A free Mario app titled Hello, Mario has been released for Nintendo Switch, letting classic Nintendo fans relive the joy of mushing together parts of gaming’s most famous plumber’s face and inviting a new generation of gamers to get in on the action. While it may not be the biggest piece of Super Mario-centric media released this year, Hello, Mario provides a look back at a piece of Nintendo’s history while taking advantage of modern hardware with a fresh, stylistic twist.
The Super Mario franchise’s 40th anniversary kicked off last September, and Nintendo has been bringing players a lot of surprises throughout the benchmark year. Mario has been Nintendo’s primary mascot since the days of the NES, but its latest release draws fans back to a different chapter in the heroic plumber’s tale.
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Despite his status as one of the most popular video game characters in the world, Mario hasn’t been on many adventures of his own in recent times.
Hello, Mario Lets Nintendo Fans Smash In Mario’s Face All Over Again
Now, the free app that has launched on the Nintendo eShop gives players to relive the joys of the late ’90s, giving them the ability to grab, pull, and smash together parts of Mario’s face all over again. Hello, Mario is being released as part of Nintendo’s new My Mario brand, a line of Mario-themed games and toys aimed at young children. The gameplay appears relatively basic, with its main functions tied to manipulating a cartoon version of Mario’s head to make funny faces. But while it seems simple enough for a toddler to pick up and play, there’s a lot of history behind the gameplay that is sure to spark nostalgia in older Nintendo fans as well.
The app’s functions clearly draw inspiration from the title screen of Super Mario 64, which was originally released alongside the Nintendo 64 console in 1996. The classic platformer was the first to bring Mario into a fully-realized 3D world, letting him run amok all around Princess Peach’s castle, kicking off walls and landing perfect handstand backflips from the tops of trees. While it also allowed players to dive into a wide variety of different worlds by having Mario jump into paintings, one of the things fans remember most fondly about the game is what it let them do before they even hit the start button, presenting them with an interactive screen that allowed them to them spin Mario’s disembodied head around and drag his iconic red hat, mustache, nose, cheeks, chin, and other parts of his face all over the place, generating some silly images.
Although its gameplay is derived from that classic game, Hello, Mario also supports some features that Super Mario 64 fans have never seen before. Along with using finger movements on the Switch’s screen to generate unique facial expressions and morphs, the app also includes a classic Mario question mark block that appears in the upper-left corner of the screen. Clicking on this block opens up a number of different interactive elements that can affect Mario’s reactions. Among the different objects that players can bring into existence, there is a collection of classic power-ups from Mario games, like Super Mushrooms and Super Stars, alongside other iconography that includes green pipes and a variety of enemies. The app isn’t very hefty, only taking up 171 MB of hard drive space on Switch and 172 MB on Switch 2, and it’s designed to be fully playable on both consoles in offline mode.
The new app isn’t the only thing that Nintendo has in store for the franchise’s 40th anniversary year. Mario Tennis Fever was released on February 12, reviving one of Mario and friends’ most beloved sports series after an eight-year gap, and upcoming releases like the Switch 2 edition of Super Mario Wonder on March 26 and Yoshi and the Mysterious Book sometime in spring should provide fans with plenty to do in the coming months. Additionally, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters on April 1, expanding the Super Mario universe beyond the realm of gaming.
