Happy 30th Anniversary: Super Mario Bros.
Today is an important milestone in gaming, because today marks the 30th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. What better way to celebrate a game than by going through your own childhood memories of the most recognized characters in video game history.
My mother likes to remind me that I probably started gaming around the young age of two. You see, I was exposed to gaming at a very young age partly because of the Mario fever that was infecting the members of my family. My parents, my three siblings, and a young me all caught this fever, spending endless amounts of lives, trying to beat the first Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
After watching my family members meticulously beat every level the game had to offer, I too would eventually pick up the controller and try my best. At a young age, I imagine I wasn’t all that great, but my memories of the game don’t really stem from playing them. It was the moments I shared with my family that I remember the most. My fondest memory is my dad showing me a secret that only he had mastered.
On world 3-1, I watched as my father would get a green koopa on the fourth step, in the exact right spot, and proceed to continuously jump over and over on its shell; the dings and life counters soaring high up for an almost endless supply of 99 lives, (if you got 100 lives, Mario would die.) In that moment my dad was a super hero to me, and I can still remember us begging him to get us all those extra lives when we got to world 3-1, because no one else in my family could master the skill.
In my own time, I would eventually play countless other entries in the Super Mario series. My first solo experience was with Super Mario World on the SNES. I still remember the first time I got Yoshi, and unfortunately, had to leap off him to save myself and let him fall. Or when he ate a red Koopa and would spit a burst of flames across the screen.
My first 3D Mario was Mario 64 for the N64, where the mystery of gaming was so prevalent. How did you unlock that cannon? What was on top of the castle? And how the hell do I get up these infinite number of steps? From saving a penguin, well after many attempts, and defeating Bowser by throwing him into bombs, and collecting as many stars as I could. This may be common knowledge to a giant segment of the gaming base, but these were my very first memories with the Super Mario series. It’s a magical game that continues to occupy a place in my cartridge slot, in my disk tray, on my hard drive, on my SD card, and eventually on my phone.
Join me in wishing a happy 30th anniversary to the best video game series in history, and feel free to share your favorite Mario memories too.
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