Evolution Of Mario

[studvicious]

Wow. This is a pretty in depth site that documents every change to Mario's sprite. Very cool!

http://nfg.2y.net/games/mariosprites/

[jajaja]

haha mario is ugly on atari 2600 and so on lol :)

[SuperNES]

cool! they should add the newer 3D games too like super mario 64, SM sunshine, etc, etc.

[studvicious]

I don't think the 3d stuff qualifies as "sprites" though

[Lady Jaye]

Mario's not as ugly on the Atari 2600 as Donkey Kong and especially DK Jr (who I find looks like a brown Big Bird in DK Jr. 2600).

[Arqueologia_Digital]

Hey!, very nice document, thanks!!!

[NintendoMan]

Cool, thanks for posting this!!

[Jasoco]

That was a very cool article. I enjoyed it. I'd like to have seen more and more, but or sprites it was fine.

I have always wondered though.. Why is it that on the NES, the first Mario Bros has mario wearing baby poop brown and red? The NES was clearly capable of doing darker blue. Is it because they didn't want the dark blue and the light blue (Of the sky) clashing? Because you notice that in Mario Bros (The Arcade game) port on the NES, he's always on a black background, so blue would show nicely. I guess it was just because the light blue sky and dark blue might bleed into each other. Though look at Mario Bros. 2, Mario's mainly dark blue and is mainly on a light blue background. Also, notice of the first generation, only ONE Mario has the same uniform (Well, blue hat not withstanding.) he has today? The Arcade version of Mario Bros has Mario in blue overalls and a red shirt. But SMB, a game that came out AFTER MB, has him in red overalls and that brown shirt and boots. (Wrecking Crew would seem to imply he wears no shirt under his overalls.)

I agree it would be nice to add the later 3D Mario's in to have a more complete "History" instead of just "Evolution".

Just for fun, my favorites from each stage of his evolution:
Mario 1.0: Mario Bros (Arcade) - The one with the correct outfit from the early days. And amazingly, he looks almost EXACTLY like his arcade counterpart in the NES version. (Minus the white eye parts and some changed pixels.) (Note: Mario from DK also looks exactly as does DK Jr's Mario. Wrecking Crew as well. Nintendo was great at their Arcade-perfect ports. Too bad they decided to make SMB's Mario look completely different.)

2nd Generation: Super Mario Bros 2 - Detail detail detail! White eyes! More defined features! Blue outlines! Okay, so it can't all be good. Still, it was a HUGE leap over SMB1.

Renaissance: The SMB2 version of Mario - It's weird that SMB1 and 3 got the same sprites, but the SMB2 port got totally new and better looking ones. While it goes against what I just said in 2nd Gen, I like the features and detail of Super Mario in that game.

Shark Jump: Toughie, but I pick.... Superstar Saga - This is a completely different Mario. Taller, thinner, more Italian (The voice. He actually seems to speak at some points.) I like it even though it was so different. Doesn't seem he's gonna keep the weight off though.

[PDorr3]

really cool site, i love the mario & luigi sprite :)

[Iron Draggon]

Well I do agree with it on this for sure, the Colecovision nailed him just right!