Mario (Character)

Mario

CHARACTER» Mario

Originally a carpenter named Jumpman, this Italian plumber has gone on to become the most recognizable video game character of them all, starring in a veritable pantheon of titles like kart racing and sports. He was voiced by Charles Martinet for nearly 30 years.

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Baby Mario is the infant version of Mario. He first appeared in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's island, released in 1995 for the SNES. He has appeared in many titles since.

Ever since his first appearance as merely the baby version of Mario in Yoshi's Island for the SNES, Baby Mario's place in the Mario timeline has always been a bit confusing. This confusion mostly comes from the fact that Baby Mario appears in many Mario sports titles as well as many Mario kart games alongside his fully-grown counterpart. This led many to the false belief that Baby Mario was, in fact, the son of Mario. Regardless of poor logic, Baby Mario actually did appear, legitimately, alongside adult Mario in the RPG Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time.

Because of the relative popularity of the character, Baby Mario has spawned many other "baby" counterparts of other popular Mario characters including Luigi, Peach, Donkey Kong (Character), Bowser (Character), Daisy, and even Wario (Character). Though they appear, as previously mentioned, in Mario kart and Mario sports games, the babies have become a staple of the Yoshi Island series (most recently, the extremely popular Yoshi's Island DS).

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995)
Mario Golf (Game) (1999)
Mario Tennis (Game) (2000)
Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001)
Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (2002)
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (2003)
Yoshi Touch andamp;amp;amp; Go (2005)
Mario Superstar Baseball (Game) (2005)
Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (2005)
Yoshi's Island DS (2006)
Mario Kart Wii (Game) (2008)
Mario Super Sluggers (Game) (2008)
WarioWare D.I.Y. (2010)

Metal Mario (Character) originally appeared as a power up in Super Mario 64 (Game), although he has since appeared as an unplayable character in the Super Smash Bros. Games. He is a stronger, heavier and slower version of Mario, and has a higher resistance to damage. He later appears as a playable character in Mario Kart 7 (Game).

Cosmic Mario

A version of Mario that appears in Super Mario Galaxy. He only appears when there is a Cosmic Comet orbiting a galaxy. Whenever Mario encounters a Cosmic Clone, he will have to race the clone to obtain a Power Star.

Cosmic Clones

Duplicates of Mario/Luigi that appear in Super Mario Galaxy 2. Cosmic Clones later appears in Super Mario 3D Land, only in the Special Worlds; in later worlds, they would appear gigantic.

In the Super Smash Bros. Series

Mario appears as a playable character in all games of the Super Smash Bros. series. As with most games, he is seen as a balanced character with balanced stats, making him a great choice for beginners. The Super Smash Bros. games, especially Brawl, give Mario a different portrayal from that of his original franchise. Unlike his normal happy and optimistic self, the Super Smash Bros. games portray Mario as a more stoic and serious character.

In Super Smash Bros., Mario is actually high tier, despite usually being the average character. He has many combo moves, namely his down aerial and Mario Tornado, and also many K.O. attacks. However, his K.O. moves are generally very slow.

In Super Smash Bros. Melee, Mario is nerfed, but he gains some new attacks, such as a new forward aerial which is a Meteor Smash, and a Cape (Object), which reflects objects and turns characters around. He is middle tier, and he also has a clone character, Dr. Mario. Dr. Mario is of a higher tier than Mario because of his strong attacks, superior strategies, and heavier weight. Dr. Mario namely uses a Megavitamin rather than a Fireball (Object), his forward aerial is not a Meteor Smash, his down tilt sends opponents behind him, his forward smash is more powerful and electric, and his back aerial is a good edge guard move.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario has all of the same moves except for his Down Special, which was Mario Tornado, is F.L.U.D.D. Mario is low tier due to his below average attacks, speed, and recovery. However, his edge game has improved because of F.L.U.D.D., which can push away opponents from the stage edge. Dr. Mario has been removed, but the disc game data shows a folder named "DRMARIO", meaning either his files were imported for some reason, or he was a scrapped character for the game. His Final Smash is the Mario Finale, in which he unleashes a twin blast of flame across the battlefield.

Mario will appear in the fourth Super Smash Bros. game.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl Quotes

"Here we go!"
"Let's a-go!"
"Yahoo!"
"Oh yeah!"
"Hee-Yahh!"

Legacy

Games in the Mario (Franchise) series are constantly redefining their own standards, and often influencing the games that follow as a result. Super Mario Bros. defined the 2D platforming genre in the mid-80's. Super Mario World (Game) showed the abilities of the Super Nintendo with scaling and rotation of sprites, and gameplay mechanics that rewarded 100 percent completion of levels. Super Mario 64 (Game) famously set the standard for 3D platforming, and for taking traditional 2D franchises into the third dimension. Most recently, Super Mario Galaxy (Game) has offered innovative uses of the Wii's unique control scheme along with the sequel Super Mario Galaxy 2. Even offshoot games like Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario (Franchise) have consistently surprised Mario's fans with their refreshing and unexpected styles of gameplay. Mario has also starred in many spin-off sports games, ranging from racing ( Mario Kart (Franchise)) to golf and tennis ( Mario Golf (Franchise), Mario Tennis (Franchise)) and baseball ( Mario Baseball (Franchise)), as well as a successful series of party games ( Mario Party (Franchise)).

Trivia

Mario has a mustache because he was too small to draw a mouth onto when he was first created.
It was difficult to animate hair and ears at the time, explaining why Mario has a hat and sideburns.
Mario and Luigi (Character) are both bright colors to make them stand out from the background of the older games.
Mario also wears bright colors and overalls to fix a problem with Mario's hands disappearing when he walked.
In Mario's first appearance, the color of his overalls were red and his shirt was blue, an opposite of the clothes we see him wear today.
Mario is named after Mario Segale, the landlord of one of Nintendo of America's original warehouses who was lenient with Minoru Arakawa while Nintendo was still finding its feet in America.
Similarly, there is a speculated theory that Mario and Luigi received their names from the Japanese words marui and ruiji , holding the meaning of “round” and “similar” respectively.
Mario makes a cameo appearance in the original Game Boy game Alleyway as the pilot of the paddle ship.
Mario is the older of the two Mario brothers.

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