User:Nintendo101
Casual Nintendo historian. Otherwise an artist and a professional zoologist. Bio degree. I've had an account here since 2012.
I wrote the character sections for Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Super Mario Odyssey. I contributed much of the article for Super Mario Sunshine and am currently working on Super Mario Galaxy.
I have been a fan of Nintendo since a very young age. My first Mario games (and three of the first video games I ever owned) were Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2, Super Mario 64 DS, and Mario Kart DS. These games were good company for a young kid who moved around a lot and had difficulty keeping long-lasting friends.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I sequentially played some of my favorite games in the Super Mario series to 100% completion. This includes, in order, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, and Super Mario Odyssey. It's been really fun so far! These are great games, and I always wanted to marathon a series like this before but never had the time. It has been interesting to see where the series began and where it has ended up. The design philosophies, the characters, the art directions, world building, level design, narrative, etc. All good stuff. It might be fun to write something about it some day.
My favorite video game character is Yoshi.
My hope is to help make the SMG article on par with the best of the wiki (i.e. Super Mario World, Super Mario 3D World, the Donkey Kong Country games), and to use it as a reference for other Super Mario game articles. To me, these games are the heart of the franchise and it'd be nice if the articles can have some uniformity between them. I never intended to fully invest in just this one game, but as a person, it can be hard to move on when it feels like there is still work to be done. My hope is to bring some of what is done here to Super Mario Sunshine, Galaxy 2, and Odyssey.
Sandbox for current project
Development
Super Mario Galaxy was developed as a response to the principles of 3D game design established by Super Mario 64. That game was one of the first 3D titles ever published and has a significant influence in how 3D games are made, not just at Nintendo but throughout the entire industry. Despite its influence, Shigeru Miyamoto and Yoshiaki Koizumi felt that it caused a divide between people that did not exist during the 2D era of video games. While some people enjoyed playing 3D games, there were people who believed that 3D games were too difficult. Koizumi attributes this to what he believes are the biggest challenges in 3D game design: depth misperception; the ease with which a player can get lost; and motion sickness. The solutions created to mitigate these problems resulted in systems that were too complicated or at least intimidated players.
After Super Mario 64 was released, Miyamoto assembled a team within Nintendo EAD to develop a sequel tentatively titled “Super Mario 128” that would be worked on intermittently for over ten years. At Space World 2000, it appeared as a tech demo created for the Nintendo GameCube. Directed by Koizumi, it sees the player controlling 128 Marios on a saucer-shaped platform that dynamically changes shape over the course of the demo. Miyamoto took some of the principals from the demo and produced Pikmin (2001) without abandoning the intention of producing a successor to Mario 64. For Koizumi, he co-directed Super Mario Sunshine at Nintendo EAD, which was assertedly unrelated to Mario 128. This was the last 3D-related project Koizumi was involved with for several years. He came to the perspective that it was difficult to produce the “perfect 3D control environment” where it was fun to play but did not stress the player. He thought the part of the demo where Mario moves freely around the platform could be adapted into an actual product, but implementing something like that would be technically challenging.
In 2003, Koizumi directed Donkey Kong Jungle Beat – a 2D action-adventure platformer for the GameCube. Player’s control DK with the DK Bongos, which has fewer input options than the conventional GameCube controller. The experience of developing Jungle Beat with the then brand-new studio Nintendo EAD Tokyo made Koizumi realize they could develop a gratifying and rich experience with few buttons. They had established what Koizumi calls “contextual binding”, where available player actions would be changed depending on the timing and context. Koizumi had also observed that an exaggerated presentation would delight and engage bystanders that were not directly playing the game.
Pre-release and unused content
• Guppy was not a dolphin!
Promotion
• Where exactly did that photo of Mario in the zero-gravity airlock come from?
Legacy
• SMG released during a period when the strength of Japan-based video game studios was generally thought to be on the decline, in part due to the rise of development in American studios to great financial success and the general marketing trends of the industry
• Well respected Japanese publishers such as Capcom, Konami, Sega, and Nintendo themselves had attempted to significantly retool some of their established franchises for western audiences; most of these attempts were not received well and sold terribly
• SMG was not artistically compromised by this trend and it was something noted by commentators at the time; its success at BAFTA over Call of Duty was described as a surprise; its reliance on providing accessible, rewarding fun was considered unique at the time (see comparison to Heavy Rain)
• Though not attributed as the catalyst to the rival of Japanese studios, the critical acclaim and commercial success of SMG was viewed as evidence that Japan was still a significant player in the video game industry
• SMG almost immediate influence other titles in the greater Mario franchise, such as Mario Kart Wii; Rosalina has been established as a major recurring character in Mario spin-offs
• Rosalina was one of the first characters pitched for SSB4
• Influenced development of Gears 5 (2019), Solar Ash (2021), Mario + Rabbids: Spark of Hope (2022), and Momoka
Remakes and ports
• Wii U
• Nvidia Shield
• Super Mario 3D All-Stars
Adaptations
• SUPER MARIO-KUN
Notable merchandise
• Cards
