Mario’s run cycle from Super Mario 3 was recently redrawn with 24 frames of animation, resulting in the plumber bouncing up and down too much.
Mario’s character sprite from Super Mario 3 was animated with 24 frames instead of the customary three, and the result is perhaps a little too energetic for most gamers. Nevertheless, super Mario 3, which was released in the early 1990s on the Super Nintendo, is widely regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time, with mint versions fetching upwards of $156,000 at auction. Super Mario 3 was even included in the famous 1989 film The Wizard before its release. Since it first took the gaming world by storm, it has been re-released on modern Nintendo systems, including the Wii U and Nintendo Switch.
Super Mario 3 put players in control of either Mario or Luigi as they traveled across the Mushroom Kingdom’s many different environments, rescuing Princess Peach from Bowser’s clutches – through the game added several new enemy types introduced the now-standard overworld map to transport the brothers between worlds. However, Super Mario’s essential gameplay stayed unchanged, and Super Mario 3’s classic 2D graphics and simple animation continue to appeal to enthusiasts today.
However, some fans have attempted to recreate Mario’s trademark running animation from Super Mario 3, with the results recently uploaded on r/gaming by Reddit user bumpity bump. They shared a short GIF animation depicting Mario’s run cycle animated with 24 frames, with the hero looking noticeably bouncier than in Super Mario 3’s three-frame run cycle. According to many fans in the comments section, Mario’s fleshed-out running animation is overly bouncy, as he’s continually bouncing up and down with his cap and Tanuki tail flopping crazily. Later, Bumpitybum explained that this animation was created by an AI program that rendered Mario in 24 frames, which they decided to distribute as a joke.
This is far not the first time fans have hacked Super Mario 3 or discovered weird flaws that modify the game in unexpected ways; a player recently discovered a technique to switch Mario out for Luigi in the middle of a playthrough by exiting Super Mario 3’s overworld map. Meanwhile, the Strong National Museum of Play uncovered and saved a rare PC port from famous DOOM producer id Software, after fans had only heard about it from former devs like David Kushner and John Romero for decades.
While bumpitybum’s fleshed-out Super Mario 3 running animation is fluent and well-animated, it appears to be far too bouncy for a platformer. Even in the brief situation portrayed in bumpitybum’s post, Mario bounces around a lot, making it difficult for gamers to keep track of him. It’s easy to see this bouncing running motion becoming even more chaotic during Super Mario 3’s more challenging levels, so it’s probably for the best that Nintendo decided to keep Mario’s trademark run cycle simple.
Source: bumpitybum/Reddit
