Mario

**Mario** is *Nintendo's* most favorite icon and protagonist who appears in the *Super Mario* franchise. He was viewed as the mascot of Nintendo, and was said to be the most well-known and most popular video game character in the world to appear in more than 200 video games.

## Biography

Mario made his first appearance in the year of 1981, which debuts him as the main playable protagonist where he must defeat his nemesis, Donkey Kong. Mario's character design was heavily influenced by the extreme technical limitations of video games at every time; as a tiny batch of pixels, Mario was given a mustache under his big nose, which shows he had a face. Mario wears Red overalls and a blue shirt, which later reversed in later games. While a red cap was added to let Miyamoto avoid drawing the character's hairstyle, forehead, and eyebrows, as well as to circumvent the issue of animating his hair as he jumped. Mario is currently unnamed in the Japanese version of Donkey Kong and was nicknamed **Jumpman** in the game's English instructions.

In *Donkey Kong*, Mario is portrayed as a carpenter whose girlfriend named Pauline (originally named "Lady" in the Japan) ends up kidnapped by the big ape Donkey Kong at a construction site. Mario makes it his mission to jump his way over various obstacles that Donkey Kong throws at him in order to climb the scaffolding of the construction site to rescue Pauline. In *Donkey Kong Junior*, he appears as the main villain. After Donkey Kong Junior, Mario appears in the arcade game, *Mario Bros.*, which marks the debut of Luigi in the year of 1983. Miyamoto's next game after that was Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom in Japan), the video game that brought video gaming into the mainstream and made Nintendo a major company in a now-major industry. Mario and Luigi now live in the Mushroom Kingdom that was ruled by Princess Peach with her Toads, while Bowser sees an opportunity to kidnap the princess where Mario must rescue her. In Super Mario Bros., Mario bounds across side-scrolling platform stages, jumping on the heads of common enemies such as Goombas and Koopa Troopas to defeat them. He starts out small, then grows to double his size upon grabbing a Super Mushroom so that he can smash bricks with his fists (as of his European character title in *Super Smash Bros. 4* and *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*, which was displayed on *Punch-Out's Boxing Ring* stage), shoot out fireballs after grabbing a Fire Flower, and turning invincible for a short time by grabbing a Super Star. *Super Mario Bros.* became a franchise with these elements lasered into video game iconography, consistent in most future games in the *Super Mario* series.

For over 30 years afterward, Mario would star in tons of video games for various Nintendo systems. Mario and his accompanying franchise can be viewed as Nintendo's thematic tileset with which to create games of a whimsical, colorful, and light-hearted nature. Mario himself is meant to be a character anyone can enjoy playing as and can fit well as a protagonist figure and/or main balanced character in many genres of games. To this end, Mario isn't portrayed as a character that undergoes development like what players would see from a character within an expansive story, but rather a character defined by the player's actions with a few defining traits of his own.

Mario was also the rival to *Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog* since the 1990s and the *Mario & Sonic* franchise starting with *Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games* for the Nintendo Wii in the year 2007. In the *Super Smash Bros.* franchise, he has major roles in two games. In the *Subspace Emissary* of *Super Smash Bros. Brawl*, he was Pit's first ally in a fight against the Subspace army (as of his conversation on Palutena's Guidance). In the *World of Light* opening of *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*, Mario was vaporized along with many others are all vaporized into being spirits (except Kirby who was the last to survive). Near the end of the opening for World of Light, a spirit of the *Smoky Progg* from the *Pikmin* franchise possesses him so that he can be used as a puppet fighter, engaging the player in a Spirit Battle. His voice actor in all seven Super Smash Bros. games (eight if both versions of Super Smash Bros. 4 and Ultimate count) and M.U.G.E.N Trilogy is Charles Martinet, who also voices Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Toadsworth, Dr. Mario (his doctor counterpart), Baby Mario (his baby counterpart), and Baby Luigi (Luigi's baby counterpart) all of whom are other characters from his series.

## Appearances in Fighting Games

### **M.U.G.E.N Trilogy**

In M.U.G.E.N Trilogy, Mario was confirmed along with many other fighting characters when the game was released on November 30, 2018 for the Nintendo Switch. Mario is considered to be an All-Around character as of the Super Smash Bros. franchise and can be unlocked by scanning his amiibo or his AR Card. Mario uses his own moveset from the Super Smash Bros. franchise.

#### **Assist Attacks**

 **β** | Super Jump Punch
 **γ** | Mario Tornado