>>42898167None of them were made with children directly in mind as the target audience (Mario started off as a Donkey Kong side character ffs), Tagiri went on record to say he'd created it to give kids a chance at having a similar experience to he had in his youth (by exploring natural land and hunting for creatures to fight with against friends' critters) in modernised Japan, where most kids wouldn't have access to greenspace needed to do such things.
This attitude hasn't changed, they've described it at various points as being a perennial coming-of-age tale for kids as well as the experience of being a child both 9 years ago and as recently as last september.
