Super Luigi Bros

Mario Characters and why Fan Favourites aren’t Perfect Characters

Some characters have all the luck as far as popularity with the fandom goes. Whether it’s the Koopalings and their many, many legions of fans, Rosalina and her ridiculous rise in popularity due to the Super Mario Galaxy games, or Captain Syrup in the Wario series, these characters have unfortunately overshadowed much of the great … Read more

Mario Bosses, Blandness and ‘Generic 3D Design’

Over the 25 years of the series, Mario has had tons of awesome bosses. You’ve got the Koopalings, Bowser, Wario (back in the day) and many others in the platformers, and then the hoardes of well designed villains in the RPGs such as Smithy, Fawful and Dimentio. But sadly, one thing seem to have creeped … Read more

Mario and Aesops: Two Things That Should Never Meet

If there’s one thing the horrors of Captain Planet should have taught us, it’s that shoehorning moral messages in entertainment is often a bad idea. So you’d think the Mario series, what with Nintendo having the common sense not to follow their competitors, wouldn’t try any of this, right? Wrong. With Super Mario Sunshine, the … Read more

Is Nintendo Playing It too Safe with Mario’s Content?

When it comes to mechanics, Nintendo have always been great at changing them around. Each Mario game (bar maybe New Super Mario Bros and the Lost Levels) add a new mechanic or ten, and switch around vast chunks of the gameplay. But what about the content, the worlds, the level themes, the enemies and the … Read more

Five Reasons why you wouldn’t want to live in the Mushroom Kingdom

Many, many fans think of fictional worlds as a retreat from the cruel, somewhat harsh reality of the real world. That’s why we have all those Mary Sue characters, badly done fan fic showing the author as being the true love of some fictional character or the sad state of otakukin dreaming about how they’re … Read more