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Mario Games; 100% Not Kiddy

There have always been claims that Mario as a series has been a kiddy series. Heck, one TV show made a crap joke about it (even though Mario Kart wasn't on the original Gameboy) and a few boards such as Gamefaqs have people who think that the games have got less mature over time. Well, consider the opposition evidence presented here (and for now, just ignore the Mario + Communism rumours and such).

For the first example, take Paper Mario 2. It starts off in a town plagued with graffiti, criminals and mafia gangs. You then walk up the dock and see a fight between a weird alien type thing and a university student Goomba. And then you walk into the town...

Not exactly the brightest start in a game, and it does not get much cheerier. You see a gang fight in the background near the beginning. You end up in a creepy monochrome forest and help in a war between two insect armies and stop Lord Crump destroying a tree. You make deals with the mafia and uncover the corruption in the Glitz Pit due to the corrupt manager. You enter a town in perpetual twilight when people become pigs when the bell tolls and have your body stolen by a ghost. You hear about the tragic backstory to Bobbery's life, crash on an island after ghost pirates attack the ship... How is that exactly a happy go lucky story of Mario jumping through fields and getting items from blocks? Plus, you have to stop the revival of a demon to save the world.

Then consider Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga. Princess Peach's voice gets stolen. Meh, not much, but the sequel was darker. Aliens invade the Mushroom Kingdom. They obliterate Toad Town and Hollijolli Village, even though the latter was just celebrating Christmas. And then have the life force drained from the captive Toads for spaceship fuel, set Yoob on Yoshi's Island and the like. You hear the tragic music in the background as you go through many of the areas, face off in battle against some pretty strange bosses and... Well a lot of stuff happens.

And Super Paper Mario. A villain who wants to destroy the world because of a past involving him losing his true love. A few creepy characters such as Mimi (who becomes this creepy spider type robot), Nastasia (mind control) and Dimentio (somewhat sociopath who wanted to destroy all dimensions and make himself king of the new ones, including the afterlife...) Mario and friends have to watch a whole dimension get destroyed and turned to a white, featureless void as well.

But that's only RPGs you may well shout! Well I admit that the RPG games in the Mario series have deeper plots generally. I admit they have a few tragic stories and deeper meanings. But Super Mario Galaxy is not light hearted either! Yes, you have rabbits. Yes, you have flowers and cutesey environments. But consider the more darker, grittier side of the Mario series finally shown in this mainstream game:

It starts with Bowser's fleet of Airships attacking Toad Town, totally causing chaos and destruction all over. Fair enough, a standard plot in Mario games is Bowser's inevitable invasion near the start.

But then you see the bosses. Megaleg is a pretty much darker kind of robot boss than others in the series (compare it to Mecha Bowser if you don't know what I mean). Topmaniac looks pretty mean, with almost evil type eyes and a look more found in games based on science fiction concepts. That is, it would be intimidating if his intelligence was higher than that of the typical ant...

But then you see Kingfin. Cue this spiky planet with a watery core in the scariest depths of the universe. An abandoned Toad ship floating in orbit, as if the users had met an untimely end. And then the jaws scene where he appears, a giant 200 foot skeletal shark with glowing yellow eyes which commands a mini army of robotic torpedo like piranha fish. The undead boss battle music you heard when fighting the not so dark Bouldergeist playing. The setting of pure menace with erupting volcanos, bubbling craters and pillars being smashed to pieces by this thing. Heck, this could possibly kill even the Piano from Mario 64 in terms of frightening a few younger video game players. And don't even think about how it must feel for those who are afraid of deep water levels and aquatic enemies in games...

Besides, how can you see it's not pretty mature to show Bowser's sun going supernova and turning into a black hole which starts destroying the whole universe? Or how Mario dies after being electricity shocked... or possibly after falling into Dark Matter. The older Mario games were no more dark than this. Sure, Mario 64 had a few industrial type settings. Sure, you can believe the communist rumours (or just laugh at 'The People's Mario' video). But how can you say jumping around pleasant fields or exploring a land of dreams compares? Seriously, the earlier games were far more light hearted in terms of setting. Just compare Paper Mario 1 to Paper Mario 2 to Super Paper Mario...

But why does this really matter anyway? Are you that much of a peer pressure conforming sheep you have to keep playing supposedly 'gritty' games to preserve your manliness? Do you really think that games have you be as foreboding as reality sometimes can be? Seriously?

Implied Meanings of this article

I wrote the above list because some will probably take this whole article to mean totally different things altogether. Primarily as a negative thing.