A closer look
You didn't spend your childhood rescuing a princess; you were just watching a highly interactive theater production. Shigeru Miyamoto approached early Nintendo games not as digital simulations, but as theme parks and stage plays. This is why Super Mario Bros. 3 literally opens with a red velvet curtain rising, features platforms bolted to the background with visible screws, and has objects casting shadows on a fake sky backdrop. He couldn't build a physical Disneyland yet, so he hacked an 8-bit console to do it for him.
