what made you love Mario

Well, my first Mario game was Mario Kart Wii when I was around 7 years old. I kind of enjoyed it at the time, but I didn't love it. I think it was the two Galaxy games that really pulled me in to the Mario franchise (I actually played Galaxy 2 first), and then it was Super Paper Mario and Bowser's Inside Story that drew me into the Mario RPGs, which to this day is my favourite part of the franchise.
 
who said I love Mario?? jk...
Well I've been playing quality games on my iPad since I was 4 (which is why I've known how to drive for years), but the first time I experienced Nintendo was when my uncle (Pixel Pedant on YouTube, gamer and console collector) gave me and my brothers a RetroPi when I was 8, with a whole bunch of NES and SNES games on it such as SMB 1, 2, 3 and Mario World, Mario All Stars, Super Mario Kart, Dr Mario, Tetris, ExciteBike, RC Pro-Am, BattleToads, and who can forget DuckTales! I vividly remember my first time playing a Mario game, shortly after Trump was inaugurated: Super Mario Bros. 3 late at night while sucked up in a bean bag 4 feet away from the TV while my mom scolded me for not getting the Flower Power. A couple years later, my uncle got me a Zelda-themed 2DS with OoT 3D downloaded on it. Over a couple more years, my uncle got me games like Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7, DKC Returns 3D, and New Super Mario Bros. 2. I didn't get into Mario much, though, until winter 2020, when I was coping with the pandemic getting rid of my popularity and friends. I put hundreds of hours into Mario Kart 7, 3D Land, and a handful of Wii and Wii U Mario games (My family got a used Wii U in April 2020). I've played Mario pretty regularly since, even after my social life, well, came back to life. I finally got a Switch (OLED) for my birthday last year, and I've been lovin' all the games on there, Zelda, Mario (I snagged 3D All-Stars brand new and it was worth the whoppin' $40), all the NSO games (Expansion Pack is worth it, if I can pay for it out of my lawn mowing salary you can too), and I'll buy the Switch 2 if it has nice graphics and a good launch lineup (PilotWings?!?!). Basically Mario is an awesome franchise with an amazing history, and it'll be an important part of my life forever.
(I also have a GBA SP and DS, and the new Game & Watch dealies [I've played on every major Nintendo console aside from the GBC, Virtual Boy, and GameCube {despite many close encounters with the GameCube, including in the Secret Life of Pets house at Universal Studios Hollywood, Super Nintendo World was a blast}])
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longer than I intended 😆
 
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I had a Game Boy Advance back in like, 2002, and at the time i had mostly only played SpongeBob games. On a whim, I asked my mom to buy Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2, as it looked the most appealing to me out of the GBA Mario games at the store. I was initially put off by the power-up system, as I wasn't yet very good at platformers and I died before even getting to a power-up (all the games I played up to this point had a standard health system where you only die when it's depleted so this intimidated me at first). But once I got better at the controls, I had more fun going through the game.

But it wasn't until I was on visitation with my dad and stepmom (side note, they were awful, don't take this as me giving them credit for anything) in Oklahoma, who had a N64, that I played the game that truly made me a diehard fan: Super Mario 64. I had never played a 3D game before (other than some point & click SpongeBob shit on the PC) and this world truly captivated me. Even just Bob-Omb Battlefield was this massive wonderland of things to do and explore. But this file had the basement unlocked as well, so I had so many places to go and levels to enter from the start, and while I wasn't good enough to get any Stars (the ones I did find had already been collected) I was just so mesmerized by constantly going to new places and exploring. I miss the feeling of not having explored all of Mario 64. But yeah that game absolutely made me beg my mom for a N64 (which I received shortly after) and solidified Mario as my next, and ultimately longest and most influential, hyperfixation.
 
I don't remember why I got into Mario but it's more likely the plush toys (ordered from the Nintendo Power catalog) from my brother that gotten me into the IP, not the game.

MegaBowser64 said:
Over a couple more years, my uncle got me games like Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7, DKC Returns 3D, and New Super Mario Bros. 2.
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It always fascinates me personally to see people getting nostalgic for newer and newer games (these games came out during later in high school). I've seen my share of people getting old enough to talk about Galaxy being their childhood games (that game came out when I was a teenager; my childhood games were from N64 through GCN games), and now it looks like I'm seeing more and more people citing 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 as their nostalgic games.

I'm personally looking forward to people one day talking about how they enjoyed Odyssey as a young child. Or the day they talk about how they saw Super Mario Bros. Movie in theaters.
 
LeftyGreenMario said:
I'm personally looking forward to people one day talking about how they enjoyed Odyssey as a young child.
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I like to see someone with this view. Usually when 90s kids are talking about that sort of thing, it's either talking down to the younger kids or despairing about how old they feel, when they're hardly in their 30s themselves. Refreshing to see someone embace it.
 
I was a Wii U era kid, so I grew up with Super Mario 3D World and NSMBU. Most of what made me love Mario was just playing these games with my family and growing up with them. I do havevery fond memories of playing and watching my dad play Super Mario Galaxy on the backwards compatible Wii feature before the disc stopped working though, and I think that that game was one of the important parts of me loving Mario.
 
mario the music box 💀

my childhood mario games are kinda fucked actually cuz the one im very nostalgic over is super mario 64 but the one i actually grew up with is super paper mario. luigi kinda embedded in the soul ey

i believe i told lefty this but yeah almost was never even a mario & luigi guy as i really loved wario and hated mario because uh his voice in galaxy lmao and because i hated mario i never took the time to explore luigi's character. took until mario the music box and the stupid angsty brotherly stuff to make me go yah these guys are okay i like them LOL
 
LeftyGreenMario said:
I'm personally looking forward to people one day talking about how they enjoyed Odyssey as a young child. Or the day they talk about how they saw Super Mario Bros. Movie in theaters.
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i don't. it makes me self-conscious about my age.

the very reality that i'm nostalgic for mario galaxy is slowly chipping away at the copper of my young soul, enfeebling it and replacing it with a brittle, cadaverous shell.

i'm barely 23 for christ's sake and i sense the time picking up pace rapidly
 
I'm 31. Get on my level.

Or rather don't, aging is not recommended.
 
hey i want to turn into a mini cooper named volvo
 
Although i never actually owned any of the official games, some flash games, and walkthrough of official games actually introduced me to the franchise. Mario has been a big part of my childhood, and i couldn't be happier.
 
Super Mario All-Stars was my introduction to video games as a mere toddler.

Super Mario 64 was the first game in the series I actually owned (as before I was too young to understand how to play video games).

Paper Mario was the one that solidified this franchise as my favorite for all these years; most everything else after just compounded my love for the series!
 
as for the thread at hand, it wasn't the games that got me (and my sister) into mario. it was these toys. they came about in the n64 era and you could buy them thru nintendo power. they were meant for our brother but we played with them.

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oh and smash 64
 
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