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This review was written back in August 2012, originally for a different blog. Other than an update made in the mid-2010s. The most current update adds the music tracks as self-hosted files rather than volatile YouTube videos (as at least one didn't work anymore) as well as adding a few more hyperlinks and general TLC (the box art is from Wikipedia). It still has yet to get any official re-release. The game notably used a SNES mouse, which despite having a number of compatible games really wasn't used all that much in the lifespan of the console.

I put this up because Mario Paint was released twenty years ago today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!) but also because I have been playing it recently (Snes9x mouse input for the win). Sadly, I can't say that Mario Paint has quite the lasting appeal over the years, nostalgia factor be damned. That's not to say that I've fun with it over the years, the sound effects, clicking on the MARIO PAINT lettering, the music creator, and the cool painting effects (featuring the dancing paintbrush as paint slowly fills the lines), and the music above all things. Besides the great music creator, there's the background music. The first is the "pushups theme", the second is the "cymbal monkey theme", and the third is the weird one with the stamps singing. There appears to be a fourth one too, that resembles a bell, but it turns out to be just a dog with his mouth taped shut (if you want to work in silence, I guess).

One of the features of the time was the ability to combine the music creator with several "frames" of painting, allowing you to make, in essence, a music video (if you had the VCR done up correctly). Recently, cleaning in my uncle's old home in Louisiana (this was the place where my love of Nintendo was cultivated, right there) revealed some old VHS tapes that were from the 1990s and were created with Mario Paint (and they ARE hilarious, in a special way). My cousin saved these but hasn't copied them yet. (Update: It's been over five years and I have no idea of their whereabouts)

It's also the first appearance of "Totaka's Song" (a strange ditty that makes cameo appearances in some Nintendo games), which was once named the "Mario Paint Song" until it was discovered in a game made before Mario Paint, a Japanese-only game called X.

The Fly Swatter game (also known as "Coffee Break") is where you use the mouse to swat all manners of flies, wasps, and the occasional boss, which is kinda fun. (Try to use it without an actual mouse, it's more difficult). All you get, though, is "trophies". If you manage to beat the game once, you start back at Level One with a "star" stamp in the upper left. You could get more, but it's not worth it.

It's a bit sad that Mario Paint has never been re-released in any form or remade, at least here in the United States. While the Fly Swatter game eventually made it into the first WarioWare title (slightly modified), and the Photo Channel of the Wii has some resemblance to Mario Paint, the game has never made it in any form. Perhaps someday with the 3DS, it will get released as a Virtual Console title, though I'm not crossing my fingers since the Wii's Virtual Console turned out to be a massive disappointment.

FINAL RATING:   

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