Mario Meditation
One of the side effects of trying to play through a lengthy series of video games like Final Fantasy is burn out. I am on game nine, which is a lovely, quirky entry, and I am just struggling to maintain interest in story or game play. I have done enough marathon gaming, reading, and watching sessions in my day to have a few coping mechanisms for this.
The best is variety. I have been intermittently reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld series this year. I tend to read one or two and then I will throw in some Kevin Hearne, Stephen King, or Andy Weir. I also decided to add some George Carlin to my Kindle because it has been too long since I read the prophet. By changing the type of book I am reading pretty drastically from satirical fantasy, I keep chipping away at Terry Pratchett novels enjoying each one in turn. I am more than half way through book eight at the moment which is Guards, Guard. This is about my fifth reread of that book and it never gets old.
My blog suffers from the same practice. I try to vary up my posts. The them of the blog is probably best defined as," Whatever David is thinking about at the time." Well, that is not true. Otherwise the blog would be Teagan, New Kittens, Cooking, Video Games... oh, wait.
Because Final Fantasy can be complicated in terms of story, gameplay, and strategy, I decided that I wanted to keep my palate cleanser games simple. I started with Super Mario Bros. for the NES. Granted, I am playing on the Nintendo Switch. It is the same game. I even have the classic NES controllers because of course I do.
I was just playing at Super Mario Bros. By that I mean I would boot the game up in the morning or on a break during the day and just relax with it for a few minutes. I quickly found this very centering. It was enough of a distraction to erase passing stress or break up monotony. I also didn't get lost in the game so that I was tempted to slack on getting important things done. I can say that for me, SMB beats any cell phone game I have ever played.
I played SMB for a few weeks. Whitneigh and I were chatting one morning waiting on Teagan to wake up and she pointed out the save point and rewind feature. OMG, built in ability to cheat is so awesome. Fall in a pit? Rewind and try the jump again. Step on a Koopa and lose your Fire Flower? Rewind! Yeah. I abused the hell out of that feature. Yes, I did the natural thing. I played from 1-1 to Bowser at the end of world 8 without losing a life and with my original Fire Flower. I only used the save feature 7 times. I used the rewind so frequently it was entertaining.
Still, I completed every single level. I made every jump... with a few attempts at some. I avoided every trap... with several attempts at quite a few of them. I avoided or defeated every enemy.... eventually and sometimes with hilarious repetition. After I finished the game the first time (at this stage of my life) I ran back through it in a single run. It is so fun.
I decided that I would do something I have never done before. I set out to complete Super Mario Bros. 2. This was both a success and a total failure. I do not find SMB2 relaxing. It has very little nostalgia factor because I never owned it as a kid and had mostly watched friends or my cousins play it.
Super Mario Bros. 2 gives me anxiety. There is a whole history as to why the North American release of SMB2 is the second official Super Mario game. Suffice it to say when Nintendo Japan sent over the game we would eventually see as Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels Nintendo North America said that it was too similar to the first game. I don't know how SMB2 was completely developed. I just know it is a a massively different style of game. It is more puzzler than platformer. The damn thing feels like you need to wake up from a nightmare (if you get this, you get it.)
I spread out my SMB2 play through over about a week. I still spent a little time on it each morning. It has become such a part of my waking up routine that I felt I owed it to my neurons. When I finally took out Wart I got such a sense of relief. I was happy to be done with SMB2 and excited to move on to SMB3.
Getting in the zone is even easier with SMB3 than it is with the original. I took my time. I didn't even collect warp whistles though my muscle memory really wanted me to. With save points I managed to stretch out the game a week playing a world a day except for 1 & 2 which I ran through in far too much excitement on day one.
If you are not familiar with the concept of flow I would describe it as a mindset of relaxed focus where creativity and productivity are combined. I love the feeling of being in the flow. My best writing happens in the flow. I am not thinking so much as working things out in real time. It is a transcendent feeling. I coach better in the flow.
Mario helps prepare my brain for the flow. I don't know that I fully understand why. I know it shuts down quite a lot of noise in my head. I do know that playing the Mario games has improved the function of my day. I can almost think of it as a ramp into the day of activity in much the same way that reading a book at night helps to slow my brain down and get me ready to sleep.
As a result I have entertained at least a partial Mario games play through. My God there are a lot of them. I count 26 entries in the main series. The list I have compiled eliminates duplicate entries. I then favor the list by listing the duplicated entry only on systems I own.
1. Super Mario Bros (1985) NES
2. Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels (1986) NES
3. Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988) NES
4. Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988) NES
5. Super Mario Land (1989) Gameboy
6. Super Mario World (1990) SNES
7. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (1992) Gameboy
8. Wario Land : Super Mario Land 3 (1994) Gameboy
9. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995) SNES
10. Super Mario 64 (1996) N64
11. Super Mario Sunshine (2002) Gamecube
12. Super Princess Peach (2005) DS
13. New Super Mario Bros. (2006) DS
14. Super Mario Galaxy (2007) Wii
15. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009) Wii
16. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010) Wii
17. Super Mario 3D Land (2011)3DS
18. New Super Mario Bros. 2 (2012) 3DS
19. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (2013)3DS
20. Super Mario Maker (2015) Wii U
21. Super Mario Odyssey (2017) Switch
22. Luigi's Mansion (2018) DS
23. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (2019) Switch
24. Super Mario Maker 2(2019) Switch
25. Luigi's Mansion 3 (2019) Switch
26. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (2021) Switch
Interestingly enough there are 15 Mario RPGs divided between Paper Mario and the Mario & Luigi series after the initial entry of Super Mario RPG for SNES. There are as follows:
The little Italian plumber mascot of Nintendo surely has come a long way since climbing ladders and jumping barrels thrown by Donkey Kong. I know I have come a long way myself since I first was introduced to video games and later Super Mario. It sure is a comfort to have him along for my journey as I join him on so many of his adventures.
I take peace, relaxation, and happiness anywhere I can get it.
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