Michael Tucker’s recent article about his impressions of New Super Mario Bros. Wii has opened up a discussion on the direction Nintendo is moving Mario in when it comes to the 2D platform sense. While I have yet to play New Super Mario Bros. Wii, I’ll admit that its introduction at Nintendo’s E3 press conference last week was pleasantly surprising for me. I, like many of you, am a huge fan of Mario. There’s something about him, and his side-scrolling adventures, that makes it hard to not want to play Super Mario World whenever I think of the name “Super Mario.” In the interest of getting these thoughts out, I will ignore the beckoning call of my Super Nintendo, if only for a little while.

Chris Lepine, who runs The Artful Gamer, recently shared his thoughts on Super Mario World on Toronto Thumbs, and at the time of publication of that article (which was to be part of a bigger special devoted to the game), I hadn’t yet gathered my feelings for the title adequately enough to justify putting them down to paper. Eventually I devoted a small portion of a podcast to it, and now, there’s this. Yet I still feel there is much to be said about the game beyond what’s currently on my mind and, indeed, I doubt I’ll ever be able to put it all into words. Either it’s just one of those games, or I am just an emotional mess because of it.

Lepine’s article is one that anyone who has ever enjoyed a Mario title should read. It’s not too long, and in spite of this it still happens to spark the imagination. When recalling a title such a Super Mario World, people invariably fall back upon its graphic style and its excellent musical score. But what made Super Mario World so great wasn’t necessarily a singular thing such as sights, sounds, difficulty, and what have you. It isn’t even the introduction of Yoshi, nor its showcasing of Mode-7 effects. The game came at a point in time where it made a profound impact on me. It was something familiar in that it was a 2D side-scroller (and full disclosure: at the time I doubt I knew what 3D even meant save for earlier console attempts and mimicking this concept via 3D glasses). Yet at the same time, Super Mario World was also refreshing and new. It’s the title that launched with the Super Nintendo, and therefore this carried a lot of relevance. People were being introduced to both it and the system at the same time and, to this day, I can’t think of one without the other.

Nostalgia obviously plays a huge role in how I perceive Super Mario World. It was my first step into the 16-bit era and while I had played a Genesis before, Super Mario World completely blew away any game I had previously experienced. Genesis games at the time just didn’t have that something special that Super Mario World seemed to have in excess. Arguably Genesis games never captured the same feeling that only Mario titles can, though certainly not from lack of trying. We’ve seen mascots come and go throughout the years, and Mario is still around and as relevant today despite being reduced to nothing but a caricature at times.

Going back to play Super Mario World now, it’s still a lot of fun. But the sense of discovery is completely gone for me, and I don’t know if that’s because I’ve already played through the game countless times or if it’s because I’m just too old for that kind of stuff. Playing into the latter possibility, I believe that many of our gripes with New Super Mario Bros. (and by extension, New Super Mario Bros. Wii – though many of us have not even played it) just result from the fact that we are now older and more experienced gamers. This doesn’t mean we’re necessarily better at games, though this is also likely. Having seen and played hundreds of games between Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros., it’s understandable that we wouldn’t be as compelled by the new releases in the series. That said, I did still think that the giant and micro Mario powers were neat introductions in New Super Mario Bros.

I don’t wish to speak for everyone - and yes, although I think New Super Mario Bros. is a great game, I do still see its shortcomings. But I also think it would be very difficult for Nintendo to recapture what is essentially the magic associated with Super Mario World once again. They come close from time to time, but miss the mark completely on occasion, too.

Then again, perhaps it isn’t up to us to decide this. The real gauge for this would be to somehow experience these new Mario titles with the exact same mindset we had when we first played the ones that made us all fall in love with Mario in the first place.

Did Mario forsake us, or was it the other way around? It might be time to accept that somewhere along the line, either we or Mario changed. Perhaps it’s a combination of both. At the very least, we still have those old Mario games to fall back on if these new titles don’t hold up well when we approach them as mature gamers. At best, Mario videogames are still being made (and will likely always be made), which means younger gamers and those new to the pastime may just get a chance to feel the magic you and I felt with Super Mario World.