Irwin Jon - Super Mario Bros. 2

Video games have played a huge role in my life. As Nintendos Gamemaster, I played and analyzed every game developed by and for Nintendo prior to 1991. During that period, I developed a deep understanding of games and the rich personal experiences they provided players. I knew key staff well at Nintendo of America and, to a limited degree, Nintendo Co., Ltd. in Kyoto, Japan. I considered then-president of Nintendo of America Minoru Arakawa (Mr. A) to be my friend. The story and history Jon Irwin recounts in this book I lived firsthand.

I first met Mario as Jumpman in the arcade hit Donkey Kong while serving as warehouse and shipping manager for Nintendo of America in 1981. The Donkey Kong arcade game quickly became a phenomenal hit in the US. Initially manufactured in Japan and shipped through the Nintendo of America warehouse in Seattle, Washington, Donkey Kong was so successful that for a brief period Nintendo was the largest-volume shipper through the Port of Seattle.

By the time Shigeru Miyamotos Super Mario Bros . was released in 1985, my role as shipping and warehouse manager had expanded to include reviewing with a Western eye all new Japanese Nintendo products, arcade games, Game & Watch handheld games, and Famicom games, reporting my results to Mr. A.

In the early spring of 1985, Mr. A gave me a box of 40-some-odd Nintendo Famicom games and asked me to play each one and recommend which games should become launch titles for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the US. The story of the launch of the NES is longer than this foreword allows, but of the games in that box, it was Super Mario Bros . that made the biggest impression.

My experience with Super Mario Bros. 2 began in the summer of 1986 when I received a new box from Nintendo that contained yet another set of new titles for both the Famicom and the recently released Famicom Disc System. One of these Famicom discs was Super Mario Bros. 2 .

I was surprised that the disc had arrived at my desk without any fanfare or advance warning. After all, it was the sequel to the NESs most popular game. I quickly loaded the game and began playing. What came next was completely unexpected.

I was immediately killed by a mushroom that, unlike the mushrooms in Super Mario Bros. , was now poisonous. Chagrinned but undaunted, I continued playing only to be taken by a strong, unpredictable wind and tossed into a chasm. Soon after, I succumbed to the jaws of a red piranha plant that uncharacteristically rose from a pipe that I was already standing ona platform that in Super Mario Bros. had always been safe.

As I continued to play, I found that Super Mario Bros. 2 asked me again and again to take a leap of faith and that each of those leaps resulted in my immediate death. This was not fun gameplay, it was punishment undeserved punishment.

I put down my controller, astonished that Mr. Miyamoto had chosen to design such a painful game. It was only later that I came to understand that Mr. Miyamoto had handed off most of the design responsibility of Super Mario Bros. 2 to other Nintendo staff. Apparently, during the year prior to the Japanese release of Super Mario Bros. 2 , Mr. Miyamoto had focused most of his energies on the design of future hit The Legend of Zelda .

Amazed at how dark and punishing the supposedly entertaining Super Mario Bros. 2 was, I immediately shared my thoughts with Mr. Arakawa. In his typical stoic manner, Mr. Arakawa simply acknowledged my comments. By this time, I was well aware of the cultural differences within Nintendo that made bad news known but rarely discussed.

It may seem strange, but in the spring of 1986, Super Mario Bros . was no longer the franchise to watch to those inside Nintendo. Mr. Miyamotos The Legend of Zelda had launched in Japan on Famicom in February and was experiencing great success. Zelda is an incredibly deep and engaging game. So engaging that I managed to successfully complete it even though all the in-game hints and directions were in Japanese script Hiragana and Katakanatext that I could not read or understand. By the time Super Mario Bros. 2 crossed my desk, I had already completed The Legend of Zelda and was lobbying hard for its quick release in the US.

It wasnt until 1988 that a new version of Super Mario Bros. 2 arrived on my desk. I immediately recognized it as a remake of a Famicom game that I had reviewed the previous year. I found the new Super Mario Bros. 2 to be a lot of fun and I told Mr. A so. The rest, as they say, is history.

This book provides a great service by documenting in engaging detail a period in history that meant so much to so many of us. As I read this book, I was reminded of the wonder of playing classic video games. Players will understand and remember fondly the nuanced aspects of gameplay that Jon Irwin describes.

While many have written about the video games of the 80s, no one has previously captured with such a keen eye the pixel-level detail of a game from that era. Irwin has created a rich period piece that accurately describes what happened to Super Mario Bros. 2 and why. At the same time, he has captured the magic of what it was like to be a kid playing video games when Nintendo and Super Mario ruled the world.

Howard Phillips

Summer 2014

Playing a Mario game is about finding secrets. There may be obvious rewardsa flagpole awaiting a well-timed jump, or some floating star to nab, or the sheer joy of moving gracefully through designed spacebut the guts of a great Mario game reside elsewhere, tucked away within the scenery. To uncover that which remains hidden: This is the Mario players true goal.

Such secrets abound. Their presence tantalizes, buried under the surface, its scent seeping through pixelated bricks. Defeating the final villain is the usual climax; grabbing coins is an ever-present dripfeed of adrenaline. But go back and look more closely. Discover that hidden enclave. Unearth a fount of extra lives. Duck beneath the ground and find yourself in another world. Each moment brings with it a feelingthat ping of bright surprise or smooth warmth of elationthat makes you play and play again.

What happens then, when instead of lying behind coded architecture, a games best secret is the story of the game itself?