bizarre content was also extremely memorable, with several instances of Mario and Luigi talking directly to the player, and a series of Bowser-themed merchandise like Bowser’s Ghost Cologne and Sourpuss Bread.
With Super Mario All-Stars giving players a refresher course in the platformers that established the core tenants of the franchise, and Hotel Mario serving as an unofficial callback to Wrecking Crew, Mario’s future seemed to be, at least for the moment, focused on his past. And for his next adventure, he would continue that trend by going back even further, all the way to the character's beginnings, while at the same time, much like with Wario in Super Mario Land 3, act as a springboard for another character to strike out on their own.
Back in the early 1980s, Donkey Kong was by far Nintendo’s most popular brand. Mario may have been the protagonist of the original arcade classic, but the real star was the titular ape. That popularity, though, came to an end in 1984. Once Mario broke off into his own franchise, the Donkey Kong games struggled to establish their own identity. There was a string of Game & Watch games serving as both spinoffs and adaptations of Nintendo’s existing arcade hits, but no game better exemplified the series lack of direction than its unusual arcade sequel, Donkey Kong 3. In place of Mario was a new hero named Stanley the Bugman. Mario Bros. Stanley was similar in design to Mario, but while he could also run and jump, his primary actions were projectile-based. Donkey Kong 3 may not have looked like it on the surface, but unlike its platforming predecessors, this game was at its core a shooter, with players taking control of Stanley to protect his greenhouse by blasting Donkey Kong with bug spray.
Donkey Kong 3 failed to gain traction in arcades, and the character’s last original game for nearly a decade wound up being the NES edutainment title Donkey Kong Jr. Math. Aside from a few brief cameos in other games, the Donkey Kong brand seemed all but finished.
That is until 1994 when he faced off against his original nemesis once again.
Donkey Kong released for the Game Boy on July 22, 1994, and reignited the character’s classic rivalry with Mario. Donkey Kong had once again kidnapped Pauline and fled to a construction site, with Mario giving chase in hopes of returning her to safety. At first glance it seemed like a simple remake of the original arcade classic. But upon completing the first handful of familiar stages, the game opened up into a massive new adventure where Mario would have to navigate nearly 100 stages of puzzles and traps.
Each level contained a key and a locked door that Mario would have to unite in order to continue his chase after Donkey Kong and Pauline. Every four stages Mario would face off against Donkey Kong directly in tricky boss battles that involved either hitting him with barrels, or simply making his way to the top of the stage like in the arcade original.
Thankfully, Mario was more well prepared to handle Donkey Kong’s antics this time thanks to an entirely new moveset, combining elements from his past decade of adventures with his limitations from the original arcade game. Mario was still susceptible to fall damage, but he could survive from much farther distances. He had more control over his mid-air movements, the ability to throw and catch the Hammer powerup, pick up and toss enemies and items, and more. He also had some brand new acrobatic capabilities that would become mainstays in future Mario games, like his triple jump and backflip maneuver.
Mario’s moves weren’t the only things that combined new and old elements, as the game itself managed to incorporate aspects of Donkey Kong Jr. into its design as well, with certain stages featuring hanging vines that Mario could climb the same way Junior did in his game.
The daunting stage count proved to be an incredibly fun and challenging gauntlet, leading up to a tremendously memorable showdown with an enormous Donkey Kong that pushed the Game Boy’s visual capabilities to their limits. It was an ingenious reinvention of the classic Donkey Kong formula, and a sizable hit for the Game Boy, and thanks to some fun new technology, the Super NES as well.
Donkey Kong also served as the flagship launch title for an accessory called the Super Game Boy, a device that plugged into the Super NES and allowed players to use Game Boy games on their Televisions, complete with full color customization, controller options, unique borders, and more. Donkey Kong though, was a Super Game Boy enhanced game, using the added power of the Super NES to incorporate unique color pallets, borders, and even advanced sounds into the game. When played on Game Boy, Donkey Kong was still an impressive feat, but when played on Super Game Boy, colorful splash screens, partially colorized stages, an arcade-inspired border, and even limited voiceover for Pauline, gave the already great game a whole new life.
Donkey Kong is often considered one of the best games ever released for Nintendo’s monochrome handheld, but like Wario Land before it, also served as the starting point for a brand new Donkey Kong franchise called Mario vs. Donkey Kong, a series of puzzle platformers which spanned numerous console generations, and unique playstyles. Even bigger though, was Nintendo’s second revitalization of the Donkey Kong brand, Donkey Kong Country which was released on November 21, 1994. This game let players control Donkey Kong and his new partner Diddy in a platform action game featuring revolutionary graphics and sound. It was a massive success that raised the bar for 16-bit gaming, ushering in an impressive second wind for the Super Nintendo. The months that followed would see the release of some of the system’s most beloved and technically impressive games, all while Super NES console sales soared, many of which included a brand new pack in game, a special revised edition of Super Mario All-Stars.
Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World was a single cartridge that contained the entirety of the All-Stars package as well as Super Mario World, but not in its original form. This revised edition brought with it a number of minor changes, including an additional save file, and an entirely new sprite for Luigi, who no longer appeared as an exact copy of his brother.
The Super NES closed 1994 in spectacular fashion, and even though Sega’s lineup was plenty strong on its own, it wasn’t enough to stem the tide that Donkey Kong Country initiated. Nintendo was on their way back to the top, with a planned slate for the coming year ready to cement their dominance of the home console market once more, including the long awaited followup to Super Mario World. But as is always the case with the video game industry, the winds of change were in the air. An entirely new dimension of gameplay was just around the corner, and Nintendo was already making plans to tackle it head on.
Join us next time as Nintendo finally follows up Super Mario World with an unexpected origin story, and video games go 3D in more ways than one.
