Didn’t know today was the 25th birthday – thanks for sharing this post with us :) I told my older brother (who is just a couple months younger than the video game) and he thought it was quite impressive.
Video games have played a role in my life. Our Nintendo Entertainment System was not purchased for my brothers and I – it belonged to my dad. He was a hard-working coordinating director of the cafeteria in a hospital and wanted to unwind while playing Mario (and later Zelda – his favourite series to this day.) My uncle, his brother-in-law, also bought the system. They would call each other to brag about beating new levels.
I more or less grew up with these characters.
My favourite memory… hmm… one of them is when Yoshi in Super Mario World ate a blue koopa shell, he could fly. I was amazed by this. Instant love for Yoshi. Seriously. It also blew my mind when Yoshi’s Island was released because the colours were vivid and the game play was changing in subtle ways.
My favourite branch of the Mario franchise is the Paper Mario series. The writing is fantastic. It’s one of the few games that I have played specifically for the dialogue. If I could get a job writing video games, it would be a series like that.
I’m glad kids still enjoy playing Mario games because I want the franchise to stick around. The Mario Galaxy series has beautiful graphics and is an innovative step forward in terms of level design. But the movie… yeah, that was shit.