Like most fragile and mentally fragmented individuals, I’ve developed a few strange rules to regulate my life and make for interesting conversations over the years. I don’t eat seafood because fish have sex in the water, I buy fattening treats and leave them unopened to bother others, and I refuse to play a Super Mario Bros. game when fellow gamers are in the same area.
That last point should be a golden rule of thumb, because if you’ve grown up playing from the earliest block busting beginnings through to the Yoshi riding bliss, you are a Mario expert. It doesn’t matter if you agree with that generalization or not. The truth is that there may be no other series as personal to those that grew up playing it as side-scrolling Mario titles. As a result, turning any of these games on while surrounded by other gamers is inviting backseat gaming and controller grabbing as everyone in the room feels more capable than whoever is in control.
This touches on the frustration of the series throughout my childhood, the dreaded two-player option that forced me to watch someone else play while my fingers itched for a turn and I tried to not act excited when the other player died.