'Super Mario Maker 2' Is A Loving Ode To Fan Communities
Mario, the mustachioed, overalls-sporting plumber, is the omnipresent figure of video games, an instantly recognizable property in one of the world's biggest entertainment industries. In 1981, Donkey Kong starting taking our quarters at the arcades — here, with Mario at its center, the first platformer was born. When Mario showed up again just a few years later on home consoles with 1985's Super Mario Bros., the result was nothing less than revelatory. Never before had players encountered a game with its level of precision and character-control. Its graphics were wildly inventive, its gameplay immediate and compulsive and its musical score burrowed into our brains. And since then, the Super Mario Bros. series has continuously redefined what it means, and how it feels, to run (and jump) through a digital space.
Our collective familiarity with a property as is what makes so appealing. The game sets out to fulfill a highly specific adolescent fantasy, one that likely inspired many game developers over the past few decades: "What if I could make my own course?"
