Mario Paint

This is a challenging game for me to review objectively, not only because I have a lot of childhood nostalgia for it, but also because of the time it came out. Mario Paint is essentially a digital drawing tool that makes use of a new mouse peripheral that attached itself to the controller port of your SNES. Now this might seem pretty useless because by today's standards; drawing applications are wildly accessible on PCs and tablets and more intuitive and bursting with features than anything from the 90s. But back then, even in the mid to late 90s most kids didn't have access to computers, and so for many of us 90s kids our introduction into the world of digital art came from Mario Paint.

Not only did Nintendo make these tools more accessible for youth but the crazy thing is that this was a pretty state of the art drawing tool for it's day. Sure the base colour pallet is very limited, but there were tons of fun mixtures and designs to play with. They had a spray tool, "fill in" tool, basic cropping, and even licensed Super Mario sprites and stamps that you could plop into the world and create your own Super Mario Bros. stills. If you ever doubt this game's depth I urge you to try painting alongside someone like Bob Ross and see what kinda results you might get!!! I didn't even realise this until recently, but there's even an animation tool to allow you to make short stop-motion videos. (I was like 5 years old when I played this so I had no clue what that even was). Even just the UI sets this game apart from most drawing applications, everything from the interactive title screen, the goofy erasing animations, and the surprisingly catchy music,

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!!

Mario Paint isn't just a simple drawing application, no no no no no! There are two other integral features to this game that cannot be over looked! First, there's the legendary music composition tool. Yes!!! You can compose your own music in this game by dropping Mario themed sprites onto a spread sheet of music, producing often outrageous and hilarious results. As it is on this cartridge this "mini-game" is limited by the fact that the game restricts how long the song can be before it loops back to the beginning, buuuuuuuuuuut if you can get a hold of a modded version of this tool and release the shackles of limitations, you can legitimately compose symphonies with this goddamn thing and it's absolutely glorious! Once again, if you doubt the depth of this tool just go on Youtube and watch what some people have been able to create with it, like this bad boy for instance!

Lastly, Mario Paint sports one more mini game. One that is meant to show off the potential for the mouse peripheral but in a proper video game setting. The fly swatting game (a.k.a. Gnat Attack!). In this game you use the mouse peripheral to kill many dangerous winged insects that are trying to ruin your picnic! It sounds like a lame mini-game but it's actually epic as hell! Especially when the giant boss rolls in, the sound effects in this mini-game are fantastic. Like many of this game's features, Gnat Attack is limited to only three different stages, once you've completed the third stage you loop back to the beginning and start over. It's still a pretty fun game and one that kinda came in out of nowhere considering that this game is supposedly just a painting tool.....

Mario Paint was a really innovative tool for it's time and it really blurred the lines between a video game and a creation tool. It may be tricky going back to this game because of the tool's very blatant limitations relative to today's drawing apps (that and well... Drawing with a mouse is innately trickier than drawing with a stylus on a tablet). Plus there's nothing to really do with your drawings once you've completed them.... But still given this entire package it's possibly one of the greatest creative tools aimed at kids ever made. Nintendo really put care into this game and it shows everywhere you look. The legacy of Mario Paint shall never die, there are actually quite a few elements of Mario Paint that re-surface in Nintendo's next big creative tool Super Mario Maker, even Gnat Attack makes a come-back!