The reason why Mario doesn’t carry a gun (or transform into a centaur)

Imagine going to pick up ‘Super Mario Bros Wonder‘ and discovering that the leaked videos so far are false, and it’s actually an FPS in the Mushroom Kingdom where Mario has to reload his AK-47, shoot it at the Goombas, and say phrases like “Swallow lead, mushroom.” Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Well, it was one of the ideas that Shigeru Miyamoto and his team had for the first ‘Super Mario Bros.’ Fortunately, they changed their minds later on.

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Super Mario Gun

The initial ideas for video games are not always the best, and the proof of that is what they were trying to make ‘Super Mario Bros‘ be: “For a long time, the controls were A to shoot bullets, B to skate, and up to jump,” Miyamoto commented, making it clear that originally, our portly plumber was a killing machine.

Fortunately, we didn’t end up seeing Koopa Troopas bleeding in a corner because they changed their minds when they realized that this seemed like a children’s game: “The bullets eventually became fireballs. Originally, we thought of having a shoot’em up screen where Mario jumps on a cloud and shoots enemies, but we removed it because we wanted to focus on platforming. The bonus screens that take place in the sky are what remained of that idea.” Thank goodness, Shigeru.

It’s not the only power that Nintendo has denied us over the years (fortunately): ‘Super Mario Bros 3’ originally had the idea of turning Mario into a centaur, but when it came to competing against the raccoon tail, it ended up losing out. At least some sketches were made, so we can see what such a bizarre yet wonderful idea would have looked like.

If he can now become an elephant at will, why not revisit the centaur idea after all? The idea of the gun, frankly, is a much worse one. Don’t be offended, Miyamoto.

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