Plus Super Mario was one of the first games that had a named character that was worth playing repeatedly. Pac-Man maybe a bit before that, but as a kid of the 80s, we had a Nintendo, Mario 1,2,3, Tetris (which my dad loved), Excitebike, Rad Racer, Hockey, Double Dribble and Rushin’ Attack.
There’s only the Mario characters in all those games, so I only knowing their names was completely understandable at the time. Pokémon wants a think for another bunch of years at that point (my youngest brother was the right age to get into it, I missed that by a few years).
Oh yeah Zelda too, my parents knew that name as well, but we got it used, much later than the first batch I listed. Eventually we had a Genesis and Sonic games too.
Plus Super Mario was one of the first games that had a named character that was worth playing repeatedly. Pac-Man maybe a bit before that, but as a kid of the 80s, we had a Nintendo, Mario 1,2,3, Tetris (which my dad loved), Excitebike, Rad Racer, Hockey, Double Dribble and Rushin’ Attack.
There’s only the Mario characters in all those games, so I only knowing their names was completely understandable at the time. Pokémon wants a think for another bunch of years at that point (my youngest brother was the right age to get into it, I missed that by a few years).
Oh yeah Zelda too, my parents knew that name as well, but we got it used, much later than the first batch I listed. Eventually we had a Genesis and Sonic games too.