Simply the thing I am?
There’s this brilliant running joke in some of them that I had not spotted until he mentioned it.
The joke’s simple: nobody recognises Mario when he first arrives in a new location.
They don’t recognise him up to the moment when he jumps.
Jumping is Mario’s thing.
Jumping, the games seem to be saying,isMario.
Without jumping, he could be anyone.
He hasn’t got a hole through the middle of him!
Look at his visual design, which is brilliant but was also originally conceived because of animation limitations.
Look at the ease with which a brother was conjured from him via a simple palette swap.
Look at the way he’s been dropped into sports games, educational games, RPGs over the years.
Trevor Phillips fromGTA 5is a huge star, particularly in our house because my wife loves him.
But you couldn’t put him into an SSX.
(Okay, bad example, that actually sounds freakin great.)
On the downside, it’s 30fps rather than 60.)
Is it my favourite Mario RPG?
No, that’s Superstar Saga, and thanks for asking.
And that’s all because of the things it’s possible for you to do with Mario.
Listen: The Thousand-Year Door is a very good RPG.
Mario has great companion characters, all of whom have their own skills.
It’s the first Mario game - at least in the original language - with a trans character.
Meanwhile, the papercraft world is as beautiful as it was when the firstPaper Marioappeared on the N64.
It’s all great.
But what makes it stand out for me, though, is the structure.
But there’s also some really inventive stuff.
In one chapter, Mario gets involved in professional wrestling.
In another, he finds himself in an Agathie Christie mystery on a posh train filled with suspicious strangers.
These are the parts of the game I remember.
Tellingly, he’s frequently being misnamed in this game.
When he’s wrestling, he’s the Great Gonzalez.
When he’s on the train, that genius detective deduces that he’s Luigi.
It’s all very silly and chummy and am-dram.
It’s a powerful momentbecauseof the game’s innate silliness rather than despite it.
In amongst all this tomfoolery there was a bedrock of something real.
That’s why it all works.
It’s absolutely lovely stuff.
It’s a game, and an RPG, and it’s a good one - a great one.
But it’s also a glimpse of some other-world Mario TV series.
It’s episodic, picaresque, and it gives us many different Marios.
And in doing so, it reminds us why Mario works so well as he is.
