Game Groups > Mario games

This group contains all games prominently featuring the Italian-American plumber Mario, a fictional character created by Shigeru Miyamoto. Mario is one of the most popular video game characters of all time, serving as the mascot of Nintendo and starring in a vast amount of games.

Unofficial fangames can be found in the Mario fangames game group.

Creation

Mario is traditionally depicted as a short man with a mustache, dressed in red overalls with a blue shirt (or the other way around) and a red cap. He first appeared in Donkey Kong (1982) and was originally named Jumpman, owing the name to his ability to jump. Miyamoto intended to name him Mr. Video afterwards, but decided to use Mario after an argument between Nintendo employees and their American warehouse landlord, Mario Segale, concerning overdue rent. Mario was made a plumber because of the sewer-like underground settings of Mario Bros. (1983).

Gameplay

Mario games may belong to different genres, but they gained prominence primarily thanks to its platform installments. Super Mario Bros. (1985) became the most influential Mario game, laying the foundation stone for the side-scrolling platform genre. Ever since that game, Mario's trademark ability has become jumping on enemies' heads to defeat or incapacitate them. He can also consume mushrooms to grow in size, and special flowers to be able to throw fireballs at enemies. In later games Mario acquired other power-ups, including some that allowed him to fly and ride a dinosaur.

Besides platformers, Mario games contain many spin-offs, most notably RPGs, sports, and racing games (see the related groups section).

Other recurrent characters

Mario's brother Luigi has appeared in many Mario games, mostly as a secondary character in two-player modes. One of the series' recurrent storylines involves saving the Princess Toadstool from the clutches of the evil turtle-like creature known as Bowser or King Koopa; his minions, the Koopas, are among the most common enemy characters in Mario games. In Super Mario World (1990), the friendly dinosaur Yoshi made an appearance and has since become a playable character in some of the games. A minor antagonist, a pirate named Wario, appeared in a spin-off series of his own.

The above text is from the Super Mario Wiki and is available under a Creative Commons license. Attribution must be provided through a list of authors or a link back to the original article. Source: https://www.mariowiki.com/VB_Mario_Land

Trivia

Cancelled Games

• Around 1993, NovaLogic was developing a Mario platform game titled Super Mario's Wacky Worlds for the Philips CD-i. Due to the Philips CD-i sales declining the game was cancelled. A prototype of the game exists,
• Around 1994, a game titled Mario Takes America was in development by Cigam for the Phillips-CD-i. The game's plot involved Mario traveling across America from New York to Hollywood, California where he would star in a film. The game was cancelled due to Phillips cutting off funding for the project and Cigam soon went bankrupt after.
• Around 1995, a game titled VB Mario Land was in development for the Virtual Boy. A single-level playable demo was shown at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show 1995 in Las Vegas. The game was ultimately cancelled.
• In the early 2000s. a game titled Mario Motors for the Nintendo DS was conceived as a Mario Kart spinoff. Only screemshots of this game are known to exist.
• Around 2007,, Next Level Games started work on a volleyball game with the title Mario Volleyball. As time went on, the games concept became more combat oriented with the addition of wrestling moves like pile drivers being added so the title was renamed to Super Mario Spikers. The game eventually was never greenlit since the violence was deemed too realistic for a game using the Mario characters.

Related Groups

• Dr. Mario series
• Mario educational games
• Mario fangames
• Mario RPG series
• Mario Kart series
• Mario Party series
• Mario sports games
• Paper Mario series
• Super Mario series
• Super Mario Galaxy series
• Wario games
• Wrecking Crew series