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dalefu's review against another edition
3.0
A few fun stories, but ultimately it felt like a poor-man's version of Console Wars, a book I'd easily recommend reading instead.
There were several errors stated as fact, which any gamer or industry veteran will immediately recognize as false (the author claims Bowser is the villain in Mario 2...)
The final chapter, written at the height of Wii mania and before the embarrassment of the Wii-U, has the author claiming movement controls are here to stay and are the future of gaming with Nintendo as the king. An understandable prediction at the time, but clearly not how things ended up playing out, no pun intended.
There were several errors stated as fact, which any gamer or industry veteran will immediately recognize as false (the author claims Bowser is the villain in Mario 2...)
The final chapter, written at the height of Wii mania and before the embarrassment of the Wii-U, has the author claiming movement controls are here to stay and are the future of gaming with Nintendo as the king. An understandable prediction at the time, but clearly not how things ended up playing out, no pun intended.
mattyftm's review against another edition
4.0
Really enjoyable read about the history of Nintendo. Some really interesting stuff in there. There are a couple of minor factual inacuracies (e.g. calling the DSiXL the "DSX" or WarioWare "WarioWario) that are really weird, but on the whole it's a great read.
rachbook86's review against another edition
5.0
I'm a huge fan of Mario. It was nice to get a bit of background
emjanereads's review against another edition
3.0
For the die-hard Nintendo fan, Super Mario is a must read; for the rest of us, it's better to skim
In his book,Jeff Ryan chronicles Nintendo's history, focusing especially on their Italian plumber mascot (though straying away when the history requires). It is clear Ryan is a superfan, and it is rare that he shares anything but praise for the company, but, given the book's intended audience, this one-sidedness is not necessarily a bad thing. Chock-full with Nintendo facts and stories (Did you know that there are more Gameboys in the world than people in Mexico?), Super Mario is fun.
Though I had worn thin on Nintendo's history by the end of the book, those who feel the desire to read the book will likely be satisfied.
In his book,Jeff Ryan chronicles Nintendo's history, focusing especially on their Italian plumber mascot (though straying away when the history requires). It is clear Ryan is a superfan, and it is rare that he shares anything but praise for the company, but, given the book's intended audience, this one-sidedness is not necessarily a bad thing. Chock-full with Nintendo facts and stories (Did you know that there are more Gameboys in the world than people in Mexico?), Super Mario is fun.
Though I had worn thin on Nintendo's history by the end of the book, those who feel the desire to read the book will likely be satisfied.
gabedurham's review against another edition
5.0
Liked it! Brisk pace, fast read. There was a lot I didn't know. But not a lot of momentum or import or style.
ghostrachel's review against another edition
2.0
When there are typos and spelling errors in a published book, I am immediately suspect of how factual the facts are within it. I don't mean one or two, this had the quality I would expect from a self-published e-book. Unfortunately(?) I'm not an expert on Nintendo, so I'm not sure how the book stacks up on the factchecker scale, though a quick perusal of other GR reviews confirm my intuition. Having read this immediately after "The Ultimate History of Video Games" which is full of first-hand quotes, I did notice some discrepancies between the two. It seems like the book with info from the horses mouth would probably be the correct info, and it was published a decade before this book, so it's not like it wasn't available for reference.
The style of the writing in this book is rather colloquial, like a blog or magazine article. Sometimes this familiarity works in the author's favor, just as often, it doesn't. Colloquial + typos= a feeling that I'm being fed info from a Nintendo fan hipster that's had a few PBRs. Unfair prejudice? Maybe.
Finally, I ended up skimming the last third to half of the book, I don't blame this on the author or his editor. For me, there's just not a way to jazz up the N64, Wii, DS, 3DS etc.; I'm just more interested in the early years.
The style of the writing in this book is rather colloquial, like a blog or magazine article. Sometimes this familiarity works in the author's favor, just as often, it doesn't. Colloquial + typos= a feeling that I'm being fed info from a Nintendo fan hipster that's had a few PBRs. Unfair prejudice? Maybe.
Finally, I ended up skimming the last third to half of the book, I don't blame this on the author or his editor. For me, there's just not a way to jazz up the N64, Wii, DS, 3DS etc.; I'm just more interested in the early years.