Yeah, World was my big one when I was a kid, though I played the NES ones too. World just has this great “anything can happen” feeling. Like, 3 has that a bit too with stuff like the tiny huge world and the music notes and the frog suit, but World’s big contiguous freeform world map really foregrounds that feeling that you could go anywhere and find anything. I remember the special worlds at the end blowing my mind, like Mario had escaped reality and gone to this idealistic world of pure celebration, the eternal disco roller rink birthday party of the mind’s eye.
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Super Mario 64 is lowkey my favorite one despite minor flaws such as only like a 1/3rd of its levels being much good. the vibes are just immaculate. i don’t know how the castle still feels huge and mysterious even though i’ve gotten all 120 stars multiple times and know it in and out, it just does.
the best 2D one though is World imo. like i know i’m reigniting the flames of war here but, fuck it – y’all i love SMB3 but Super Mario World is the better game. There i said it
There are levels in 3 i’m not really hankering to play again but i will go for all exits in World every fucking time i replay it. it’s a Mario game you can beat having seen less than 1/2 of it and yet but if you return to it looking for more, you will be rewarded. It’s the Mario game where your reward for doing secret bonus shit is more Mario game. And the satisfaction of knowing you could have kicked Bowser’s ass already but kept going until you could have any powerup and a blue Yoshi whenever you wanted. And also you can make it forever autumn and the koopas are all wearing little Mario masks too i guess
fuck Tubular though for real
that’s actually the coolest thing about 3D Land and 3D World they keep unfolding into More Mario long after the endgame they telegraphed. Also the kitty powerup in World is cute and i love that you can play as Peach and her fits are all amazing
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My 2 favorite Mario games are Odyssey and Thousand Year Door. Odyssey just feels like such a fun celebration of all the things I like about Mario and his quaint little world. TTYD is one of the best RPGs there is and they really get their milage out of the paper theme with mechanics.
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oh don’t even get me started on the Mario RPGs
it doesn’t do as much with the papercraft thing but Paper Mario [64] is one of my favorite games ever, visually (and generally). Bold outlined sprites on 3D is such a gorgeous look
i wish TTYD emulated well (there’s a hardlocking glitch pretty early on) it’s a game i’ve been hungry to replay for over a decade. guess i gotta pony up for that remake… or fuckin figure out how to make Yuzu play nice with my Steam Duck at least
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Paper Mario 64 is in a weird place for me cause I played TTYD before I was a big stickler for doing everything in order and while I have played a little of 64 I haven’t sat down and done the whole thing in full yet
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i played through ttyd in dolphin years ago without issue. didn’t know there was a hard lock, so maybe it’ll work out for you too?
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Donkey Kong gameboy is a free form jump around game like Mario 64, yeah. They both have the same feeling of popping them on and moving just to see how I can move through areas, with goals as secondary
A lot of this is both games having redundant moves that offer tiers of self imposed difficulty. Like both games let you bypass entire sections if you feel confident you can execute the tougher jumps
I played the Mario vs Donkey Kong game once and didn’t like it. It felt like the same trajectory a lot of nintendo series took with they found their formula and locked you into it. It’s also not a aesthetically charming game at all. Donkey Kong 94 is a big sincere adventure, and it’s also a wonder how they fit some of the levels inside a single gameboy screen and still managed to have a strong level theme and puzzle gimmick
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Behold new members when we had a podcast, and discuss what if there was a more Mario 64 Like Mario for Wii U.
Oh cripes that was 8 years ago.
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Gonna go see the Mario Galaxy Movie tomorrow. I’ll probably really like it cause I have very low standards
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Shocking news: resident Mario whore liked the movie that had Mario in it.
It was cute and fun. Not high art by any means, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. It looked pretty and it had Mario in it so for a guy who he sees maybe 2 movies in theaters per year that’s about all I care about. If you liked the first one you’ll probably like this one.
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More like mari-ho
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Playing Mario 3 on my NES is slightly peculiar feeling because for the longest time as a kid the only version that existed in my perception was the All Stars version.
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NES was the version i owned as a kid but parts of the All-Stars version overwrote parts of the OG in my head for years. like i remember 8-1 as a giant cavern version of an outdoor level but in the original it’s a colorless inverted version of an outdoor level (imo, much cooler). i also forget the NES title screen does not have music
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I think my first interaction with SMB3 was through the GBA which meant saving, loading, and methodically beating all the levels. It’s pretty great to realize that the original was not designed for that exactly.
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It’s so weird that you can’t replay levels in the original or All-Stars.
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If they had made Mario 3 such that you could replay levels after beating it, and maybe added some new secret areas to discover (adding a post game, if you will), it would be a perfect game.
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wow thatd be like a whole mario world
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It would be but Mario World’s stages aren’t as good 
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