Mushroom Memories

This is a little bit of post-filching. I didn't write this but found it on one of the boards I frequent, and I thought I'd share it here. (You have to sign up to see any posts, so I can't link it.)

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(posted by) AceHazard
#6911 Posted (12/21/05 7:36AM)

I think it’s safe to say that everyone has played Super Mario Brothers. It’s just a part of growing up, like eating sand or playing with dolls. Ahh, I love reflecting back to my youthful days of sand-eating, Barbie-brushing, and Mario-playing. But have you ever stopped and realized what the hell was really going on in that game?

Premise: You are a plumber who is trying to save a Princess from a dragon-esque monster in a castle.

Characters:
Mario – The hero of the game. He is a stereotypical Italian plumber with a large moustache. Nobody is really sure how he arrived in the strange world, but he’s here, rife with plumber goodness. He also has a hard time matching colors for his outfits. He has a brother named Luigi, but nobody really cares about Luigi. Luigi is like Tito Jackson, in that Luigi is black and hasn’t sold many records. Wait, that didn’t make any sense at all. Scratch that.

Bowser – I think he’s part dog, part Carrot Top, and part dragon. He shoots fire, faces one direction, and jumps around spontaneously. He can also fall in lava multiple times without dying. He usually swims from lava to lava to arrive at the next castle in his queer empire. For safety precautions, he keeps a lever around which disintegrates the bridge he usually stands on. I’m not sure why they keep these levers around, it’s probably the same reason we have a “permanent press” setting on irons. If it was a permanent press, why would we need the iron? Talk about crazy!

Princess – A princess. I don’t think she has a name in this one. “Princess” is probably just a nickname like “Prince”, or “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” or “Prince Who Was Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince”. Nobody really knows what she governs, or why Bowser didn’t kidnap a king of a queen. Maybe she has super powers, or maybe she’s hot if you don’t see her in her pixelized, three-color form. Regardless, I don’t want to think about a woman and a dog/Carrot Top/dragon combination having sex. Actually, I really just don’t want to think about Carrot Top. Damned dirty Carrot Top.

Goombas – These are little brown mushrooms that walk around scowling all day. If I were a mushroom with facial features, I’d scowl too. I mean, come on, you’re a mushroom; nobody respects you. Plants laugh at you, bacteria make jokes behind your back. You are a fungus, my friend, get used to it.

Koopa Troopas – They’re turtles. They walk on their hind legs. Sometimes they fly. Enough said.

Bullet Bills – Giant bullets the size of Rosie O’Donnell. Also, like Rosie they move very slowly and nobody likes them. You can jump on them and make them go away, hopefully one day the same can be done for Rosie. And if Bullet Bills had a morning talk show, I wouldn’t watch it either.

Hammer Brothers – Look out! Turtles with an infinite supply of hammers! Why do they have hammers? Why do they keep throwing them? Why don’t the hammers ever hit the ground? Why don’t they ever run out? Hammer Brothers are an enigma, wrapped in a paradox, and sealed with a conundrum. They also make the game that much more irritating as they’re pretty much impossible to kill. I mean, have you ever stepped on a hammer with shoes on? I did, and I shrunk to half of my size. It took forever to find a mushroom to eat, believe me!

Little beetle things that nobody knows the name for – They’re, uh.. beetles. They’re actually normal, except they have hard shells and you can kick them around.

Toad – A happy mushroom fellow that Bowser keeps in a burlap sack. He’s easily mistaken for a princess by Mario. I guess it doesn’t matter when they’re.. in the sack! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Locutu Lokutututu Lokutuaeultjaldocuel Loajsdlfkjcl Lcoasdflakj – Whatever the hell that floating cloud guy is that drops spiny things. Damn him and his infernal spine-shooting cloud machine.

Gameplay: You start out large. If you run into anything, you somehow shrink. It’s kind of like when I’m walking down the street and I run into somebody, then I shrink to half my size. I hate when that happens. Don’t worry though, to return to your large size, all you have to do is bash your head against floating bricks or flashing boxes with question marks on them, and then run into the mushroom that comes out. Makes sense, doesn’t it? You can also eat flowers, which allows you to shoot fireballs out of your nose somehow. After hopping around floating bricks, jumping on ugly creatures, and traveling through green pipes, you dry hump a flagpole to signify your completion of a level. Once I complete a task at work, I usually dry hump the finished masterpiece until a number like “1000” dissipates from it, so I could really relate to this game, about as much as a man in Alabama can relate to his wife. RELATE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Once you beat three levels, you are transported to a castle of some sort. Like any castle, it has floating question marks, sticks of lava, lava pits, fireballs, and moving platforms. Bowser awaits at the end of 8 different castles, despite how many times you kill him. He’s kind of like Tupac; Tupac is dead, and he comes out with a new song every day. It’s craziness.

Bonuses: If you somehow manage to cram 100 oddly-placed coins (I’m not sure what the use of currency is here, I guess the mushroom people must have an economy set up of some sort) into wherever you store things you get a 1-up. You can also travel through green pipes to secret underground bank areas with floating coins. I had a floating coin one time, but I let go of the string and it flew away. Oh, wait, that was a balloon. Sometimes I get confused. Also, if you can find the magic vine that grows out of bricks, you can climb it and run around on clouds, collecting coins. But only if you find it, the vine won’t come to you.

Basically, Mario is a drug-induced hallucination about princesses, mushrooms, dragons, and Carrot Top.
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And to top it off, we have a little Mario Marimba.

Ah, the nostalgia.