A closer look
Before he was cheerfully jumping on turtles to save a princess, Mario was heavily armed and dangerous. During the extremely early planning stages of Super Mario Bros, Shigeru Miyamoto programmed the prototype to feature Mario aggressively firing a beam gun at enemies while soaring through the sky on a rocket ship. Eventually, they realized the jumping mechanics felt way more satisfying than the shooting, swapping the laser rifles for magical mushrooms. The world narrowly avoided a deeply troubling, militarized Italian stereotype.
