Let's be honest: Mario games have never been known for their emotional storytelling. Ever since the beginning, it's been about the hero saving the princess from an evil dragon. Sure, it's not all that complicated, but it doesn't have to be. Mario games are all about the gameplay, not the story they're trying to tell — Nintendo can leave the complex ethical dilemmas to games like Mass Effect and The Walking Dead.
That said, Nintendo isn't the only one making Mario levels anymore — with the release of Super Mario Maker a few weeks ago, fans are getting a chance to finally make their own stages. There are already a ton of more story-oriented Mario Maker stages, and they're usually not afraid to get a bit darker than Nintendo ever would. Most of them are actually pretty great, but one thing's been missing: moral choices.
"The Lakitu: A Tale of Friendship" doesn't seem like the kind of stage that would make you question your morality, ask you to commit heinous acts of revenge or leave you emotionally drained after completing it.
It doesn't seem like that... but it is.
The first half of the stage is actually easy to get through. The stage introduces Lakitu (the one in the cloud) as your friend — for the first time ever, it seems that Lakitu just wants to help Mario get through the stage. And, surprisingly, he does — Lakitu drops all sorts of power-ups that make the otherwise impassable stages a breeze.
Everything changes once Bowser comes into the picture: players are forced to watch as Lakitu is blown away by a cluster of Bomb-ombs, with no way to help him. In the end, Bowser gets what's coming to him, and Mario avenges his new friend — but that's not enough.
Mario travels to Bowser's home, only to find his two children waiting for their father to return. It is here that Mario is presented with a choice: either execute Bowser's children in return for killing Lakitu, or leave their home and try to move on.
Surprisingly, the level actually branches off from there: players are free to keep moving or to drop down and take out Bowser's kids. It's bizarre to see any sort of moral choice in a Mario game, and it's actually kind of disconcerting: the choice is presented as simply as possible, without any outside influence of any kind. The choice is given to the player, plain and simple — after that, it's purely up to you what happens next.
Moral choices are nothing new when it comes to gaming, but creator Theorymon took the idea into Mario Maker and created something surprisingly different... It's safe to say that Nintendo wasn't thinking of anything quite like this when it created Super Mario Maker — and that just makes the whole thing even better.
Via: Kotaku
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