Super Mario Bros. has been a well known franchise for
many generations, and it’s known for its many recognizable characters and enemies. I loved playing games based around Mario’s story, and I still play his games to this day. I’m Dylan, and I’ll be talking about the evolution of Super Mario games.
Hello everyone. Welcome to this week’s podcast.
I’m Dylan, and let’s get started with this week’s topic.
This topic I will be talking about: Character/Enemy Designs and How They Change Overtime.
There has been dozens of enemies that Mario confronted through the years.
Longtime enemies ranging from Goombas all the way to King Bowser, the main antagonist of the franchise.
Things that didn’t stick around was the gameplay experience in Super Mario Bros.
Every time a new game is released, new elements are added, and experimental enemies are either added as a consistently returning enemy or immediately forgotten.
It’s really based on what the creators think is best for the game.
Even the sprites of Mario himself change, as well as the environment around him and other characters in the game.
To start off this discussion, I’ll be talking about how Mario’s design changes overtime.
I’ll be basing his changes from four of his games: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, and Super Mario Odyssey.
In Super Mario Bros., you can see that he lacks many features compared to his modern look. His design back then consisted of three colors.
Red, olive green, and a dark goldish color.
He’s also made by a group of pixels, which makes sense knowing the game was made in 1985 and was 8-bit.
His face, and buttons were gold. His shoes, shirt, hair, and eyes were green. and his overalls and hat were red.
The pigment choice didn’t stay for long, as it changed several times in future games. Moving on to Super Mario World, his look has been improved with more features on his character.
He now has white eyes and black pupils, and he also has blue overalls and a red shirt instead of red overalls and a green shirt.
His shoes are also a color of their own, which is a nice brown color.
Something many people don’t stop and think about, the sprite for Super Mario in Super Mario Bros. only has one eye, when in Super Mario World you see both of his eyes.
Now heading to Super Mario 64, the first time Mario appears in a three-dimensional game, he now has an “M” on his cap instead of a white empty circle.
He also has golden buttons, and blue irises in eyes.
His hair and moustache are also a different color.
His hair being brown, and his moustache black.
His clothing and skin consists of solid colors, no texture.
This changes overtime, Super Mario Odyssey being a good example of Mario having texture in his design.
In Super Mario Odyssey, his character has been given realistic textures that makes him look more human.
His hair and mustache now has multiple hairs, instead of a solid colored mesh.
His overalls also have yellow stitches, with shiny buttons.
His eyes also shine from light casting off of him.
Another thing he has compared to his first three-dimensional design is now he has fingers.
So instead of being a solid mesh that represents a closed mesh, he has a closed fist consisting of an actual hand.
Mario wasn’t the only character that went through a lot of changes, even the enemies he has to confront evolved.
Goombas, Bloopers, Koopa Troopas, Lakitus, Chain Chomps, and so on.
To prove my point, I’ll be using the Chain Chomp as an example, since it went through one of the most changes in my opinion.
The Chain Chomp’s first appearance was in Super Mario Bros. 3.
It is the videogame’s equivalent to a vicious chained dog.
The design of this enemy is a chained ball attached to a wooden block.
When it charges at you, the chain doesn’t stay together, it just spaces out from the distance between the block and enemy.
The chain consists of three pieces, but it still can go a long distance from what it should be with that short of a chain.
When its mouth is closed, the teeth overlap the lip as if they don’t fit in its mouth.
In Super Mario 64, there is just one appearance of this enemy.
Originally, it was smaller than Mario. Now it is gigantic… super huge.
It’s pegged to a log, which removing it from the peg can get you a star.
The chain is now spheres, since they didn’t know how to make the chain in a three dimensional form at the time.
The chain still isn’t connected, and it consists of four pieces.
Its mouth closes with its teeth not poking out now, instead of being exposed.
Not only that, its teeth for whatever reason are now silver.
Its appearance changes even more when you check out Super Mario Odyssey.
To start off, the Chain Chomp now has a connected chain, instead of spheres or rings that spreads out when it distances from the peg.
Its teeth are once again white, and its eyes and body reflex light,
which is a good addition to its look
because it’s a metal ball.
Its size ranges from taller than Mario to being smaller than Mario,
but in this game, it thrice the height of Mario.
Not only are there changes in old enemies,
there are changes of what enemies are added.
Each having a new way of attacking and defending themselves.
I’m gonna talk about three enemies Nintendo added, when they added each enemy,
and what they each do.
One enemy called a “Stingby” is a giant bee with a stringer on its face.
When they detect you at a close range, it’ll slowly fly towards you.
When the Stingby interacts with your player, you’ll get damaged.
From what I know, this wasn’t a popular enemy, and was only used twice in Super Mario Bros 3D Land and Super Mario Bros 3D World.
There’s also this other enemy that originated from Super Mario Bros. 3 called a Pile Driver Micro-Goomba.
These enemies are tiny Goombas that hide in piles of bricks, and move in bricks around by carrying blocks above their heads.
The enemy was then unused for a long time.
It was later replaced with Blockhoppers which are pretty much the same exact thing, but they’re robots disguised as bricks.
This appeared in New Super Mario Bros, and nowhere else.
They were once again replaced in Super Mario Bros 3D Land by a Fake Block.
It’s a brick block, but with eyes and a Tanooki tail. Instead of hopping from here to there very fast, it hops and hovers with its tail.
This enemy was also abandoned from what I can recall.
Here’s a more recognizable enemy that got to stay around to the Modern Mario games. Bomb-omb. This enemy appeared in the American version of Super Mario Bros. 2, and believe it or not, he originally had hands.
This enemy explodes when you get close and contact with it.
Then a new bomb-omb came out and was given the role as king of the bomb-ombs.
His name is King Bomb-Omb.
First appearing in Super Mario 64, he is the first boss Mario has to confront, located on the top of Bomb-Omb Battlefield.
He doesn’t defend himself by exploding, but instead he throws you off the mountain.
When you defeat him, then he’ll explode. He does appear in more games as well, mainly in
Mario Party minigames.
Not only have the enemies changed in design, so have the levels themselves.
With that being said, let me talk about how levels in Super Mario Bros changed in locations and gameplay.
In Super Mario Bros., the levels are two-dimensional and going around some enemies is a real challenge.
Hammer bros for example, they’re hard to dodge since the level is designed in a way where you have to either go above or below them.
Going around them left or right is not an option.
You also had to dodge piranha plants from peeking out the pipes, which isn’t an modern issue since again, going around them is now a valid solution.
Back then, the type of locations you would go to are underwater, underground, on land, above land, and in a castle.
Now, there are levels that can take place in haunted mansions and temples.
There are also a lot of outdoor environments like in the desert, on rocky mountains, in snow, in forests, in the clouds, and more.
This helps create a variety of ideas and prevents any consistency from happening between levels.
This is what I love about Nintendo.
They were able to take something as simple as a red plumber and create hundreds of games named after him.
They experiment with new elements and come up with ways to make their next game better than the one before.
So with that being said, these are my examples of how Super Mario has evolved over the years. I’ll hopefully see you on my next podcast. Until then, cheers.
