Pretty much the only games I’ve played in 2014 are from two particular series: for the first half of the year I’ve been hacking through From Software’s much-acclaimed Souls series. I played through Demon’s Souls again, went straight into Dark Souls and played through it TWICE, then got my hands on Dark Souls II and slogged my way through it, slowly and painfully. Around that time, I also got a Wii U, and have been playing Mario games almost exclusively on it: Mario Galaxy 2, Super Mario World, 3D World, and I most recently acquired Super Mario Bros 2.
I made a remark on Twitter as I was banging my head against the wall, trapped in the Forest of Illusion in Super Mario World, that I’d died more times in that godforsaken place than I had in 60+ hours of playtime in Dark Souls II. Then something occurred to me: there are a LOT of similarities between the Souls series and Super Mario games.
Despite how these games look, they’re really not all that different. Both series are some of the purest gaming experiences I’ve had, crammed with secrets, and both are ridiculously tough and frustrating to progress through. Instant, sudden death is a given fact. Despite having owned it since it was first released, it wasn’t until I buckled down this year that I even beat Dark Souls. This year is also the first time I’ve ever actually managed to beat Super Mario World,* if you want to make fun of me a lot. Much as I love them, I’m…not very good at videogames most of the time. But still, making the leap from one series to the other wasn’t as strange and difficult as you’d imagine; I feel like I’m relying on the same reflexes and thought processes between them. If you really know what you’re doing, you can plow through them so easily. Otherwise, get used to dying a lot and getting frequently lost, turned around, and confused in castles where everything wants to kill you.
*My girlfriend helped, after mocking and then taking pity on me. I never owned a Super Nintendo as a kid, I didn’t know of all the myriad secrets locked within that game, many of which she graciously showed me.
But it makes me wonder: the kingdom in the Souls games—always in ruins, overwhelmed by demons—is the same, right? It just goes by different names, with hundreds if not thousands of years passing between each game. Could the Mushroom Kingdom be, or have been, one of the incarnations of this world?
There’s evidence to support it: hammer-wielding knights in turtle armor from Dark Souls II recall the hammer-flinging Koopas I loathe so much. The mushroom creatures in Dark Souls could be a new breed of Toads, the evolutionary split that eventually would become Goombas. I always thought there was some sort of biological relationship between Toads and Goombas; that could be the missing link! And Bowser himself isn’t too far removed from a fire-breathing dragon, is he? The painting you fall into in Dark Souls could easily have been one from Princess Peach’s castle in Super Mario 64! Through the use of Pyromancy, you too can fling fireballs like Mario! All of the castles in the Mushroom Kingdom seem similar in design to the ones you carve your way through in the Souls games. Rosalina could easily be the head of a covenant, demanding stars as tribute.
Yep, I’m convinced: as time marches forward, the kingdom known in Dark Souls II as Drangleic will eventually morph into the Mushroom Kingdom. The Yoshis, Bowser, and the Koopa kids will be all that remain of the dragons, as distant on an evolutionary level as today’s birds are from the dinosaurs that ruled before. Technology will improve, demons will tear up the landscape with their own airships and learn to drive go-karts, ghosts will grow progressively more shy, coins will eventually replace souls as the primary form of currency. Things will be brighter, more cheerful, aggressions will subside and society will eventually cease repeatedly collapsing on itself every few thousand years or so when a princess eventually overcomes the curse of the undead and establishes peace throughout the land.
I’m hoping Dark Souls 3 (since I don’t believe Bloodborne will take place in the same universe) will give us more color, armor that resembles animal suits, and hungry dinosaurs to ride on.
But it won’t get any easier. Now if you’ll excuse me, I can’t get beyond the first world in Super Mario Bros 2. I wonder what manner of demon Birdo is descended from…
Brett Marcus Cook: Artist. Designer. Awkward wad of nerd. Fights off existential terror and self-loathing with Godzilla films.
