The original Super Mario Bros. arcade game celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, but Luigi gets no respect.
“Due to technical constraints of the era, the color of overalls was the best means to tell the characters apart,” Zagal noted. “Luigi started as a simple palette swap of the Mario character, and has continued to live in Mario’s shadow.”
As technology improved, Luigi’s physical appearance gradually began to differ from Mario’s, but the character remained firmly behind – rather than alongside – his brother.
Since the brothers’ introduction, Mario has had dozens of games with his name in the title and has made guest appearances in many more. While he does appear in some of his brother’s adventures, Nintendo has only created one true Nintendo Luigi title, the 2001 game Luigi’s Mansion. He also starred in Mario Is Missing, a rather unpopular educational PC game that licensed the Mario characters. Most recently, he’s featured in the Nintendo 3DS game Luigi’s Mansion 2, which comes out in March.
“Though they have been around almost the same amount of time, and though Luigi is probably just as well-known as Mario around the world, he has been relegated to permanent underdog status,” said Zagal.
