I was a huge Luigi's Mansion fan as a kid in the 2000's. My mum saw the cartridge art and thought I'd be into this. It was so cool, I didn't know they did a game starring Luigi on an older system! I then roamed around not knowing it was educational for hours, not sure how to beat the levels, probably barely even able to read either. I'm somewhat sure this was the beginning of me looking stuff up on the internet 'cuz I wanted to learn how to play this game. That's how I discovered the Super Mario Bros. Super show existed, and also the discovery of Youtube for me.

But yeah this game teaches Geography. And anyone that knows me knows I have a cartoonishly horrid grasp on that topic. So this game failed in its goal, but no worse than 12 years in the American Education system did. It's funny you'd think I'd have been disappointed in this not being what I wanted it to be, but both as a kid and to this day I kinda just take things for what they are. Wasn't in love with it but I've always liked the SMW art style and the music was cool and I'd never played a game like this before.

Revisiting this game 20 years later, feels so cool to be good enough at basic geography to blast through the stages that once perplexed me to no end. As a kid I'd trial and error every step of the way (Which includes manually placing yoshi on every single location on the real life world map until I just happened to get the one I'm currently in). Hecc yeah dude I know where Brazil and even Europe are located now, I'm so dang smart. But yeah idk, it's kind of a chill, zen kinda game. I like going to a place, piecing together where I am in the world, and being able to ride yoshi (and therefor run MUCH faster) by bringing him to that spot on the world map. I think I might like this game better as an adult even, idk how the hecc I had the patience to actually beat this as a child.

The lore in the manual is one of the best plots in the series. Bowser went around stealing real life national monuments, such as the Sistine Chapel, and is planning to use the money from selling said monuments to buy so many hair dryers he'll be able to melt Antarctica and flood the world. I'm obsessed with franchise oddities like this, before there was such a strong stranglehold on brand image. Also the childlike imagination over what this game could be just looking at the box art never truly left me. I feel like I never accepted that this was just a mediocre educational game. This is like, a real canonical Mario game in my eyes just as the TV shows are to me. This game existing gets my jaded adult imagination running.

Also there's no dodge rolls, skill trees, crafting, inventory management, cover shooting, 2 hour long cutscenes, or gigantic empty maps copy pasted from a 7 year old game filled with the same enemies copy pasted from said previous game so really I can't say this is truly miserable to play.

Este é o primeiro Mario que joguei, sem muito orgulho, afinal é praticamente um trauma de infância.

Numa época mais simples que eu só tinha o ps2 para jogar, eu tinha o DVD dá Super Coleção 7.784 de jogos, que era um emulador de outros 5 consoles, eu não conhecia nem um jogo de SNES, maseu sabia da existência do Mario, só não sabia que os jogos eram "Super Mario" então fui até letra M e acabei nessa pérola.
Uma experiência tão terrível que nunca vou esquecer, eu nem sequer cogitava a existência de outras línguas quantos mais sabia inglês, então não sabia responder as perguntas ou que merda tava acontecendo, não entendia o motivo do Mario está verde, não via diversão nenhuma em fica matando os Koopa Troopa espalhado pela cidade, não conseguia ganhar, muito menos perde, só vagava sem rumo e torcendo para alguma coisa acontecer.