Mario


 * This article is about the playable character. For other uses, see Mario (disambiguation).''

Mario (マリオ, Mario) is a video game character and Nintendo's primary mascot. He has appeared in many games of all genres, he is one of the most recognized characters in the video games industry. He is the main protagonist of the Mario series. With the help of his younger brother Luigi, he protects the Mushroom Kingdom from the evil forces, such as Bowser's ones, and most of the time rescues Princess Peach. He appears in both Super Smash Flash and Super Smash Flash 2 as a playable character, and was one of the first four characters made playable in the demo. He belongs to the Mario universe along with Luigi, Peach and Bowser who are playable too.

Character description
Years before video gaming exploded into mainstream popularity, prominent game designer Shigeru Miyamoto designed the original arcade game Donkey Kong in 1981, debuting Mario as the main playable character and Donkey Kong as his in-game nemesis. Mario's character design was heavily influenced by the extreme technical limitations of digital games at the time; as a small batch of pixels, Mario was given a mustache under his big nose to show he had a face, and suspenders with his shirt to show a distinction between his arms and body. In this game Mario was originally known as "Jumpman" in the initial Japanese release, and he was portrayed as a carpenter whose girlfriend Pauline (originally "Lady" in Japan) was held captive by the colossal ape Donkey Kong, and must jump his way over the barrels and flames DK throws at him to rescue Pauline.

After his initial appearance in this pioneering game, the sequel Donkey Kong Junior introduced Mario (under his proper name for the first time in Japan) and was identified as of Italian ethnicity by Nintendo's president Hiroshi Yamauchi; Mario was named as such because of his comical resemblance to Nintendo of America's landlord Mario Segale. Then Mario and his newly introduced brother Luigi starred in the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros. as plumbers.

Miyamoto's next game was the world-famous Super Mario Bros. for the Famicom/NES, the game that singlehandedly brought video gaming into the mainstream and made Nintendo a major company in a now major industry. Many iconic aspects of Mario and his franchise were established: Mario and Luigi now live in the Mushroom Kingdom ruled under Princess "Peach" Toadstool and her mushroom-retaining Toad servants, and the turtle king Bowser kidnaps the princess for Mario to rescue, and Mario must bound across side-scrolling platform stages to rescue her, jumping on the heads of common enemies like Goombas and Koopa Troopas to defeat them. He starts out tiny but can grow to double his size if he grabs a Super Mushroom powerup, gain the ability to shoot out fireballs by grabbing a Fire Flower, and can turn invincible for a short period of time by grabbing a Starman. Super Mario Bros. became a franchise with these elements, lasered into video game iconography, consistent in future games in the Mario series.

For over twenty years afterward, Mario would star in many, many games for Nintendo systems. Mario and his accompanying franchise can be viewed as Nintendo's thematic tileset with which to create games of a whimsical, colorful, and light-hearted nature. Mario himself is meant to be a character anyone can enjoy playing as, and can fit well as a protagonist figure and/or main balanced character in many genres of games; to this end he is not portrayed as a character that undergoes development like what you would see with a character in an epic RPG's story. He in fact is rarely depicted speaking coherent English sentences. In contemporary Mario games, his high-pitched Italian voice, provided by Charles Martinet, is used mainly for grunts and yells, and the occasional catchphrase ("Mama-mia!", "It's-a-me, Mario!", "Let's-a-go!"). As a semi-silent, optimistic protagonist, Mario is inherently easy for players of his various games to appreciate, and he is ideally the most balanced selectable character in any game he appears in.

Genres of games in which Mario appears in a playable role include the traditional 2D side-scrolling platformer, including various sequels to Super Mario Bros., the seminal Super NES launch platformer Super Mario World which introduced Yoshi as a mount of sorts for Mario, and the DS homage to these games in the form of New Super Mario Bros. and New Super Mario Bros. Wii; 3D platforming adventures such as the especially seminal Super Mario 64 3D platforming adventure game launching for the Nintendo 64, which is one of the most influential and best-reviewed games ever, followed up by Super Mario Sunshine for GameCube, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Wii; the Mario Kart series of power-up and obstacle course-based racing games, whose best-reviewed entry is Mario Kart: Double Dash!! for GameCube; a long-running series of multiplayer-based party games named Mario Party; various series of Mario-themed Sports titles such as Mario Golf and Mario Tennis; hands-on RPGs such as Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for GameCube and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story for the Nintendo DS; and a puzzle game named Dr. Mario, where Mario in the garb of a medicine man throws pills into a bottle to combat viruses. Throughout a lot of these games have been appearances by a baby version of himself as well, named Baby Mario, who's often treated as a separate character. Outside of his own series and spin-offs, he made apearances as a playable character in the 3 installments of the Super Smash Bros. series, olympic sport games along with Sonic, etc.

In Super Smash Flash

 * Main article: Mario (SSF)

Mario is the only available starter character from the Mario universe. Due to the limitations, Mario only presents 5 different attacks including some from the Smash series:



In Super Smash Flash 2
Mario was one of the first characters confirmed in the trailer and demo. His sprite is a Brawlified version of his Super Mario World sprite, and his moveset is based on his attacks in the Super Smash Bros. games.



In A Super Mario World series
Mario appears as the titular character of the McLeodGaming Cartoon, A Super Mario World, which is a crossover parody between the Mario series, the The Legend of Zelda series, the Sonic series and the Kingdom Hearts series.

In the first episode, Luigi finds Link's Master Sword and gives it to Mario which he uses to comically slaught his enemies. To Mario's dismay, Link is looking for his sword so he can save Zelda from Bowser and he acuses Mario from stealing it fighting him. After they finished fighting and Mario hands over the Master Sword to Link, both decide to infiltrate Bowser's Castle and rescue Zelda.

In the second episode, they fight Bowser's guardians, Sonic and Knuckles. Link points Mario a "? Block" that may be useful, so he tries to get it but is stopped by Knuckles. So Mario could get the "? Block", Link fights alone Sonic and Knuckles to distract them. Mario gets the "? Block and finds a Cape Feather inside it, thus turning into Cape Mario. Mario quickly saves Link and pushes Knuckles into the lava, Sonic flees into another room, but Mario and Link give him chase. In the other room, Sonic turns into Super Sonic and nearly kills Mario and Link, but are saved at the last moment by Cloud who is looking for the "real" enemy who turns out not to be Bowser. As everything is revealed, Zelda is freed and Bowser is defeated; Cloud request Mario to take Link and Zelda to a safety place while he fights Riku.

In the third episode, Mario makes a minor appearance, last seen about to be crushed by the falling Bowser's Castle but leaving his fate uncertain.

Trivia

 * Oddly, in the character selection screen of SSF, Mario is the only character that is facing on the left while the other 27 are facing to the right.
 * In previous versions of the SSF2 Demo, Mario used a slightly different moveset. Prior v0.2b, Mario used F.L.U.D.D. as his Side Special Move rather than the Cape. The Star Spin's predecessor, the Mario Tornado, was used and had a special homing attack effect when it was done in midair.
 * During the development of Mario's new sprite sheet, the developer ItsameSMB had created a new variation of his down special move called the F.L.U.D.D. Tornado, but was dropped from the game for unknown reasons. It is speculated that Cleod9 thought the attack to be too complex to program into the game.

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