It’s 2005 and time to celebrate 20 years of Super Mario, so what better way to do it than to stomp through a bunch of classic Mario tunes remixed as dance tracks?

I remember a bunch of things for Mario’s 20th Anniverary and a lot of them seemed very bizarre, a particular one being the ‘Pearl White’ GameCube pack with Mario Smash Football, it looked beautiful but as I already owned a Cube and didn’t like football I couldn’t really justify it. Thankfully there was another Mario celebration completely out of the left field mixing my love of DDR and Super Mario, Dancing Stage Mario Mix - You couldn’t make this up.

In a partnership between Dancing Stage creator Konami and the house of Mario came the weirdest Mario past-time yet. Having perfected his swing in Mario Golf and pounding tennis balls with pure elegance in Mario Tennis, dancing was the natural next step. Well, actually, it wasn’t the natural next step, and the whole gaming world either looked on with confusion or pity. But more on that later, let’s take a look at the actual game first.

Dancing Stage Mario Mix, whilst you may think so upon hearing the name, is not a cheap cash-in. It’s a high quality dancing title that really does justice to both the Dancing Stage and Super Mario series. Dancing Stage has been the only dance-mat style series worth playing, it’s the one that litters arcades to this day and started the craze way back in the late 90’s on the Sony PlayStation, keeping its head high against the competition despite the countless rip-offs that were to follow. With that in mind, it’s nice to know that Mario’s first side-step into dancing is in partnership with the best dancing series around.

The game plays much like any other Dancing Stage game, with 4 directional buttons at the top of the screen and directions scrolling from the bottom, as you hit the correct direction on the dance-pad to get a score depending on your timing. In fact, the game is so true to the arcade experience that it’s most likely the same engine as Dancing Stage SuperNova, one of the classic arcade cabinets from the mid 2000’s – It certainly uses the same excitable announcer.

The gameplay is already on-point thanks to years of refining countless instalments in the world-renowned Dancing Stage series so the only thing left to do is shower this title in Mario love. With the choice of Mario or Luigi to be your dancing avatar, they’ll bop around hilariously, dancing as terribly as you’d imagine they would, as Luigi furiously moves his arms up and down, lightly shaking his bum and Mario gets far too excited and does 10 backflips in a row – All of this whilst taking place in some awesome locations such as flying through the sky on a cloud passing Lakitu or dancing around underwater with a massive Blooper.

Cameo appearances in songs are also great, with Bowser’s break-dancing being especially impressive. Where this really comes alive is the music, with 20 years worth of classic tunes from the expected Mario Bros. 1-3 to the unexpected but completely awesome remixes from Mario Kart Double Dash and Mario Party 5.

The quality of the remixes are really great too as they use the same high BPM, euro-dance mixers as in the normal Dancing Stage titles, so the already classic hummable tunes of the Mario universe now sound like something from some otherworldly Mario rave.

Now, back to the public response. Reactions to this game were not pretty, and whilst I love the game, I can see why it was ridiculed. Simply hearing the name ‘Dancing Stage Mario Mix’ is enough to make any hardcore gamer recoil, especially in the mid-2000’s.

Mario is once again known for his platforming and karting in 2016, with a 3D outing every 3-4 years, a 2D one in-between and a Mario Kart every generation whilst the famous Mii characters gladly took over most of his sporting activities. In the GameCube era though, he was the face of football, golf, tennis, basketball and snowboarding along with a yearly Mario Party entry.

Nintendo were criticised very often in the GameCube era for using him far too much in side-games whilst, at the time, main entries came in the form of one 3D adventure a generation, and this game did nothing to help that.

As a result of that, sales were low and the standalone game is pretty hard to come across now, with the game and Mario branded dance-mat combo being even harder to find. It’s a shame, as it’s a fantastic Dancing Stage title that has some really bizarre and interesting Mario references and awesome remixes, but it just arrived at the wrong place and wrong time, on the GameCube before the crazy party era of the Wii and at a time when the Mario brand really needed a rest from this kind of thing.



The game is still a blast to play now, the ‘Story Mode’ is utterly atrocious but the Free Mode where you just get to dance around to a bunch of Mario remixes is the most fun you’ll have on your dance mat this side of the PS1 generation.