Super Mario 3D All-Stars contest (2 digital copies)!

[Aaron]

To celebrate Mario's 35th anniversary and give general goodwill and vibes, I'm giving away two digital copies of Super Mario 3-D All-Stars! Everyone can participate in this contest! To join, simply post about your favorite Mario memories and games and what they mean to you, or if you really haven't played them before, post why you are looking forward to playing this new collection + state which game you'll play first.

Good luck, all! Contest ends and two randomly selected winners will be announced 12 PM ET-USA on 9/18!

 

[RadioJoNES]

My favorite Mario memory was probably beating Paper Mario on N64. It was the first game I beat by myself!

 

[Vimes]

My first Mario game was Sunshine because I was just desperate for something even remotely like Zelda while I waited for Wind Waker. As a teen I thought the Mecha Bowser roller coaster fight was just the coolest damn thing ever. I think I'd regularly boot up the game just to play that one level again.

One day I'll revisit the game and will probably finally understand why it's so panned 🙃

 

[TheAggroCraig]

I think my favorite Mario memory is probably from the first time I beat Bowser in Super Mario World. SMW is the first video game I have memories of playing, but I was never able to beat the game. At some point I went back to the game (when I was like 6 or 7 or something compared to when I was like 4 the first time I played) and was finally able to do it.

SMW still remains my favorite Mario game to date, I love replaying it every so often.

 

[ZeroMaverick]

When I was around 6 or 7, my dad was out of town all the time on business. One day, he showed up at home with an N64 rented from Blockbuster and Super Mario 64. I didn't even know the 64 was a thing, and I was a huge Nintendo fan. We sat in front of our TV for hours that weekend, passing the controller back and forth and laughing our asses off at Mario's voice. My dad would later go on to suffer from alcoholism and become a husk of what he once was (he's doing better now, but for many years, it was rough going). I always cherish those N64 memories.

 

[Deleted member 63122]

I remember opening the Nintendo 64 on a Xmas morning and it had Mario in it. Going from the SNES to 3D was glorious for an 8 year old. No other game and console had provoked that feeling of adventure that Mario 64 did. I can't wait to try and revive that experience and try provoke what I felt long ago with my 5 year old.

 

[Porygon]

I think my favorite memory is with Mario Galaxy, I felt true joy playing that game, I really haven't felt that in a while at that time, I enjoyed a lot of games, sure, but with Galaxy I totally felt like a kid that was jumping through the stars and going everywhere and as an adult it was a really great realization that I haven't seen all in gaming and that my favorite company and game genre can still surprise me and make me feel amazing things with this hobby I love that much.

EDIT: My ex wife got mad at me when I told here that I felt that I was holding hands with Mario while I was flying around the Launch Stars xD

 

[Weiss]

Probably seeing the ending of Paper Mario for the first time, with Peach and Mario sitting on his porch and the parade. Just hit right.

 

[Zutrax]

Mario World was my first video game I've ever played.

Paper Mario is possibly one of my favorite games of all time.

I have so many wonderful memories of Mario growing up, it filled a whimsical void for me that no other franchise has been able to before and it continues to and probably always will.

Surprisingly one of my favorite Mario memories comes from Sunshine, it was summer so I was out of school, the game just released, and I was just the right age where GameCube was the most influential console for me and my life to come. I remember playing Sunshine with my bedroom window open, it was a beautiful afternoon with a light breeze coming in, I was eating some chips and just didn't have a care in the world while the Delfino Plaza music was playing in the background and I just marvelled at the little open world they built. Mario Sunshine is on a lot of people's shit list, but it's vibe is so damn comfy and special for me that it remains my favorite of the 3D Mario games for that reason.

Also thanks for this OP!

 

[_zoipi]

Super Mario Bros 3 was the game that my aunt used to make me love videogames.

 

[Crazymoogle]

Probably chasing the Rabbit in SM64, a fair but ruthless tutorial when you're young.

My best memory of Sunshine is falling through the floor collision 3 times on Bowser. Cursed QA pretty hard on that one. 😆

 

[Deleted member 25721]

SMB3 still remains my favorite mario game. When I was playing it, we had a huge 25" tube tv in the kitchen where I would sit most of the night playing. It had to be in the kitchen because we didn't have room anywhere else.
Mario 64 was another great one for me; I spent about a week getting very little sleep to get all 120 stars.
3D World is probably most recent fave; I played through it on wii u and will again on the switch port.

Thanks for the giveaway!

 

[Coolduderedux]

I remember playing Mario 64 as a kid and my 80+ year old grandma watched me one time. She never said much about me playing games but I remember her watching this one particular time and she made her first comment about video games. "Mario runs a lot." 😂 I'll never forget that memory

 

[Platy]

I have way too many favorite Mario 64 memories

Playing "mario pro skater" with the shell on mario 64 ... trying to do as much possible while skating on the green shell.

Something i always remember when people talk about graphical achievements in videogames was when i first boot up Mario 64 my mom saw mario idle animation

and was like "wow he is BREATHING" xD

And of course, how awesome it was at the time and how ALIEN it is right now that they had to introduce a character to make it easier to understand that you also controlled the CAMERA =O
So yeah, it is weirdly mind blown to think that Mario 64 is a game where you control 2 characters at the same time.

 

[iag]

Thanks for doing this.

Favorite Mario memory was playing SMB3 with my dad, mom and brother when I was a kid. :)

 

[VitalitySensor]

This isn't quite mainline, but my favorites happen to be playing through the Paper Mario series with my dad. We started with 64 on the Wii and ended with Super! It was super fun, and even though specific details are hazy I was excited to play as "Luigi" in TTYD using the L Emblem badge, and for some reason I have a very specific memory of getting the fishbowl in Super so Mario could walk around in space.
I do specifically remember loving to play Galaxy 1. I was never really good at it, though, so I watched Youtube guides to help me out. My mom was super surprised I was tech-savy at such a young age, and despite needing help I felt smug beating levels. I really want to replay Galaxy on Switch, especially considering it's way more likely for me to finish the stingray races this time without motion controls, lmao

 

[Deleted member 11008]

My earliest memories about videogames were about the NES games. Those are the games (and Adventure of Lolo) which my mother can play.

 

[raeaburame]

My favorite Mario memory is when my mom bought me a DS Lite and NSMB with a strategy guide for my 7th bday she's the goat for that 🥺

 

[PDXJon]

Ooh what a fun contest. Thanks so much for your generosity!

For me, it is the memory of seeing photos of Mario 64 in Nintendo Power, then the pure magic of playing it at a demo kiosk in Toys R Us (rip). I still haven't had a magical experience like that since (except maybe OoT).

 

[valinthyne]

On my 6th birthday I somewhat excitedly opened the wrong present. It was Super Mario World. I hadnt opened the SNES yet. I lost my fucking mind and began screaming.

 

[MondoMega]

Super Mario 64 was one of my first games ever, and the first game I managed to beat; it was a magical experience i'll never forget.

 

[Gay Bowser]

My favorite Mario memory (and one of my favorite gaming memories) was playing through Super Mario 64 with my cousin.

He had a shiny new N64. I didn't, yet. But every time he unlocked a new level or discovered something new (and Super Mario 64 is a game with a ton of secrets) he would give me a call and I would head to his house and we'd explore it together.

Super Mario 64 was the game that made me fall in love with gaming. Before that, I played Commander Keen on the PC and Sonic on my other cousin's Genesis, but it didn't really stick. But with Super Mario 64, I was hooked. It was different than Commander Keen. There was a whole world in there. I begged my family to get an N64 and even acquired an SNES of my own in short order. I went back and played all the 16-bit greats I could in the (sometimes lengthy) gaps between new N64 games. I read all the Nintendo Powers I could possibly get my hands on from my local library, even going back to the ones that covered NES games. I've been a game playing super nerd every since :)

 

[Aaronrules380]

Some of my earliest memories are when I was a really young kid and my parents had a SNES with super mario world. I actually don't remember playing it that much myself, but I watched my twin brother play it a lot. I definitely did play myself to some extent, but I feel like at that point I was usually not the one playing. Honestly I sometimes wonder why my Family even had that SNES since my parents never played it, my older sister was just barely older than me and my brother and I have no memories of her playing it, and I don't feel like they bought it for me and my brother specifically either

 

[T.Rex In F-14]

Playing through 64 with my brother.
The joy upon playing Galaxy for the first time. Beating Luigi's Purple Coins.

 

[G_O]

Super Mario 2 was the 1st game I ever finished. Was about 10 years of age. I left the thank you for playing screen on for hours. So that is probably my favourite memory

 

[brochiller]

Going on vacation with my cousin when we were kids and we would take our old NES to hook up to a little 13 inch TV. We would sit on the floor in front of that TV going through SMB1-3 over and over. Those games never got old.

 

[Kschreck]

I grew up an NES kid and I remember seeing screenshots in magazines and eventually commercials for Super Mario 64 and I was just mind blown. It didn't even cross my mind that my favorite videogame character/world could ever be done in 3D. I was very annoying and I begged my mom for weeks until they finally caved and got me a Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64 when we were finally able to find a system for sale. I was obsessed with Super Mario 64 and the Nintendo 64 and the N64 still remains my greatest, "wow" moment I have ever experience in my 34 years of living. What does it mean to me? Everything! It's experiences like this that make life worth living. I would give anything to go back and enjoy the Nintendo 64 and it's games all over again for the first time. Truly a life experience for me and hey going from and NES to an N64 is a prety hefty upgrade. :D

As for Super Mario All-Stars, I'm looking forward to it because these are three classic Mario games that I have loved and cherished over the years. So many memories in these three games. Got to start with Super Mario 64 and work my way through each of the games to relive some of gaming's best moments for me.

Thanks to the OP for their generosity and best wishes to whomever wins. Enjoy these three masterpiece games! :)

 

[purseowner]

Sunshine has such a fantastic sense of atmosphere to it - a game that truly feels like summer. I have 'fond' memories of that watermelon festival level and the disbelief I had when I read that the way to beat the level was the way I had been attempting for ages. Pushing the melon down the hill like that felt like you were cheating the game's janky physics. Nope - it actually wants you to do that.

 

[DecoReturns]

Favorite Mario Memory was beating Super Mario 64 and hearing that ending credits theme. I mean, just listen. Such a perfect end to a game plus nostalgic to boot. Super Mario 64 was the first game I manage to seriously beat as a kid alone. It's special to me since it was also a Christmas gift from
Parents who couldn't really afford much yet also found a way.

 

[TMC]

Getting Super Mario 64 and an N64 on Christmas day as a kid. I played all freaking day. One of my most memorable gaming experiences even today. Also, the 'M' in my username actually stands for Mario, haha.

Thanks for doing this btw! Very cool of you.

 

[TAYREL713]

The first game I ever completed was Super Mario Land on the OG Gameboy. What made it special is I had collected so many extra lives but kept losing to the final boss. As I remember it, I was on my last life and weaving around the screen when the final missile struck Tatanga's ship and the screen started shaking and I ran around the house so excited to have done it. I saved Princess Daisy and the whole of the Sarasaland and never felt more alive!

 

[Rommaz]

My favorite Mario memory was playing SMB3 recently and realising just how far ahead of its time it was. Its a marvel of a game

 

[AsphaultRat]

Playing Super Mario Sunshine early in the mornings, back in the day when I didn't had a job yet. I was just back into gaming after a long time. Loved so much my old GameCube.

 

[wiiucollector]

My favourite Mario memory is the Nintendo magazines being filled to the brim with e3 1996 screenshots, reports and even preview VHS tapes of both on and off screen footage. This was when video gaming was going beyond my expectations. Sure, I'd jumped from 8-bit to 16-bit platforms, but there was something just astonishing about Mario in 3D environments and I can only imagine the pie charts and graphs that said it's a no way, but the anticipation and eventual ownership of these games was my purest, most fully absorbed gaming experience.

 

[captmcblack]

Great contest; thank you OP.

My favorite Mario game is SMB3, which I've probably got 100 posts about in this forum alone dedicated to how it's the best game ever made.

But my fondest Mario memory is Mario 64, and the quintessential retrogaming memory of showing up at a Toys 'R Us and seeing it randomly in a kiosk. The first time I saw it, picked up that controller and moved Mario around...man, that shit is seared into my brain.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

Both of the Galaxy games are just magical and I treasure my memories of them.

 

[Skyebaron]

As an adult I was pretty jaded toward videogames. Super Mario bros was my favorite franchise and Sunshine showed that even the sacred plumber could have a mediocre game in its mainline repertoire. I was ready to quit. One day, I got Super Mario Galaxy from a friend and I was doubtful. But the more I played it, the more i was entrance by the level design, perfect controls and amazing music. Space made the level and art designers to go nuts and they made bliss. I was back in videogames again.

 

[Cyber Jim Davis]

I was so young when I played Mario 64 that I didn't know what "summit" meant in the first star "Big Bob-omb on the Summit." I thought the Chain Chomp was the Big Bob-omb, and since there was a star there in the cage, it was extra confusing. It took me multiple play sessions to figure out what to do.

I like this memory because it reminds me that every game is someone's first video game, and I should be cognizant of that when I think about games or play games with others.

 

[Huey]

My go to mario memory is standing in Toys R Us as a 15 year old and feeling Mario 64 for the first time. Seeing it was amazing enough - the visuals were something to behold - but the feel of it: mario's responsiveness, the triple jumps, the stop jumps, the bum stomps, the simple feeling of running in a tight circle... you just knew videogames had completely changed. You just could spend an hour outside that castle just moving.

It remains one of my favorite games of all time, despite never actually owning an N64, and it's a critical lesson in the importance of control elegance and game feel. But just generally, Mario 64 is arguably the single most important game of all time.

 

[giancarlo123x]

I love Mario 64 and its been a long time since I've played it. Never played galaxy. Sunshine is alright.

 

[Hero of Legend]

My first Mario experience, was actually my first gaming experience ever and gave birth to gaming for me.

I've been in the hospital for surgeries more than you can fill a phonebook worth. Back in 1993-1995 (not sure which year), I remember first playing Super Mario All-Stars in the hospital via those classic TV on a wheeled stand in bed. So at the earliest I was about 4 years old.

My first console was the SNES in Spring 1997 when I was finally able to get one. Yeah this was already after the N64 came out. :P But my first games were a doozy; DKC and Yoshi's Island. The latter cemented my love for Mario, and of course DKC is itself an extension of Mario.

In yet another stay at a hospital, and this would've been during a VERY key point in my medical history, I first got to play Super Mario 64 and Diddy Kong Racing in the hospital and these memories are some of the most precious of my gaming life. This was in an area squarely for children to play and have fun with games and have cool activities (I even baked cookies once!). This hospital was VERY gaming-friendly and was actually where I was introduced to Starlight Canada's handiwork, as they're to this day partnered with Nintendo to provide special kiosks for kids to play various consoles throughout the years, these were the two main ones I got to play during this era:

Yep, fully equipped with a VCR and a DVD player respectively!

So I grew out of this hospital before they got their Wii kiosk, but they made them and eventually Wii U and I think very recently Switch kiosks as well.

Outside of hospitals, Super Mario Sunshine was such a perfect "right place at the right time" scenario. Summer 2002 was a glorious period and this game was just golden. It's to date my fav Mario game of all time. Following that I bought Super Mario 64 DS right alongside the system at launch and I also adored and 100% the game fairly quick.

Mario, and Nintendo as a whole, have been part of my life since I was a wee toddler and are still a very important part of me to this day. Through thick and thin, especially when I've been seriously sick in the hospital. Pokemon was also a big part, especially when I brought my GBC and Pokemon Yellow one stay in 2001. Oh man I still treasure that occasion, pure magic. :)

Edit: Yep! Here's their Switch kiosk:

 

[LightKiosk]

Super Mario 64 and the penguins. Sliding down the slopes was always super fun to me and those penguins were so damn cute.

 

[julian]

I remember renting an N64 from Blockbuster, bringing it home and then having no idea what the RCA cables were or how they hooked up to the TV. I eventually got it working and it was wonderful. I will probably play 64 first.

But my favorite? Maybe most recently was a year or so ago showing my kid Odyssey for the first time. He is in love with his Mario doll which a friend gave him when he was born. We avoided giving it to him for a year, but when I went on a trip I left it out for him and he loved it. When I got back I would play with the doll and make all the Mario sounds while doing his common moves and he'd get a kick out of it, but he'd never actually seen Mario in motion. Eventually my wife was out...so I turned on Odyssey and he was so confused. "Whh...that's Mario!" And I started to make him move, jump, roll, leap, flip, spin, backflip, etc. He was enthralled and when it was over he looked at his doll, tried throwing it in the air and looked a little sad it didn't jump at all.

He still sleeps with his doll every night, but now there's a Luigi with him...and two other Marios, but that's another story.

 

[Common Knowledge]

My first memory of Mario is playing 64 and thinking that the game was going to end after just eight stars and getting behind the star door in the lobby lol. Imagine my surprise when I went into the basement and saw locked doors that required like 50 stars; my mind was blown haha. Also, the fire level's painting scared the hell out of me when I was young and I hated going into the basement because of it.

That and playing Mario Party with my mom and sister are among my first memories with Mario and among my first gaming memories in general.

 

[Rndom Grenadez]

My older brother showing me off to his friends in Puerto Rico because his 3 year could beat Super Mario. I'm now 35 and he's since passed on and I honestly think of him every time I see Super Mario. There's always a twinge of sadness, but it always brings a smile to my face.

 

[Clefargle]

I will never forget the moment my older cousin showed me his imported Japanese copy of SM64. I was forever changed

 

[Mindfreak191]

My favorite Mario memory goes back to like '95, it was literally the first time I got the chance to play a game for the first time at my cousins place, and it was the first Mario Bros. game on the NES, after that I would try to go for a sleepover at their place as much as possible and try to sneak into the room where the NES was, to this day I can vividly remember the smell of the cartridge and that cool feeling when you load it into the console itself. I actually never owned a Nintendo console all through my childhood so I missed out on Mario 64,Sunshine and Galaxy , my first Nintendo console is my Switch lol and I loved playing through Odyssey, would be cool to get to play these classics! Thanks for the chance and good luck everyone!

 

[MrRob]

Very cool of you to do this. I'd love to be considered in the random drawing.

My best/favorite Mario 'moment' was playing the Original and SMB2 on NES. It was the first game console my brother and I got and we would take turns with levels/lives. He was always just a little better at most video games than I was. Some of the best memories I have with my brother revolve around Mario and Mario Kart. So many hours and laughs shared.

He died suddenly of a massive heart attack two years ago. I look forward to going back to these games when they come out to relive some memories.

 

[zma1013]

I liked throwing that penguin off the cliff in Mario 64. You know he deserved it.

 

[NCartwright15]

Thanks for the giveaway!

I think SMW is the Mario game i played the most as a kid. Played it all the time with my brothers and failing at finding all the secret exits. I have never played Sunshine, so if i won, that is 100% the first game i would play.