by Elton Gahr

Created on: October 10, 2010   Last Updated: October 26, 2010

The character of Mario and the Super Mario franchise is one of the most popular in all of video games with a history that has extended decades and Mario has been in over two hundred games. So what is it about this franchise of video games which has remained so popular while so many other games have faded into history. How is it that an Italian plumber became the mascot for one of the biggest video game companies in the world?

The first game in which Mario appeared was Donkey Kong and it was the first in a large line of successes. Donkey Kong took the idea of King Kong and gave you a character who was in this story called JumpMan. This is one of the more difficult of video games and is still played competitively, but few people think of this as a Mario game and it is not part of the Super Mario franchise or the first place that most people think of when they think of Mario.

The first of the Super Mario brothers games came with the Nintendo Entertainment System and this was part of the popularity of this series. Because this game was owned by virtually everyone who owned a Nintendo Entertainment System it meant that those people who would like this style of game were very likely to play it.

The next major boost that the Super Mario Brother series got was not in the second, but the third in this series. This game played largely the same as the first game but added a number of elements. It was also featured in the movie The Wizard, which told the story of a young video game prodigy and this surprise gave a boost to the expectations for this game.

As systems improved Mario was able to adapt more fully than many other franchises. When the Nintendo 64 was released a new super Mario brother game appeared in 3D breathing life into the franchise by allowing them a lot more freedom.

In each iteration of this franchise has added new elements to this game, from Yoshi, to the ability to play as different characters in this universe to traveling from world to world in space ships and yet it has been able to also keep the part of the game that were fun from the first, allowing for a very good mixture of nostalgia and innovation which has kept this fresh and fun for so many years.

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