On September 13, 1985, the original Super Mario Bros. game was released in Japan, making Mario 25 years old today. Happy Birthday, Mario! As a celebration of Mario's birthday, I'd like to share my own personal stories of playing Super Mario Bros back when I was a kid, and how I still love the games to this day.
I can remember the day when I first played Super Mario Bros. 1 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. We were on a family vacation in Florida when I was 6 years old, and while I loved playing computer games, pinball, arcade games, you name it...I had only learned of the now legendary NES from some friends at school a short while before. My parents decided that they would purchase a Nintendo for my sister and I on our trip to Florida because it was a bit less expensive to buy in the USA at the time.
Not only was this our very first longer (2-3 week) vacation from home filled with Disney World and Mickey Mouse, but it would be a memorable experience having our very own video game system to play right on our own TV. I can remember hooking the system up to the TV at the home that we rented in Florida (which happened to be at a retirement/golf community in Winterhaven, FL) and I remember playing as Mario for the very first time. We played Mario (and Duck Hunt) non-stop while we were there, of course, in between going to Disney and spending time out by the pool in the warm Florida sunshine. I can even remember being so into Nintendo at the time that our parents bought us Nintendo cereal, which you couldn't get in Canada!
I remember my Dad playing the game with us non-stop as well. One happy memory that I have with my Dad specifically from that vacation is waking up really early one morning in Florida to find him playing through World 5, which was way farther than I had played the day before. My Dad always loved to play Nintendo games with my sister and I while we were growing up, right from the early days of Super Mario 1 through playing endless games of Mario Kart on the SNES. My Dad passed away from cancer a little over 5 years ago now, and playing video games was just one of the many happy memories that we shared together.
Thinking back to those days, Mario has really evolved in terms of the graphics, his voice (It's a Meeee, Mario!), and the fact that he is now bouncing from planet to planet and not just leaping from platform to platform. What I truly love about the whole Mario franchise is that at its core, the new games are just as fun as those from back in the 1980s. I can still hook up my NES and play through Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, or 3 and have just as much fun as playing Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario World for the SNES, or any other of the numerous Mario games that are out there.
Just as gamers like myself have such mad nostalgia for those magical times playing as Mario for the first time, I hope that more innovative Mario games in the future will continue to captivate gamers everywhere. I also hope that future generations won't just look back at those original games for the NES as their parents' generation of archaic games, but will perhaps pick up a Nintendo controller and play the games as well (or at least download the games to their Wii).
So, Happy Birthday Mario, and here's to another 25 years of gaming fun!
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