Tag Archives: Mario Bros.

Apr 15 2023

Top Ten Mario Video Games

With the stunning success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie it’s a great time to look back at the Nintendo franchise that inspired the film and rank them in order of awesomeness! How does this list compares to yours? Be sure to drop a comment.

10. New Super Mario Bros

As Mario’s first new side-scrolling game in several years, this title was released for the Nintendo DS and brought a new visual style to the series that was continued for many games after it and was highly influential. It was a return to Mario’s roots after many 3D games were released, with fun 2D levels and multiple power-ups and secrets to explore.

9. Super Mario 3D Land

This title for the Nintendo 3DS has Mario going through familiar 3D levels, but the action is similar to his earlier 2D side-scrolling games, and it has the return of his iconic raccoon suite from Super Mario Bros 3. The levels are great fun to play and are an inspiration for the later 3D World game.

8. Super Mario Land

Mario’s first portable game for the Game Boy is simple, but incredibly fun and shows how easy it is to pick up a Mario game and have a great time. Based on the NES original, the levels are short, but exciting and challenging. The game even has side scrolling shooting levels, which provides a unique experience in Mario games.

7. Super Mario Bros 2

Mario’s second NES game is in some ways the most unique. He travels to the  dream world of Subcon and battles a new enemy named Wart and his shyguy minions. The action is different from every other title and features his brother Luigi and his friends Peach and Toad as playable characters for the first time. The ending sequence is also a fan favorite, which reveals it was all a dream.

6. Super Mario 3D World

An evolution of the earlier Super Mario 3D Land, having Cat Mario running through fun and exciting levels in a 3D world is something every Nintendo fan should experience and the cat suit is perhaps Mario’s best powerup, The remaster of this title includes Bowser’s Fury, which is the first foray into an open world Mario game that is a fun hint of things to come for future Mario games.

5. Super Mario Bros 3

Mario’s last NES title was his best on the console. This title featured a return to the Mushroom Kingdom and showed for the first time, Bowser’s kids, such as Lemmy Koopa, Wendy O Koopa, and Ludwig Von Koopa, to name a few, who have become fan favorites in their own right and have appeared in many other games, as well. This game expanded on the original game in a huge way, with an overworld to go through, and new power ups such as Mario’s raccoon suit that enable him to fly. Taking off and flying above your foes is an epic moment in Mario gaming!

4. Super Mario World

The high point of 2D mario gaming, this launch title for the Super NES had Mario’s dinosaur pal Yoshi appearing for the first time running through beautifully designed areas in Dinosaur Island while battling Bowser and his offspring, the Koopa Kids. This game perfected everything that came before, such as an interactive overworld, a Superman-like cape to fly around, and a huge amount of levels to explore.

3. Super Mario 64

This was the first and arguably the most influential 3D game of all time. Being able to move Mario in a fully immersive 3D world changed video games forever and had you going though varied and exciting levels while battling Bowser and his minions. The first time you were able to move Mario in any direction and explore Peach’s castle is a moment that so memorable and is just one of many such moments that Mario games have provided.

2. Super Mario Bros.

The original that reinvigorated the video game genre after the Atari crash of 1983, this side-scrolling classic introduced Bowser, Princess Peach, goombas and the Mushroom Kingdom that are now icons for all gaming. The numerous levels and secrets in each world were groundbreaking at the time and made Mario a household name.

1. Super Mario Galaxy

The pinnacle of 3D Mario gaming, this adventure has Mario soaring through outer space in wildly inventive levels that changed how 3D platformers were played. The sheer fun and excitement of this game is what makes Mario an icon who long ago surpassed his gaming roots and now is a movie star.

C.S. Link

Apr 7 2023

The SUPER Mario Movie We’ve Been Waiting For

(SPOILERS WILL BE FLAGGED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PARAGRPAHS CONTAINING SPOILERS)

It is finally time that the Super Mario Bros. franchise gets an ACTUAL movie (don’t bring up the 1993 live-action one…), but is it any good? Critic scores on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic gave the movie a 55% and a 47%. Those are low very low scores compared to the audience scores, which are a high 98% and an 86%. Why are the critic scores so low? This will be discussed later in the article; anyway, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, in my opinion, is a fun and referenced-packed adventure that can be watched by all ages, but is especially more enjoyable for the biggest Mario fans. Of course, it isn’t perfect. As my main issues are with the general pacing which leads to lack of substance in some scenes, as well as other scenes being pushed down to compensate with the little time the movie has.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie begins with out two brothers, Mario and Luigi, living in Brooklyn, New York struggling to get their new plumbing business off the ground and running. Their family do not help them at all, giving them words of scolding rather than encouragement. After seeing on the news that Brooklyn is having a massive plumbing problem, they rush to the scene, desperate to get their names out there. They arrive and pull some shenanigans, which then ends with them underground in a pipe maze. They find our iconic green pipe and get pulled into this warp dimension; Luigi gets sent to the Dark lands, and Mario to the Mushroom Kingdom.

The voice acting in this movie was stellar and I definitely owe everyone on the VA team an apology for my past pessimism when they were announced, especially with Chris Pratt as Mario. He was definitely one of the best performances in this movie, followed by Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, and Anya Talor-Joy as Princess Peach. How could we talk Mario without his original voice actor, Charles Martinet? It was confirmed that he would be in this movie, but I really wish we got to hear more of him, honestly.

The animation in this movie was stellar and groundbreaking compared to what Illumination usually churns out. You could really tell they improved a lot and cared about making this movie the best they could produce. The animation truly compliments the brilliant settings designed for this movie. But there are some parts where you could really tell that this was an Illumination film, not that that’s a bad thing this time around.

(SPOILERS) I will now talk about the number of references that I noticed in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Despite not being a big Mario fan, I was still able to pick out a LOT of fun refences sprinkled into this movie. My favorites being references to other Nintendo games, like Star Fox and Punch-Out, and the worldbuilding and designs in this film. The Mushroom Kingdom was amazing and masterfully crafted with Easter eggs of the past Mario games; the Mushroom Kingdom was definitely my favorite place in the whole movie. Then there were Easter eggs to Super Smash Bros., which keeps the tradition that the Sonic the Hedgehog movies started of referencing the classic games that inspired the films.

Continue reading →