Many mysteries are within the gaming space that are likely never to be answered. Some of them are tied directly to the plots of the games. A few are tied to the dev teams that make questionable decisions that affect how we look at titles. But then, there are mysteries like, “How is Mario so good at everything he does?” That may sound like an odd question, but if you think about all the games Mario has been in, he’s a jack of all trades and a master at all of them. Even Shigeru Miyamoto is wary of the skills that Mario seems to have.
If you think about it, Mario is not just a plumber and a powerful hero. He’s also a sports star, an artist, a party dude, a piece of paper, and a doctor. Yes, the Dr. Mario franchise grew out of Mario’s popularity and the desire to show him in other gaming styles. But in an interview that IGN did with Shigeru Miyamoto, he admitted that if Dr. Mario was treating him, he would be very wary of him:
“Mario’s a blue-collar, he’s a regular person. So, even when he becomes Dr. Mario, there’s a sort of, like, shadiness, like ‘can I trust this person?’ That remained [in the film]. And I think that’s the kind of image that’s carried down for generations as Mario. And to see that image kind of coincide, and then evolve into something of a hero is something that I’m really happy to see.”
You may think that Miyamoto is “reading too much into his character,” but if not him, then who? Also, think about it in this line of thought. If Mario is also Dr. Mario, where did he get his degree from? It’d have to be in the Mushroom Kingdom, right? Except, there are no other doctors that we know of there. So how did he get the title of doctor and no one else? These are the mysteries that keep people up at night.
Mario’s “doctoral past” aside, his time as a doctor has led to many games recently, including Luigi taking over the doctor role and a now-closed mobile game. That’s not to say he couldn’t come back, but they’d likely do a new coat of paint on it to keep things fresh.
If you want to see Mario in a more “classic form,” you could watch his animated film in theaters right now!
