Quote Originally Posted by wleakr View Post
I'm gonna defer to your knowledge on that...I'm not big on video game characters.

I'm not sure if Mario's exploits equates to growth for that character, but again, I don't know.

Did he marry the princess yet???

I did play Super Mario on the old NES and a few other games on the Super Nintendo. After that, I lost touch with that character until viewing the recent movie with my kids. And surprisingly, he felt kinda like I remember him from back then!
Mario games aren't really built for story and continuity (except for some of the RPGs, I guess). Mario's relationship with Princess Peach is often vague and sometimes seemingly contradictory. But as I said, Mario games aren't really built for that. It's more of a continuity-light franchise. Characters pop up in the main games and then become regulars in the spin-offs (or get spin-offs of their own if they're popular enough. Franchise mainstays like Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, and Wario have all headlined their own spin-off games at this point).

This is different from how Marvel built their brand which had an emphasis on continuity. Trying to argue that Spider-Man shouldn't be built off its own history is going against how the brand was built up in the first place.