Mario Castle

Link is sick with a fever today. When kids are sick they seek comforting activities. Link chose to pull out the Nintendo 64 games. They are comforting to him because he is good at them, they have happy memories attached, and they tend to be less complex than the gamecube games. I walked past as Link was playing Super Mario 64 and was ambushed by the following memory:

Link was just under 4 years old. He’d just begun to be able to play video games, but the Nintendo was new and we didn’t have very many. We solved this problem by renting games from Blockbuster. Super Mario 64 was one of the games we rented and returned. Several months later we rented Mario Kart. Link loved driving the little karts around, but on one particular course he kept driving off the road and up to a castle. We finally figured out why when we heard Link talking to the Mario on the screen. He was begging and trying to convince the MarioKart Mario to get out of the kart and go into the castle. He knew there was a game where Mario went into a castle and he wanted to be able to play that game. Nothing we could say would convince Link that this wasn’t the game where Mario went into the castle. He could see Mario and he could see the castle. He was sure that if he could just convince Mario to go into the castle he could play that other game. His frustration only ended when we returned Mariokart to the store. Fortunately his birthday came shortly thereafter and we gave him Super Mario 64 and he was finally able to make Mario go into the castle.

10 thoughts on “Mario Castle”

  1. *L* I love this story! I actually tried the same thing a few times myself, even though I knew it wouldn’t work. (So what if I was a college freshman at the time?) Yes, many happy memories indeed…

  2. *L* I love this story! I actually tried the same thing a few times myself, even though I knew it wouldn’t work. (So what if I was a college freshman at the time?) Yes, many happy memories indeed…

  3. Oddly, that’s my reaction sometimes, too.

    “I’m bored, lazy, sick, depressed, and/or angry. I want to play a video game that’s easy and fun.”

    Thus, I pull out my USB connector and play SNES games like Mario World, or somesuch.

    Sometimes you just want to beat a game, rather than have a challenge. Very satisfying.

  4. Oddly, that’s my reaction sometimes, too.

    “I’m bored, lazy, sick, depressed, and/or angry. I want to play a video game that’s easy and fun.”

    Thus, I pull out my USB connector and play SNES games like Mario World, or somesuch.

    Sometimes you just want to beat a game, rather than have a challenge. Very satisfying.

  5. Oh, man, what a great story. Sweet, and funny, and just such a giant window into the mind of the nearly-4-year-old.

    Thanks for sharing it. I’m all awwwwwwwww now.

  6. Oh, man, what a great story. Sweet, and funny, and just such a giant window into the mind of the nearly-4-year-old.

    Thanks for sharing it. I’m all awwwwwwwww now.

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