User:Nintendo101

Casual Nintendo historian. Otherwise an artist and a professional zoologist. Bio degree. I've had an account here since 2012.

I wrote the character sections for Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Super Mario Odyssey. I contributed much of the article for Super Mario Sunshine and am currently working on Super Mario Galaxy.

I have been a fan of Nintendo since a very young age. My first Mario games (and three of the first video games I ever owned) were Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2, Super Mario 64 DS, and Mario Kart DS. These games were good company for a young kid who moved around a lot and had difficulty keeping long-lasting friends.

During the, I sequentially played some of my favorite games in the Super Mario series to 100% completion. This includes, in order, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. I will complete this marathon with Super Mario Odyssey. It's been really fun so far! These are great games, and I always wanted to marathon a series like this before but never had the time. It has been interesting to see where the series began and where it has ended up. The design philosophies, the characters, the art directions, world building, level design, narrative, etc. All good stuff. It might be fun to write something about it some day.

My favorite video game character is Yoshi.

Sandbox for current project
Introduces octopus enemies, Topman Tribe, and Beamers. Recurring to series and Mario franchise. Some can be likened to staple enemies in the Zelda series (e.g. bat to Keese; octopus to Octorok)

None look like aliens or robots you'd expect from sci-fi

Some new enemies are derivative of ones from 64 in design and behavior (see figure).

Great use of series back catalog: enemies associated with the 2D games platformers make their 3D debut (ex. Hammer Bro; Dry Bones). There are enemies included in Galaxy that never appeared in the series outside of their debut title (e.g. Magikoopa; Urchin; Torpedo Ted). There is a particular focus on enemies from Super Mario 64: Bomp, Amp, Boulder, Tox Box. Two enemies from Sunshine return.

Contrasts greatly with Sunshine. Sunshine made conservative use of the back catalog and introduced a bunch of moogs that never appeared again.