It’s so rare to find a real, heart-felt paean to a software product. Online writing is so cranky – see this – that it’s refreshing to read a real love story.

Young Zen Albatross writes about Mario Paint for Super Nintendo. At age eight, the game taught him the basics of design and music composition in an easy-to-use package.

The music maker was probably the coolest item but for a young, computer-loving boy even the paint system was incredible. He also points out that the game could never be released now.

So what does the future hold for creativity-based games? To be perfectly honest, it’s hard to imagine Mario Paint making a comeback nowadays. Especially considering the evolving face of today’s games industry, where creativity is continually squelched in lieu of mainstream titles that easily generate mass-appeal. Still, games like LittleBigPlanet and Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts both focus on a strong foundation of user-generated content, giving us hope that perhaps developers aren’t entirely opposed to the idea of putting the tools back into the hands of the consumer. Now that I think of it, wouldn’t these kinds of games be perfect for the DS platform? As another one of my favorite games always says, ‘YA GOTTA BELIEVE!’