Nintendo has finally brought back their seminal creative software for the Super NES.
Mario Paint, originally released in 1992 on the Super NES, is being rereleased for the first time to Nintendo Switch Online. It’s available now to all subscription tiers, as an SNES Nintendo Classic. It’s also playable on both the Switch and the Switch 2.
What’s The Big Deal With Mario Paint?
Mario Paint doesn’t just come with a paint program. It also has pictures to color in, and rudimentary animation and music programs. It also came with a mini-game called Gnat Attack. Mario Paint is rudimentary today if you compare it to programs that do what it does now, such as Procreate, FL Studio, or Blender. But looking at it that way misses the point of why it was so beloved, and important.
Every copy of Mario Paint came with the SNES Mouse in the box. At the time, it was the cheapest and most accessible way for people, not just children, to buy and learn how to use a mouse. Today, computer mice are ubiquitous, but a generation of gamers got their start using a mouse on Mario Paint.
For that reason, this ‘app’ has its own fandom and community. Nintendo have also pursued making creative programs for their game consoles in the years since, such as Mario Artist on the Nintendo 64, and most recently, Art Academy on the 3DS and Wii U.
Mario Paint Also Came Bundled With Mouse Features Today
Of course, Nintendo can’t ship a mouse to every Switch and Switch 2 owner today, but they’ve done the next best thing. If you have a Switch 2, you can use your Joy-Cons in Mouse Mode to use Mario Paint. Nintendo also enabled USB mouse support so that Switch and Switch 2 owners can also choose to plug in a mouse.
Nintendo in Japan revealed that they have gone even further, as Wario64 shared on Bluesky. You can also use mouse support for other SNES Nintendo Classic games that had SNES Mouse support. That includes Mario’s Super Picross and Nobunaga’s Ambition.
What Else Mario Paint Comes With – And What Else They Could Add
To coincide with Mario Paint’s rerelease, the Nintendo Music app is getting Mario Paint songs. It’s a great time for those old Mario Paint users to reminisce, even if they know they can use more sophisticated creative programs today.
There are other things we wish Nintendo also added in, but they could do so in the future. For example, if they added pen tablet support, we could get a genuine modern drawing tablet experience with a Wacom, Huion, or XP-Pen tablet. Nintendo could also extend mouse mode to more than the original SNES games that supported, so that we could play the SNES lightgun games, like Yoshi’s Safari and Battle Clash, with a mouse.
But as things stand now, this will be a fun time for players to pick up their Switch consoles and try out a completely different way of playing. You can watch the Mario Paint trailer below.
