Nintendo ponders whether Mario feels pain
Calling Dr. Mario!
The questions that run through players’ heads when they work through a Mario game are limitless. What does it feel like to throw a fireball? Just who is the Koopa Kids’ mom? If you touch fuzzy, how dizzy do you feel? All queries we’ll likely never have answers to, but there’s one more question about Mario himself that brings about a deeper level of pondering.
Have you ever played a Mario game and wondered about the agony that Mario is going through? Just how horrible does it feel to be exploded by a bomb or stung by a Spiny? Actually, does Mario even feel pain when dealing with attacks from his foes? Well, we now have an answer, and it’s thanks to Nintendo’s Takashi Tezuka.
The Verge talked to Tezuka about Mario’s many encounters with baddies, and they aimed to find out if the mustachioed one goes through discomfort during the battles. It seems that Tezuka may have thought about this before, as he had quite the interesting response.
“It may be that Mario does feel pain. If the player feels that Mario is feeling pain, that’s a better experience, rather than talking about whether Mario actually does feel pain. For us, if Mario hits an enemy and the person playing goes ‘ow!’ that’s ideal.”
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Mario get beat up by a bad guy and thought it looked painful, but I know for sure that I’ve felt Yoshi’s pain when he eats something spiky or gets thrown into a hole just for Mario to jump a bit further. That’s the kind of pain and suffering that keeps me up at night!
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