SUPER MARIO INC.
Super Mario Inc. is a 1997 platformer developed by Midway Studios and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive (64DD), a CD-ROM add on for the Nintendo 64. It was first released in 12 March 1997 in North America and Europe and on 13 April 1997 in Japan. It is the first installment in Midway's Mario Inc series and was on of the first game released for the 64DD in North America. The story of the game follows The Mario Brothers as they go to rescue their friends, and defeat a group of villains led by Wart. Who was introduced in the US/European version of Super Mario Bros 2.
Development of the game started in the SNES era, and was planned to b a 2D platformer in the vein of Rare's Donkey Kong Country and Nintendo's own Super Mario World. However, the amount of idea the development team had for the series became too much for the SNES to hold, even on the CD ROM Nintendo collaborated with Sony on. As such, the project was moved first to the Ultra Nintendo. This is where many more ideas were presented.
The end result was a game that tends to be universally considered a classic Mario game. To the point that Yoshiaki Koizumi took major influence from them when creating Super Mario Odyssey 20 years later.
Gameplay
Similar to Super Mario 64, Super Mario Inc. features open worlds containing various items for the player to collect. Which can be done though completing puzzles, fighting bosses, racing opponents, and doing favors for various NPCs. The most important collectables being stars, which return from Mario 64, albeit with them color coded for each world. Stars are then used to open parts of the hub world, which is a lakeside town known as Port Able, with more levels for the characters to explore as they make their way from the town square.
A total of six playable characters appear in the games. These include Mario himself, Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Toad, and Prince Cream, the younger sibling of Peach and Daisy's cousin. Each playable character has their own special move. Mario is a jack-of-all-stats. Luigi can jump higher than Mario. Princess Peach has a special glide jump. Princess Daisy performs a double jump which lets her reach higher than even Luigi. Toad moves the fastest of all the characters. While Prince Cream is able to attack by charging at enemies with a toy sword. All character use much of the same move sets as Mario did in Super Mario 64, in addition to power-ups. In levels, these characters can be changed in various "swap spots," where they
Unlike Super Mario 64, Super Mario Inc. uses the system of items as power-ups. Among the items from the original games are the fire flowers, which when they have been charged (by holding the N64 Controller's B button) let the player burn up enemies with fireballs, or activate explosive materials. Other powerups include an Ice Flower which lets the freeze most liquid surfaces to make bridges. Or freeze enemies they can them use to hit other enemies with until the ice thaws. However, the Super Mushroom only appears as being repurposed to be a health replenishing item. Other items include the Hammer Suit and the Tanooki Suit. These can be found in certain levels, or are purchased from a shop in Toad Town run by Toad's wife, Toadette.
In addition to these powerups, players can gain assistance from various animals, who are found by breaking open crates like in Donkey Kong Country. These helpers include Yoshi, who can eat enemies and spew them out at enemies. Birdo, who shoots eggs at enemies. Donkey Kong, who moves slowly, but can pound his hands on the ground to knock out then attack enemies. Jack the Rabbit, who can help the players travel as lightning-fast speeds. Brad the bird, who lets the player fly to high cliffs, and Dellie the Dolphin, who helps travel in water. Each character can be found in an appropriate level, like DK in a jungle or Dellie in water levels.
Each world contains at least 15 stars. Which have been color coded to said area. Each area also contains such places as blocky warp pipes. Which transport the player to a 2D side scrolling mini-level, most of which are repurposed levels from the original SNES builds of the games. These 2D section in turn have their own secret parts where the player can grab tokens which can be used to buy various items in bulk.
The worlds are, like in most collect-a-thons of the period, connected to a hub world, in this case Port Able, a 1900s esque industrial port town where the group has gone on vacation. Various war pipes can be set up to gain easier access to the levels. As well as various secret levels in the Hub world.
Plot
The adventure begins in a port town called Port Able. Where Mario and Luigi are going to a brief vacation. Meanwhile, King James of the Mushroom Kingdom and King Richard of Sarasaland are being interviewed for a video documentary about their world and experiences. Little do they know, the frog king Wart, whom they previously exiled from their part of the Mushroom long ago to Subcon, where he ruled until being other thrown by The Marios, somehow overhears their derogatory comments about him and becomes quite upset. While in exile, Wart has amassed an army which include his nephew King Bowser of the Mushroom Kingdom, the space alien Tatanga, and his own former minions and new villains. Wart decides to vengefully unleash his wrath. He traps King James and King Richard by having the building they are in sink under the ground. While his minions kidnap Peach, Daisy, and Cream.
However, Wart misses imprisoning Mario, Luigi, and Toad, because they were still on their way to Port Able. Seeking to set things right, Mario and Luigi set out to save their friends.
After a while, Toad chooses to join the gang after getting James and Richard out of the sunk building. Eventually, the crew discovers that Wart has been responsible for everything going wrong. As such, the eventually find him in a pirate ship far off in the ocean. Where the team goes to defeat Wart. Upon doing so, the team destroys his ship. Upon returning home, the town is back to normal, and the group enjoys a well earned vacation.
Production
When he first became a major voice in Midway Studios, Ted Culkin led a small team of developers in programmed experiments with a Silicon Graphics workstation. After seeing Donkey Kong Country, Ted decided to lead the team in making a 2D platformer like Rare did. Eventually, they were given permission to try and work on such a game with Mario.
Ted assembled a team of twelve to work on the game, and according to product manager Henry Banks, a total of 20 people worked on the game. In addition, Nintendo gave them all but complete creative freedom.
By the time work was in full swing though, the SNES CD-ROM was in its last days. So it was radically remade into a 3D game akin to Super Mario Dimesnions for the Ultra Nintendo System (the N64 in OTL).
Initially, Yoshi was among the playable characters, but this was changed to make Birdo's appearance as a mount make more sense. As a replacement, the team created a human child with a green t-shirt, khaki shorts, and orange hair. Ted Culkin ultimately suggested that they make him a younger sibling of one of the main characters, ultimately deciding on Peach for the relative.
In addition, the soundtrack was composed by Ed Bogas, known for replacing the late Vince Guardi as the composer of Peanuts cartoon media.
