The Truth Behind Super Mario's Piranha Plant

First appearing in the original Super Mario Bros. in 1985, Piranha Plants snap at the hero's heels all throughout the Mushroom Kingdom, inhibiting his quest to save Princess Peach. Over the years, they have taken many forms, from the sleepy-heads in Super Mario 64 to the skeletal Bone variants in New Super Mario Bros. 2, and most recently, as the first generic Nintendo enemy to feature as a playable character in the Smash Bros. series.

Super Mario Bros. is a prime example of simple game design often being the best. Repeat what works, concentrate on simple gameplay elements - jumping, and running - and then introduce an enemy that you cannot defeat by conventional means. One curious aspect of the Piranha Plant enemy is that they will not, in fact, attempt to come out of their pipe if Mario is standing on top of it. A strange case of cold feet, or in this case, cold stems.

The truly horrifying thing is that we actually have our very own piranha plants here on this sunny green earth - although these ones don’t exactly live inside pipes...