Luigi is, of course, Mario’s thinner taller brother. He first appeared back in 1983 in Mario Bros. in order to provide a two player mode for that game. He returned for Super Mario Bros. as well, but again was relegated to being the second player only, and in both games he was simply the same sprite as Mario but drawn in green instead of red.

It wasn’t until Super Mario Bros. 2 on the NES that Luigi finally got his own sprite. In fact, many people found in this game that Luigi was a more useful character to play than Mario, since Luigi could hover in the air for a while when he jumped.

Luigi had to wait until 1992 to get his own game, which was bizarre in that it was for the PC and was an educational title! It was called Mario Is Missing (so Luigi didn’t even get his name in the title) and the plot was that Mario had fallen into a hole and it was Luigi’s job to find him by travelling around the world and various famous landmarks. There were also NES and SNES versions, but don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of this game!


Various cameos followed for Luigi in games such as the Mario Kart Series, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Mario Party and so on, but in 2001 Luigi finally got his own proper game in the form of the Gamecube title Luigi’s Mansion. The plot again involved rescuing Mario, but this time Luigi was armed with a vacuum cleaner like affair called the Poltergust 3000, which he used to suck up the various ghosts which inhabited the titular mansion. This game also introduced a new Nintendo character, Professor E. Gadd, a mad scientist who was the inventor of the Poltergust 3000. It was also the Professor who invented the FLUDD backpack used by Mario in Super Mario Sunshine.

Whether Luigi will have to wait another 10 years before he gets his own game I don’t know, but you can be sure that he will continue to appear in Nintendo games so long as Nintendo continue to make Mario games

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