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Is Mario Only Alive Because of Nostalgia?

Is Mario Only Alive Because of Nostalgia?

Nostalgia is a powerful force. Heck, it’s kept Sonic the Hedgehog alive far, far, far, faaaaar longer than he should have. But new Sonic games suck, right? What about Mario? Mario’s games are awesome, and he is an iconic video game mascot that we all know and love. In fact, he is practically synonymous with video games. He’s worth getting nostalgic over, right? He’s quality.

While yes, Mario games are quality, mostly due to the combination of Nintendo’s unwillingness to cleave to the market and Shigeru Miyamoto’s insanity-level genius or dark pact with some sort of devil (it’s not just quality that drives him). Still, the very nostalgia that we feel keeps him alive. Don’t believe me?

Well, let’s take a look at modern day Nintendo series, Mario being one of them. Now remove all of them that feature nostalgic characters. That means no Mario,  Zelda, Metroid, Pikmin, and so forth. Are any of Ninendo’s new ideas anything like Mario? Do they feature anything remotely like a cartoon plumber that eats mushrooms and stomps on the backs of turtles?

Heck, take a look at all modern day games. What sorts of characters have our new IPs created? We have the rugged and tough Nathan Drake. We have Cole from inFamous. We have all the mustachioed knights from The Order . Aside from the mustaches, do any of these games look anything like Mario? Are they cartoony? Are they platformers?

Is Mario Only Alive Because of Nostalgia?

You see, Mario holds a monopoly on the Mario formula, mostly because of nostalgia. We associate Mario with certain things. We associate him with the platformer genre. We associate him with power-ups. We associate him with jumping on enemies. But if another game came out that featured good platforming, power-ups, jumping, and Mario’s cartoony look, we would criticize it for being too childish, or we might even call it a Mario knock-off.

But no other games like Mario are coming out right now. So why do we keep thinking the Mario formula is a good thing? We live in a world of dark, gritty, and mature games yet somehow this one cartoony plumber keeps coming back, and keeps selling. Why is that?

It’s simple, our nostalgia gives him a pass. We already know Mario is good, he’s Mario. He’s already survived the test of time. He’s still around, which is proof of his quality. He doesn’t NEED to prove himself again, and that’s why he continues to exist while other similar cartoony characters would likely fail.

This, by the way, is also why we keep buying Sonic games even though Sonic hasn’t been good since the Genesis era.

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