Portal: Mario
| |
| Mario Brothers | |
| Developer | Nintendo |
| Games | List of all games |
| Debut | Donkey Kong (1981) |
| Gallery | GH Gallery |
The foremost video game series by Nintendo and one of the most expansive in the industry. Mario takes his roots back in the original Donkey Kong game that first appeared in the arcades. Since then Mario has grown into his own series of self-titled games with several spinoff series ranging from sports, RPGs, party games, and independent games for other characters such as Wario, Peach, Yoshi, and Luigi.
History
The franchise itself is the brainchild of Shigeru Miyamoto and though most of the games in the franchise are made without him, he has remained the guiding hand for all of the games in the series primary series of platforming adventure games. The "Mario Brothers" first came into being in the Mario Brothers arcade game where players pit Donkey Kong star Jumpman (now known as Mario) against his newly introduced brother, Luigi. This game would introduce many concepts to the Mario Brothers universe, including the turtle enemies (later Koopas), the presence of warp pipes, and Mario's seeming role of a plumber.
The most influental game of all was Super Mario Bros. which laid down the foundation for the rest of the series. The game introduced a diverse cast of new enemies, from the Goomba to the enigmatic Lakitu. It also introduced the new antagonist, Bowser, who would continue to be Mario's arch-villain for the rest of the franchise. Other important elements were introduced such as the powerups Super Mushroom and Fire Flower, as well as the series' constant damsel-in-distress, Princess Peach.
In Super Mario Bros. 3, Bowser's kids were introduced. Their names were Larry Koopa, Morton Koopa Jr., Wendy O. Koopa, Iggy Koopa, Roy Koopa, Lemmy Koopa, and Ludwig Von Koopa. They would appear again a year later on Super Mario World.
From then on the Mario plataformer games took a 3D view instead of the standard 2D view. The general story behind those new game was still saveing Princess Peach, but doing so forced the players to collect items in order to advance from stage to stage. This trend started with Super Mario 64, continued in Super Mario Sunshine and will be seen in the upcoming Super Mario Galaxy.
Among the standars Action/Adventure plataformers, the Mario series is know for its high quantity of spinoffs, some including Puzzles, Sports, Educational and Art oriented titles.
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