Looking back on gaming cons always brings back fond memories: meeting new people, buying some merchandise, having a laugh at the guests’ panels, and sometimes stealing a star for glory in Mario Party 2, making the crowd go wild.
I had such a fun experience at Cox Con in 2018, a convention for a variety of YouTube gaming personalities hosted by Jesse Cox. One of the panels that year involved them inviting members of the audience to come on stage and play Mario Party 2 — and I was lucky enough to be chosen.
And my luck didn’t end there. It led to one of the hypest moments of the entire panel, which I often think back on and smile.
As I got on stage, I was honestly so nervous — there was a crowd of hundreds of people and lights illuminating the stage. But I’m a Mario Party veteran, specifically Mario Party 4. I’d never played 2, but I had confidence that my childhood years spent honing my ability to dodge pages in Booksquirm, mash buttons in Domination, and react faster than anyone in Toad’s Quick Draw would serve me well.
I quickly learned that one of my opponents had similar capabilities and confidence, so the game was well and truly on. It was me, playing as Yoshi, against him as Mario, another player as Wario, and the CPU as Luigi, on Western Land.
As we rolled the dice, battled it out in minigames, and schemed against one another, the crowd and the Twitch chat became increasingly invested in either #teamyoshi or #teammario. And for a good while, I can happily tell you that it was #teamyoshi all the way, as I quickly nabbed myself star after star and won minigame after minigame, though Mario wasn’t far behind me.
But the turning point came when I landed on Boo.
We all know what happens when you get to Boo: someone’s getting mugged. The hosts got hyped, the crowd got hyped, I got hyped — but Mario sure wasn’t. He begged me not to steal his star. Despite our rivalry, I was actually having a really good time playing with this guy, so I instead decided to go for an ongoing meme we had during the game. The NPC Luigi was named after a YouTuber named PeanutButterGamer, who wasn’t attending and so who everyone was jokingly bullying as the NPC. I decided to rob him instead.
The deed was done; Boo brought me my ill-obtained star, and the crowd went wild.
But the hype didn’t stop there. I continued to move along the board in the same turn after visiting Boo, and then something magical happened. I landed on a Hidden Block. The crowd’s cheering picked up even louder as we anticipated what would come out of it. And there it was — another star! I was nearly out of my chair laughing, just as amazed as everyone else.
The crowd was floored, Mario was floored, the host of the panel was floored; he was practically running around the stage he was that hyped. Two stars in one go. I realized that this was definitely the peak of my Mario Party career.
The game continued to go well. It was neck and neck between me and Mario as we continued to battle it out. But alas, being nice to my rival was my downfall.
We were each tying for stars in the finale, waiting for the bonus stars to be awarded. It could have gone either way; no one had a clue. We’d both done well in the minigames and both collected a healthy amount of coins.
“And the winner is… Mario!”
He was awarded the tie-breaking bonus star, and that was game, set and match. The crowd clapped, the players all shook hands and said good game, and I got to shake hands with a couple of the panelists, who also affirmed that it was a good game. I left the stage elated albeit gutted that I had gotten so close to glory.
Throughout the rest of the con’s first day and the second day, I ran into various attendees who recognized me. We talked about how much of an epic match it was, and many people told me that I was robbed. It was cool to see how many people were rooting for me and that they saw me as the winner. I even ended up running into the Mario player again the following year at Cox Con 2019, when we reminisced about our battle. Other people still remembered it too. It was even hype enough that people shared the moment on Twitch.
I may not have won at Mario Party 2, and my biggest regret may be being too nice to my rival that day, but at least I can say that I caused one of the most epic moments of the whole event and one I won’t soon forget.
Be sure to check out the rest of our articles from Super Mario Week, our weeklong celebration of Super Mario Bros.’ 35th anniversary!
