About four months ago, Nintendo held a press event where it not only provided details for the now released Nintendo Switch, but revealed some new games for the system too. One of the games that caught everyone by surprise was Super Mario Odyssey. The game appears to go back to the gameplay style of Super Mario 64 and Sunshine where the levels are enclosed worlds and Mario is open to wander these levels to complete trials anyway the player desires. One thing that caught many viewers off guard was seeing Mario run around in one of these levels, New Donk City. The city is inhabited by realistic humans in a realistic setting that made for a stark contrast to not only Mario levels in the past, but Mario himself to regular looking people. Viewers made either 2 comparisons: one would be making comparisons to Sonic Adventure and/or Sonic ’06 when Sonic the Hedgehog walked around in human environments. The other comparison is a clip from one Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode where Homer enters a 3 dimensional world from a wall of his home and through shenanigans, accidently goes into the real world. As I watched the reveal I was shocked to see Mario run around with realistic humans. However, I thought back to when Mario had hung out with regular looking humans before. Did we all forget about the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe transforming into Mario to get to the Rio Olympic ceremony on time? Was it not Mario who was a referee for some of Mike Tyson’s fights?

Leading up to Super Mario Odyssey’s release, I'd like to start a potential series on Mario and friends' history interacting with other humans, realistic looking or not. This article is gonna focus in on both the Mario sport spinoff games and other sports titles that Mario and Company appear in as well.

Mario Golf (and other Golf games with Mario):

Mario has quite a long history with golf even before Mario Golf became a franchise. His golfing days actually got started in the days of the NES. One game that some claim star Mario is the NES game simply titled Golf. This NES title has you play as a somewhat chubby, mustached golfer who also seems like the only character in the entire game. Many have claimed that this is Mario himself, but I just don’t see it. Sure the character has some features that resemble the plumber out of the Mushroom Kingdom, but he looks a little too realistic and tall to actually be Mario.

The real debut of Mario’s golfing career was NES Open Tournament Golf, where Mario and Luigi are rocking some pro-American outfits (even if they are Italian). For other humans that are in this game, Peach appears to be Mario’s caddy, but there’s another blonde woman who’s Luigi’s caddy. It turned out that in official art, they redesigned this lady’s appearance to look like Princess Daisy, but was Daisy originally a blonde? There is one more human that we see in game where he gives the player the run down on the course as well as lets you pick your character. His appearance matches up with the style of how Mario and Luigi are designed as he too has big eyes and a big nose like the Mario Bros. Although the game appears to take place in the real world as courses are called the U.S. Open and the U.K. Open, so a cartoonish take on the real world?

The first game to be called “Mario Golf” was Mario Golf for the N64. Take a look at the roster screen for this game. You have your main stays for Mario spinoff games such as Peach, Yoshi, Wario, Bowser and so on. But do you see anything else strange about the roster? Who are these people?

Why are they golfing with Mario characters? I have an interesting theory as to who these characters were actually supposed to be before they were in Mario Golf. The developer of this game is Camelot, who is responsible for developing the first Hot Shots Golf game for the PS1. If you look at the character designs of the first HSG to the original characters in Mario Golf, they don’t look all that different. I believe these were either rejected character designs for the first HSG or planned characters for Camelot’s vision of HSG 2. Simply put, once Nintendo bought Camelot from Sony, these not HSG characters found their way into Mario Golf with Nintendo’s permission rather than an actual HSG game. What is weird is that the courses all appear to be within the Mario Universe, yet you have these random humans show up.

There was also Mario Golf for the GBC, where it had a single player mode where you create your own character and build that character’s stats up like an RPG to be the best golfer out there. You compete with other characters in order to unlock them, but many are original characters or not HSG characters. Though Mario himself is the final boss and he’s praised throughout the campaign as his golfing skills are on par with Tiger Woods (Pun not intended). The world itself is pretty cartoonish with essentially every character being human and the courses have Mario references to them. For instance, if you hit a golf ball into water, there's an animation where a Blooper will pop out and get mad for hitting the ball at him.

There was also Mario Golf: Advance Tour for the GBA which was very similar to its GBC predecessor. You have a few Mario Characters that are playable, but there’s also that single player mode where you create a character and build that character up. That game also lets you play against the human characters from the first portable Mario Golf. These people have more of an anime appearance when compared to that one golf guide from NES OTG. However, it can be argued that these are what other humans looked like in the Mario Universe.

Mario Tennis:

Mario Tennis on the N64 was different to Mario Golf in that the cast was all Mario characters and there were no HSG looking humans in sight. For original characters, it brought the world Waluigi for better or worse. However, you could get some different characters from Mario Golf on the GBC and with a transfer pack. Guess what, they’re human and sort of have an anime appearance. So while Mario Tennis for the N64 was meant to have a cast entirely made up of Mario characters and has courts that are based in the world of Mario. Yet the GBC version of the game is almost an entirely different story.

The GBC Mario Tennis was like the portable version of Mario Golf in that you got a small number of Mario characters in the initial roster, but you have a similar single player campaign. You customize your character’s skills and build that character up to be a better tennis player. You also play in an area that is far away from the Mushroom Kingdom and play against and unlock different human characters throughout the game. You can play either singles or doubles in the campaign and the ultimate goal is to play good enough tennis that you get invited to the Mushroom Kingdom to take on Mario in a game of tennis.

There's also a GBA game called Mario Tennis: Power Tour, which was again, very similar to the GBC game. You have your share of Mario characters and original characters to play as, but the story is a little different. You play as a student of a tennis academy, but there are masked challengers that come in and defeat the champions of the academy. Determined to seek their true identity, your character builds themselves up by beating every other student and get good enough to find and face these masked tennis players. It actually turns out that Mario and Friends were the masked challengers, and you have to beat them at the end.

I can say what I want about how these characters don't quite match the Mario aesthetic. But again, at least Camelot established a consistent art style as to what other humans looked like in the Mario Universe. Then suddenly Mario interacting with other humans got a whole lot weirder in the late GC era.

Gamecube Versions of EA Sports Big Games:

Before I go further, there needs to be some context that has to explain this segment. During the PS2/XBOX/GC generation, the Gamecube was the only console to not support online multiplayer for their games (unless you count Phantasy Star Online). With the GC not letting customers play games online, third party developers felt obligated to add extra content in their GC titles. This was clearly meant to give GC owners an incentive to buy their titles and make up for the lack of online play. For example, the GC version of Mortal Kombat Deception was the only console game that allowed people to play as MK’s most iconic boss characters, Goro and Shao Khan.

Now how does this relate to Mario? Well, EA Sports Big wanted to make up for the lack of online multiplayer by literally including Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach as playable characters in two of this games. These are games that feature either real people or realistic people within each game’s roster. They’re both set in the real world…Why did no one reference these games in the Odyssey reveal?

The first of these was NBA Street V3, which was the third installment of the NBA Street series. The Gamecube version had Mario and friends as a playable team called Nintendo All Stars. You can look at this gameplay clip to see how uncanny the Mario Bros. and Peach look when playing basketball against real NBA players. Yes, there’s a game where Mario and Kobe Bryant can go toe to toe in a game of hoops! They even have their own court that uses art that is inspired from the Mushroom Kingdom, but the court looks pretty realistic. Plus, the audience for this court are not Toads, Koopa Troopas, or any other species that resides in the Mushroom Kingdom. They're just plain ol' looking humans.

The other EA Sports Big title was SSX On Tour, the fourth installment of the SSX series. EA got the same Mario characters from NBA Street V3 into this title to have them crave up the most pragmatic looking snow environments for its time.

I can understand why EA got these characters into their games because they wanted Nintendo’s biggest icons to be linked with the GC versions of these titles. It also sends a firm statement that this is what you’re getting on the Gamecube. But at the same time, its just bizarre seeing Luigi stand next to somebody like Kevin Garnett. Maybe if it was NBA pros of SSX characters dressing up as Mario characters (which is also strange), that might work better. The fact that Mario characters are outright playable in this mostly realistic games is odd. However, its evidence that Mario has had contact with realistic people long before we saw Mario in New Donk City for the first time. What’s stranger to me is that Mario wasn’t playable for the Nintendo published snowboarding game, 1080 Avalanche. Or the Nintendo published NBA Courtside on the GC.

As a bonus, the GC version of Fight Night Round 2 had its own Nintendo exclusive content. One of which was unlocking a fighter that’s supposed to resemble the SNES Punch Out design of Little Mac, but its such a horrifying character design that it makes Jeff in EA Sports UFC look natural (Actually, UFC Jeff is uncanny but in a good way). You can also unlock Super Punch Out from the SNES in Fight Night Round 2 though, which is cool. Speaking of Punch Out…

Punch-Out:

This is another Nintendo series that a couple of Mario characters have made cameo appearances in before. It’s nothing new considering that Mario is often referenced in any other Nintendo IP like Kirby, Animal Crossing and Pokemon, but it was one of the first to do so.

Most noticeably in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, Mario playing the role as the referee is one of the most memorable cameos that featured the red hated plumber. As everyone knows, Mario is the referee for every bout Little Mac is involved with starting to the Minor Circuit w/ foes like Glass Joe and Piston Hondo. Then its on to the Major Circuit fighting stalwarts like Don Flamenco and Bald Bull and later to the World Circuit featuring rematches as well as new fighters like Mr. Sandman. Of course, the real grand finale is fighting Mike Tyson, which is considered by many to be one of the toughest boss fights ever. Remember, Mario and Mike Tyson were in the same virtual ring together. A real boxing icon and a cartoon plumber! Not to mention that the other boxers you fight are from real world countries (except for King Hippo). Like NES Open Tournament Golf, Mario has traveled in the real world before as he had a short-term career as a boxing referee. Also in Punch Out for the arcade, Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong and DK Jr. all appear as spectators in the crowd.

Punch-Out on the Wii was the only other game in the series to feature a Mario character to make a cameo appearance. Mario didn’t return, as the referee and Tyson had no chance to return as the hidden boss fighter. Instead, the developers got permission to use a different character to fill in Tyson’s shoes as both the hidden and toughest boxer of the game, and that was Donkey Kong. It was also a very overconfident and smug DK at that.

Sure, you could argue that DK family has been around humans before with supposedly Cranky Kong being the original Donkey Kong in the Arcade game kidnapping Pauline. But this time he’s fighting actual people in a boxing ring live in front of a human audience. Plus throughout the fight he's dancing in front of you, blowing kisses and even adjusting his hair. All of these cocky moves are bait moves for Little Mac to try to punch the tie wearing ape, only to miss. If DK beats you, he'll abduct Little Mac out of the ring as if he's Pauline from the original Donkey Kong game. DK is a pretty predictable guest character within the Nintendo universe to put into Punch Out, but this is quite a funny portrayal of him making him this smug boxer that knows he's gonna pound Little Mac.

It was originally planned that Princess Peach was gonna be a secret boxer for the Wii version of Punch-Out, but the developer Next Level Games dropped the idea thinking it would out of bad taste to have the player beat up a women. Good call. They even had plans to include other Nintendo characters into the game, but instead stuck with DK as the one guest character and wanted to expand the series' roster of characters instead.

Quick Notes on other Mario Sports Games:

• There's the long running Mario and Sonic Olympic series where it does take place in real world settings, but all realistic humans are replaced by Mario and Sonic characters. What happened to mankind?
• Mario 3-on-3 Hoops is a Mario Basketball game for the DS that had a plethora of Mario characters, but also had a Ninja, White Mage and Black Mage from Final Fantasy as other playable humans. It also had a Moogle and a Cactuar since Square Enix made this game.
• There was a NES racing series exclusive to Japan called Famicon Grand Prix where Mario was prominently featured in the advertising. He was also playable and raced against supposedly other people.
• The Mario Strikers and Sluggers games pretty much include characters in the extended Mario universe.
• Mario Kart has had Miis since the Wii and has Link, Animal Crossing Villagers and Inklings as human/humanoid characters in MK8 Deluxe, but that's it.

Conclusion:

Looking back at these different games, Mario has had, well, an interesting history in meeting different people. Mario has in fact interacted with the very best pros in the NBA during the 2005 season as well as ride through some mountain trails in SSX On Tour, but I don't think Nintendo fully acknowledges those games' existence. Perhaps Punch Out is an extended Mario franchise considering characters from the Mushroom Kingdom have appeared in the series' titles from its Arcade roots to the latest release. Camelot had a relatively uniform art style displaying how other humans were depicted within the world of Mario, even if those designs may or may not have been intended for a Sony IP. But with Super Mario Odyssey on the way, the developers probably just thought of rebooting the idea of how other humans are depicted in Mario and decided to make them appear down-to-earth, but Mario and Peach will stay the same. Plus Odyssey appears to have different worlds that have their own art style, so the realistic NDC is just one of the artistically unique levels in the game.