Shigeru Miyamoto has recently discussed how Mario originally shot bullets and why the game takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom.

As Mario's 25th anniversary is under way the game's creator Shigeru Miyamoto has been waxing nostalgic about its conception and has recently shared some interesting new insights. Speaking to Famitsu, and kindly translated by 1UP, Miyamoto has explained that originally Mario shot bullets!

The game was developed out of both Miyamoto's and Nintendo's desire to create more "athlete games" as they dubbed them; games in which players had to move the character around and jump over obstacles. This basic idea, mixed with some others such as "...we decided that [...] we'd definitely have it so that you could jump on turtles all you want," went on to create Super Mario Bros. However it wasn't so simple and there were a lot of changes along the way.

During development the game was controlled in a different manner to the A to jump and B to shoot fireballs method gamers are now familiar with. Originally A shot bullets while B was used to dash. However at some stage the bullets were changed to fireballs and planned cloud-based shoot-em-up sections were dropped.

"In the end, we realized that being able to shoot all the fireballs you want while running gave Mario too much of an advantage, so instead we had it so you shoot only one fireball when you start running. That freed up the A button, and we made that the jump button. I really wanted to have A be the action button and make you press up to jump, but it definitely worked out better for Mario in the end."

The initial idea for Mario to be able to change sizes by eating mushrooms was born simply out of an attempt to figure out the game design. "We decided to build the world on the scale of a smaller Mario, then make him larger in the final version. That's the moment we struck upon the idea of starting Mario out small and letting him get bigger later". The idea to use mushrooms in particular came from folklore and this, in turn, led to the name the Mushroom Kingdom.

The rest, as they say, is history.