Amiya Game Theory

Even in the 2D side-scroller games, when Mario gets hit while holding a power-up, he just shrinks and keeps on walking.

No flinching at all.

He just keeps going.

This guy is made of steel or something.

You know, besides the times he's actually made of steel.

But what about his violent tendencies or screaming out in pain when he's landing in fire?

Or the times he did react correctly to getting hit?

He checked those boxes like he was feeling pain.

However, given the lack of flinching and painful facial expressions in most other situations, not to mention the inconsistencies of his pain responses, I am certain that Mario couldn't actually be feeling any real pain.

But how is that possible?

For the longest time, I thought that maybe he was just faking it to gain our sympathy.

sympathies.

Just look at the facial expressions and noises Mario does give in the games as time's gone on.

In the 2D games, they barely exist, but in the newer games, they have gotten bigger and more dramatic, almost to the point of being mellow dramatic.

It's not due to a lack of graphical fidelity, it's because Mario is learning this behavior.

Takashi Tezuka in the interview did say, if the player feels that Mario is feeling pain, that's a better experience.

This was going to be my personal follow-up to Mario is a sociopath, but as much as I'm sure that would have made Matt proud, the science just didn't back it up.

While they may lack the ability to feel emotional pain or the ability to empathize with other people's pain, the studies showed that they do feel physical pain.

They might have a higher pain threshold, but I'm not sure they'd keep a blank expression when being squashed by a giant brick.

However, I do feel pretty confident that we've established that Mario doesn't feel any pain at all.