Super Mario

Super Mario (Japanese: スーパーマリオ, Hepburn: Sūpā Mario) is a series of platform video games created by Nintendo featuring their mascot, Mario. Alternatively called the Super Mario Bros. (スーパーマリオブラザーズ, Sūpā Mario Burazāzu) series or simply the Mario (マリオ) series, it is the central series of the greater Mario franchise. At least one Super Mario game has been released for every major Nintendo video game console and handheld.

The Super Mario games follow Mario's adventures in the fictional Mushroom Kingdom, usually with Mario as the player character. He is usually joined by his brother, Luigi, and occasionally by other members of the Mario cast. As in platform video games, the player runs and jumps across platforms and atop enemies in themed levels. The games have simple plots, typically with Mario rescuing the kidnapped Princess Peach from the primary antagonist, Bowser. The first title in the series, Super Mario Bros., released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985, established gameplay concepts and elements prevalent in nearly every Super Mario game since. These include a multitude of power-ups and items that give Mario special magic powers such as fireball-throwing and size-changing into giant and miniature sizes.

Koji Kondo

Koji Kondo (近藤 浩治, Kondō Kōji, born August 13, 1961) is a Japanese video game composer and sound director who has been employed at Nintendo since 1984. He is best known for his involvement in numerous titles in the Mario and The Legend of Zelda series of video games.

Biography

Early life

Kondo was born in Nagoya, Japan, on August 13, 1961. He began taking lessons in the electronic organ from the age of five. He improved his skills in the instrument in a cover band that played jazz and rock music. Kondo studied at the Art Planning Department of Osaka University of Arts, but was never classically trained or particularly dedicated to music. However, he gained some experience in composing and arranging pieces, using both the piano and a computer to assist him. During his senior year, Nintendo sent a recruitment message to his university stating that they were interested in hiring people dedicated to composition and sound programming. An LCD and arcade gamer, Kondo successfully applied for the job in 1984 without requiring any demo tapes.

Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros. (Japanese: スーパーマリオブラザーズ, Hepburn: Sūpā Mario Burazāzu) is a 1985 platform video game internally developed by Nintendo R&D4 and published by Nintendo as a pseudo-sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. It was originally released in Japan for the Family Computer on September 13, 1985, and later that year for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America and Europe on May 15, 1987, and Australia later in 1987. It is the first of the Super Mario series of games. In Super Mario Bros., the player controls Mario and in a two-player game, a second player controls Mario's brother Luigi as he travels through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from the antagonist Bowser.

In 2005, IGN's poll named the "pioneering" and "highly influential" title as the "greatest game of all time", considering it to have aided in resurrecting the crashed American video game market of the 1980s. The game's mid-1980s release served to further popularize the side-scrolling subgenre of the already popular platform video game genre of the early 1980s. In addition to its definitive features, the game has also sold enormously well, and was the best-selling game of all time for a single platform for approximately three decades at over 40 million units, until Nintendo's Wii Sports took that title. The commercial success of Super Mario Bros. has caused it to be ported to almost every one of Nintendo's major gaming consoles. Nintendo released special red variants of the Wii and Nintendo DSi XL consoles in re-packaged, Mario-themed, limited edition bundles in late 2010 as part of the 25th anniversary of the game's release.

Super Mario World

Super Mario World (Japanese: スーパーマリオワールド, Hepburn: Sūpā Mario Wārudo), subtitled Super Mario Bros. 4 (スーパーマリオブラザーズ4, Sūpā Mario Burazāzu fō) for its original Japanese release, is a 1990 platform video game developed and published by Nintendo as a pack-in launch title for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and is the fifth game in the Super Mario series. Development was handled by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development, led by Shigeru Miyamoto, who produced the game.

The game centers on the quest of Mario and Luigi to save Dinosaur Land from Bowser, the series' antagonist. The two brothers must travel across seven worlds to restore order to Dinosaur Land. It built on the gameplay of previous Mario games, introducing new power-ups that augment character abilities, and established conventions that were carried over to future games in the series. Super Mario World marks one of the first appearances of Yoshi, Mario's dinosaur sidekick and riding mount.

Super Mario World was a critical and commercial success, selling over 20 million copies worldwide, and is considered by many critics to be one of the best games ever made. It has been re-released four times, first as part of a combo with Super Mario All-Stars on the SNES in 1993. Secondly, it was released on the Game Boy Advance as Super Mario Advance 2 (スーパーマリオアドバンス2, Sūpā Mario Adobansu Tsū) in 2001 and outside Japan as Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 in 2002 with modified gameplay. The third re-release was for the Wii's Virtual Console in Japan in 2006 and in North America and PAL regions in 2007; there were no changes from the original SNES version. It was also released for the Wii U's Virtual Console which integrated Off-TV Play and Miiverse features to the game.

Mario Bros.

Mario Bros. (マリオブラザーズ, Mario Burazāzu) is a platform game published and developed for arcades by Nintendo in 1983. It was created by Shigeru Miyamoto. It has been featured as a minigame in the Super Mario Advance series and numerous other games. Mario Bros. has been re-released for the Wii's, Nintendo 3DS's, and Wii U's Virtual Console services in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia.

In the game, Mario is portrayed as an Italian-American plumber who, along with his younger brother Luigi, has to defeat creatures that have been coming from the sewers below New York City. The gameplay focuses on Mario's extermination of them by flipping them on their backs and kicking them away. The original versions of Mario Bros.—the arcade version and the Family Computer/Nintendo Entertainment System (FC/NES) version—were received positively by critics.

Gameplay

Mario Bros. features two plumbers, Mario and Luigi, having to investigate the sewers of New York after strange creatures have been appearing down there. The objective of the game is to defeat all of the enemies in each phase. The mechanics of Mario Bros. involve only running and jumping. Unlike future Mario games, players cannot jump on enemies and squash them, unless they were already turned on their back. Each phase is a series of platforms with pipes at each corner of the screen, along with an object called a "POW" block in the center. Phases use wraparound, meaning that enemies and players that go off to one side will reappear on the opposite side.