10 Beloved Video Game Moments That Would Be Too Offensive In 2017

3. Every Mention Of Princess Peach In Super Mario Bros.

At the time: We didn't think anything of it. 'Saving the princess from a castle' is about as old a fantasy story as you can get. Altering the archetype to swap out a gallant knight for a porky plumber was itself seen as progressive, grounding Mario as one of the most loveable dudes in video games, not to mention giving him the heart of a saint.

Now: Even Disney acknowledged how much this story is born from male fantasy or a male gaze in general when they created 2011's Tangled. These days Nintendo have Peach be part of the main crew, or show her being far more action-oriented, even with her own games. Looking back though, the sole motive you have to proceed in Super Mario Bros. is the 'reclaiming' of Peach from Bowser - something that once you do so, ends the game immediately, as a mysterious 'we' refers to another questline.

Peach is played off as an object forever out of reach upon completion of any set of levels, not to mention this final screen, and whilst it's as fundamentally 'harmless' as this sort of story always was (depending on how much you read into it), releasing today with this threadbare a narrative would guarantee a substantial backlash.