Post by goldensandslash on Aug 17, 2021 1:40:32 GMT
Ah, the Mario series. It is either the best-selling or second-best-selling video game franchise ever, depending on how you count it (specifically, it is the best-selling if you only look at video game sales, but if you also include toys and merchandise as well, then it’s the second-best, losing only to Pokémon). It’s not hard to see why, there’s a ludicrous number of games. If you were to count up every Mario game, you’d end up with more than 400 in total.
Of course, the majority of these are spinoff games, such as the Mario Kart games, the Mario Party games, the Mario sports games, and so on. But what about the games that are part of the main series? If we exclude spinoffs and only look at the main games, how many are there?
Well, back in the 80s, answering this question was simple. Nintendo released Super Mario Bros., then Super Mario Bros. 2, then Super Mario Bros. 3. It’s nice and easy to just number them. In Japan, they also released Super Mario Bros. 4, but this game would be re-titled internationally to be Super Mario World. And from then on, they just kept giving their games unique names and not numbering them, so it’s hard to put an exact count on it.
Nonetheless, we’re going to try. If Nintendo had chosen to keep numbering their games, what number would they be on today? Easy to answer, right? Just start counting. Well... no. That question... turns out to be surprisingly deep and complicated.
To give you an idea, if you go to Super Mario Wiki, Wikipedia, the official Nintendo Japanese website, and the official Nintendo American website, you’ll end up with six or seven completely different lists of which games are included in this (Wikipedia is inconsistent in itself, having a different list in its “sales and aggregate review scores” table, its navigation template, and its release timeline - also its navigation template does have some ambiguity). So what gives? This is one of the most popular game series of all time! How can there be disagreement over what games are in it? Well, let’s take a look.
So we’ll start with where it all began: Super Mario Bros. (1985, NES).
I believe this is the ONLY Mario game that exists in which there is no doubt that it is one of the main games. If you want to argue that it isn’t, then you’re either trolling or misunderstanding the question. It’s the basic platformer from which the rest of the main Mario games are based. This is pretty uncontroversial.
Moving on to Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988, NES), this is probably the next-easiest game to include. It’s a direct sequel to Super Mario Bros. and features gameplay that is based on the original game, but with a new engine, new powerups, and a world map to travel on. There is just one argument against it, but it’s a pretty weak argument. You see, the game opens with a curtain pulling up to reveal the title, and closes with the curtain coming back down, like a stage play. And, in fact, in 2015, Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed in an interview that Super Mario Bros. 3 is just a stage play, and that the events in the game never ACTUALLY happened. A lot of people were angry over this, with many, including myself, just straight-up dismissing this information as non-canonical. I believe that Super Mario Bros. 3 DID happen. If you disagree with that, I totally understand where you’re coming from though.
Overall, though, the Mario series is more so about its gameplay than its story. I mean, Mario games don’t exactly have deep compelling narratives, you know? So I think that it doesn’t matter too much and the game should count. Even if it did never happen in-universe, the story of a game being just a play is a pretty poor reason to exclude it.
And then we come to Super Mario World (1990, SNES). This game picks up where Super Mario Bros. 3 left off, and just contains more platformy goodness. Its most notable addition was the expansive world map. In Super Mario Bros., you just moved from one level to the next. In Super Mario Bros. 3, a world map was added that featured different levels, and you could sometimes find branching pathways where you could choose which levels to play when. In Super Mario World, not only is the map far more expansive, but also, some levels have secret paths in them that, if discovered, will open up new areas of the map leading to alternative levels. Super Mario World is often cited as the high point of the Mario series. It’s my favorite Mario game of all time. I never get tired of playing it.
So what’s the argument against its conclusion? Well, we’ll stick a pin in this and come back to it later. The argument against it is pretty weak, relying on a completely different game, and I’m happy with just accepting it. I will address this later though, when I get to the game in question.
For now, I think it makes sense to consider these three games to be main Mario games. For every other game? Oh boy is there a ton of controversy.
Let’s start with the 3D Mario games. This includes Super Mario 64 (1996, Nintendo 64), Super Mario Sunshine (2002, GameCube), Super Mario Galaxy (2007, Wii), Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010, Wii), Super Mario 3D Land (2011, 3DS), Super Mario 3D World (2013, Wii U), and Super Mario Odyssey (2017, Switch).
So, the gameplay of these games is completely different than the original NES and SNES games. Starting with Super Mario 64, in this game, you go around exploring 3D environments, trying to collect Power Stars. Different areas have different numbers of Power Stars, and your goal is to get as many as possible, accomplished through puzzle-solving, platforming challenges, boss battles, and the like. Super Mario Sunshine continues with the same gameplay as Super Mario 64, just in a new setting and with a different collectible (Shine Sprites). Super Mario Galaxy goes in a different direction. You’re still exploring areas collecting Power Stars, but the areas that you’re exploring are more linear pathways than wide open exploratory areas. Super Mario Galaxy 2 continues this trend, being fairly undistinguished from the original Super Mario Galaxy. Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World go back to the roots of the Mario series, and are literally just “get to the end of the stage” levels, with each level unlocking the next one on the world map, similar to Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World. The only difference is that the levels themselves give Mario an extra dimension to move around in, being 3D games rather than 2D games. And then Super Mario Odyssey goes back to the roots of the 3D series with more wide-open areas to explore and collectibles (Power Moons) to be collected.
So, naturally, this results in some controversy. Are these Mario games? The gameplay is completely different to that of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World, the three games that we’ve established as being (mostly) uncontroversially in the series.
And yet? Almost everyone includes these as main Mario games. Why? Well, it’s mostly because it’s not really clear what these games would be if they’re not main Mario games. The fact that Super Mario 64 was one of the most successful video games ever made also probably helped. It introduced basically so many concepts that we take for granted today. It was the first game to use an analog stick and the first to have a player-controlled camera. Super Mario 64 taught the world how to make a 3D platformer in the same way that Super Mario Bros. taught the world how to make a 2D platformer.
Because of this, most people say that Super Mario 64 is the definitive 3D Mario experience. And so naturally, everything that follows it counts as a main Mario game too.
But does it?
As I said, the gameplay in the 3D Mario games isn’t really consistent in itself. Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Odyssey are all 3D collect-a-thon games. These are usually considered to be the main 3D Mario games, and so the others are sometimes (but not often) excluded. Some people also include the Galaxy games and/or the 3D Land/World games. Most people just include all of them though.
There’s also another argument you could make. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is literally using the same engine as Super Mario Galaxy. There’s very little that distinguishes one from the other, besides the level layout. It’s essentially a Super Mario Galaxy ROM hack. So should it be excluded on those grounds? Some people say yes, but this is an uncommon viewpoint to have.
And you can make the same argument with Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World. They have the same gameplay, but with different levels. Now interestingly, despite Super Mario 3D Land coming first, it is usually considered that Super Mario 3D World is the “true” version of the game, and 3D Land is the knock-off of it. Why? Because Super Mario 3D Land was never available on a Nintendo console. It was only available on a Nintendo handheld.
I don’t think that this is a strong argument, especially now that the Switch exists, which makes the distinction between consoles and handhelds extremely arbitrary. But nonetheless, it is an argument that you could make.
The other big sub-series to consider is the New Super Mario Bros. series. This includes New Super Mario Bros. (2006, DS), New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009, Wii), New Super Mario Bros. 2 (2012, 3DS), and New Super Mario Bros. U (2012, Wii U). This series features gameplay identical to that of the original 2D platformers, just brought into the modern-day world. Though the games are unquestionably more similar to each other than to the NES and SNES games of old.
Though, again, we need to debate whether or not handheld games count. Two of these four games are only available on handhelds, and not on consoles.
All right. Most of those arguments were pretty weak. For the most part, we can accept all these games. There are now 14 different Super Mario games: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Super Mario 3D Land, New Super Mario Bros. 2, New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario 3D World, and Super Mario Odyssey.
Now we get to the games where the controversy is actually significant.
So, first and foremost, you probably noticed a fairly obvious gap in my list. I listed Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3, but not Super Mario Bros. 2. So why is that?
Well, there are two completely different games with the name “Super Mario Bros. 2”. Due to the popularity of the first Super Mario Bros. game, a sequel was inevitable, so Nintendo released a follow-up game called Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan. The game is a ROM hack of the original Super Mario Bros., and it plays exactly like one, with level design that is seemingly intentionally designed to try and harm the player character. There are so many cruel jokes that this game plays on you. It is brutal, and is unquestionably one of the hardest Mario games ever released. Due to this, the game was not a good fit for the western market. So Nintendo looked for a different game to give the international audiences, and Super Mario Bros. 2 would be Japan-only. They later found a somewhat obscure Japan-only game called Doki Doki Panic, and just re-skinned it to include Mario characters instead, releasing it as Super Mario Bros. 2 internationally. They also released the Mario version of Doki Doki Panic in Japan as well, under the name “Super Mario USA”. Years later, when they were remaking the Mario games, the international audiences finally got to experience the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 under the name “Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels”.
To avoid confusion, I’m going to refer to these games solely by their non-SMB2 titles. So the games are Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (1986, FDS) and Super Mario USA (1988, NES). Technically speaking, the American Super Mario Bros. 2 and the Japanese Super Mario USA are different games, but the differences are EXTREMELY minute and not really any more significant than any other Famicom game and its NES counterpart. Literally the only reason to say that these are different games is if you want to be annoying. Like... okay. The title screen is different, to include the new title. Whoop-de-doo.
Most people say that both The Lost Levels and Mario USA are main Mario games. They both count. But if you have to only include one of them and not the other, more people would say that The Lost Levels is the true second Mario game. Which makes sense, because its gameplay is identical to that of the original Super Mario Bros. By comparison, Super Mario USA features a completely different gameplay engine, given that, well, it was originally Doki Doki Panic. In this game, rather than running around, stomping on enemies, and collecting powerups, the gameplay is more so built around carrying objects from one part of the level to another, such as getting a key to a locked door. Additionally, the gameplay is built around using four different characters with slightly different abilities, so that each playthrough of a level can be made different just by changing who you choose to play as (Mario is the “average” character, Luigi moves slower but jumps higher, Toad moves faster but doesn’t jump as high, and Peach is both slow and a poor jumper but has the ability to hover in the air for a short time). Though later Mario games (most notably Super Mario 3D World) would embrace this as well, it would take a while to get there. But comparing Super Mario Bros. to Super Mario USA? Pretty much the only thing these games have in common is that they’re platformers with the same set of characters.
Interestingly, Nintendo of America’s official website says that Super Mario USA is a main Mario game, but Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is not. Meanwhile, Super Mario Wiki, Wikipedia, and Nintendo of Japan’s website all take the more commonly held belief that both of them count. I think this is just because Nintendo of America never released Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels until remakes started coming out, so from their perspective, The Lost Levels never happened. Hence why the levels are considered to be “lost”.
Though they have remade the game a bunch in America. It was included in Super Mario All-Stars on SNES and Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on Game Boy Color, as well as being on Virtual Console on the Wii, the 3DS, and the Wii U, and on Nintendo Switch Online. And many more. So it’s not like an American would have never heard of this game, you know?
So... now let’s talk about the Mario Land games: Super Mario Land (1989, Game Boy) and Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins (1992, Game Boy). The gameplay of these games is fairly similar to Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World, respectively, albeit with a LOT of compromises to make them work on a handheld at the time. The hardware of the Game Boy just wasn’t powerful enough to handle this.
It’s difficult to put into words how these games “feel” if you’ve never played them yourself. But if you do play them, they do feel very different than the Mario games that were released on consoles. And that brings us back to the whole “do handhelds count?” question from earlier. On top of that, the first Super Mario Land game was one of the first Game Boy games ever made, and it REALLY shows. There’s a lot of stuff here that feels... off. Finally, look at the release dates of these games. Super Mario Land came out in between Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World in Japan. And you’ll recall that in Japan, the name of Super Mario World is Super Mario Bros. 4. If Super Mario Land was meant to be included in the main Mario series, then surely it would be Super Mario Bros. 4 and Super Mario World would be Super Mario Bros. 5, right? Similarly, in America, Super Mario Land was released between Super Mario Bros. 2 (Super Mario USA) and Super Mario Bros. 3, again messing with the numbering system.
And then there’s Wario.
Wario is a Mario character who first appeared in Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins. He’s the main antagonist that Mario is fighting in this game. But then after that, Nintendo made a game called Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1993, Game Boy), where you play as Wario as the protagonist and go around trying to get your greedy hands on as much treasure as you can. This was followed up by further games in this genre, Wario Land II, Wario Land 3, Wario Land 4, and so on. The gameplay is pretty different, and I think it’s safe to say that these don’t count as Mario games. Not to mention that Mario doesn’t even appear in these games at all. But if we exclude Wario Land, which has the subtitle “Super Mario Land 3”, then must we also exclude the first two Super Mario Land games? You could make that argument.
The argument especially holds for Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, since the storyline of the original Wario Land picks up right where Super Mario Land 2 left off. However, if you compare Super Mario Land with Super Mario Land 2, it’s very clear that the gameplay of the latter is far closer to the gameplay of the other Super Mario Bros. games than the former is.
Basically, these games are pretty controversial, though the most common belief is that the first two Mario Lands count, but Wario Land does not. Wario Land, despite carrying the moniker “Super Mario Land 3” is nothing like the original two Mario Lands in terms of gameplay, and is indeed far closer to the series of Wario Land games that it started. It honestly feels like the name “Super Mario Land 3” is just there to help drive sales.
So... what other games can we talk about? Well, the most recent game that may or may not be in the Super Mario Bros. series is Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (2021, Switch). This game is a two-in-one pack of Super Mario 3D World, which we’ve already discussed (though this is a port of the game for Switch, the original version was on the Wii U), and Bowser’s Fury.
So what’s Bowser’s Fury? It’s a game that features the same engine as Super Mario 3D World, with the same power-ups and the same controls. You play as Mario and go around collecting Cat Shines. Unlike Super Mario 3D World, this is a game that is based more on collecting objects than clearing levels, similar to Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Odyssey. However, this two-in-one pack is the ONLY way to get Bowser’s Fury. It does not exist as a standalone game. The only way to purchase it is to get it bundled with Super Mario 3D World for the Switch.
So if a game must exist as a standalone title, then Bowser’s Fury doesn’t count. Despite this, the gameplay is clearly distinct from Super Mario 3D World. It’s very similar to how there’s an NES cartridge that includes both Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt on it. You’re getting two wildly different games for the price of one. The only difference is that Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt were also available as two separate cartridges as well. The same cannot be said for Bowser’s Fury.
And yeah, Bowser’s Fury does use the same engine as Super Mario 3D World, but the gameplay is still totally unique. It’s a lot more different than Super Mario Galaxy 2 is from Super Mario Galaxy, or Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is from Super Mario Bros.
And then that brings us to New Super Luigi U (2013, Wii U). Oh boy. So, in 2013, they released DLC for New Super Mario Bros. U. This DLC was essentially a full game (named New Super Luigi U) where you played as Luigi instead of Mario. It had totally different levels and also different game physics, to reflect Luigi’s “slipperiness”. Later in 2013, they released a physical disc for the Wii U that had this game on it, allowing you to buy it without New Super Mario Bros. U. And then, later, still in 2013, they released a two-in-one bundle New Super Mario Bros. U + New Super Luigi U (2013, Wii U), which included both games on one disc. Then, a few years later, they released a port of this bundle for the Switch, called New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (2019, Switch).
As an aside, I really hate this title. The game is not “new” if it’s a port of an existing game, it includes several playable characters that aren’t the Mario Bros. (you can play as Mario, Luigi, Toad, Toadette, or Nabbit - only the first two are the Mario Bros.), and the word “U” implies that it’s for the Wii U, when it’s actually for the Switch.
So, which of these games, if any, count as main Mario games? The divide between NSLU and NSMBU is not as vast as the divide between 3D World and Bowser’s Fury. The only differences between NSLU and NSMBU are that the game has different levels and different physics. It even has the same storyline and the same world map! The one thing that NSLU has in its favor that Bowser’s Fury doesn’t is that NSLU is available as a standalone game.
Some people do consider original new levels to be enough to differentiate between the games. After all, that’s the very difference between the two Galaxy games, or between the original Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels, right? Well, yeah. But NSLU and NSMBU do have more similarities than those other examples. The fact that they have the same exact storyline and world map (due to one of these games being DLC for the other) is a pretty major strike against NSLU. And while there are SOME new features in Galaxy 2 and The Lost Levels, such as Galaxy 2 featuring Yoshi in a 3D game for the first time, or The Lost Levels having levels that make use of wind or poisonous mushrooms, New Super Luigi U offers no new items or power-ups or anything. Just new physics and a new set of levels. Is that enough? It’s hard to say.
The other argument against New Super Luigi U is that you play as Luigi and not Mario, so therefore it’s not a Mario game, but a Luigi game instead. I feel that this argument holds no water whatsoever. Unlike Wario Land, which was based on the argument that playing as Wario and not Mario excludes the game, the gameplay of NSLU is much closer to the original Mario games than Wario Land ever was. In fact, it’s so similar that the debate of whether NSLU should be counted or not is based on whether it even counts as the same game as NSMBU or not.
So, between New Super Mario Bros. U, New Super Luigi U, New Super Mario Bros. U + New Super Luigi U, and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which of them are Mario games? I dunno. At this point, you can draw your own conclusions. Though I think, at most, you can only include two games here. Unless you consider remakes in general to count, then you’d include all four.
Nintendo of Japan and Nintendo of America’s website, interestingly, says that New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe are the ones that count. I don’t understand why you’d include New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe but not the two-in-one Wii U game that it’s a port of. But whatever.
So, overall, New Super Luigi U and Bowser’s Fury are very heavily debated about whether they should count or not, given that they are incomplete without New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario 3D World, respectively, though New Super Luigi U is available separately.
And now let’s get into another controversial game: Super Mario 64 DS (2004, DS).
This is a remake of Super Mario 64, but for the DS. I’m sure you worked that out from the title. The thing is... other than the level design, there’s not much here that’s from the original Super Mario 64. And even there, there’s a lot of differences. Super Mario 64 is one of, if not the, most over-analyzed video games ever made. There’s huge amounts of works all about the various nuances of the game, with practically every single line of code being broken down. The only other games that come close to the level of analysis that Super Mario 64 has are Minecraft and Super Mario Odyssey, and even then, I think Super Mario 64 beats both of those. And yet, almost every Super Mario 64 expert will tell you that Super Mario 64 DS is nothing like the original Nintendo 64 title. No lines of code were reused and the whole game was rebuilt from scratch.
Not to mention that there’s significantly more areas to explore, more Power Stars to collect, and even more characters to play as (you can play as Yoshi, Mario, Luigi, or Wario, each with their own set of abilities. By comparison, the original game featured only Mario). There’s also a few Power Stars, though not many, that are only in the original Nintendo 64 version and not the DS remake, in order to make room for all the new content. And they also updated the graphics and sound and such. Along with several new mechanics, such as the Power Flowers and the like.
So even if you consider remakes to not count, you can make a very compelling argument that Super Mario 64 DS is the exception to that rule. There’s enough new content here to consider it its own game. Far more so than the differences between New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, in any case.
And if we continue down the remake rabbit hole, we next come to Super Mario All-Stars (1993, SNES) and Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (1999, GBC), and the Super Mario Advance series. We will discuss each of these in turn.
So, first up is Super Mario All-Stars. This is a SNES game that remakes the classic NES games, but with SNES graphics and sound effects. It includes four games in one: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Super Mario USA, and Super Mario Bros. 3. Notably, this is the first time that anyone outside Japan could play The Lost Levels.
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe is a Game Boy Color game that includes both Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Pretty much everything is left intact with no changes, but the screen is super zoomed in to enable you to see, given that the Game Boy Color had a smaller screen than a TV, which makes the games much harder. There are some gameplay tweaks here and there, but for the most part, if you’ve played the original NES games, you’ve played this. They did add a world map (something that wouldn’t exist until Super Mario Bros. 3) and the ability to save your game anytime you want though.
In addition, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe also includes other stuff. There's "Challenge Mode", where you explore the same levels of these games, trying to find various collectibles such as Red Coins or Yoshi Eggs. And then there's the "You VS Boo" mode, where you race against a Boo through the levels. These Boos play by different gameplay rules than Mario does, so beating them can be challenging. There's also "VS Game", which is a two-player race through the levels, similar to You VS Boo, except with another human player instead, and you're both playing as the Mario Bros. (which have no gameplay differences between them). The VS game also includes blocks you can use to complicate the levels for your opponent. The game also includes a fortune-telling minigame, a calendar, and a few other bonus toys that are pretty much just as ignorable.
Then we come to the Super Mario Advance series. This series includes Super Mario Advance (2001, GBA), Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 (2001, GBA), a third game that we’ll get back to later, and Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (2003, GBA).
Super Mario Advance is a remake of Super Mario USA, Super Mario Advance 2 is a remake of Super Mario World, and Super Mario Advance 4 is a remake of Super Mario Bros. 3. However, calling these games “remakes” is generous. They are literally exact copies of the versions on Super Mario All-Stars (or, in Super Mario World’s case, just the SNES game that it was originally). There is next to no difference between the GBA versions and the SNES versions of these games. They just added voice acting for the characters (who were originally silent) and downgraded the music a bit to get it to work on a handheld.
There is SOME new content here, but not a lot. For example, in Super Mario World, each level has five Dragon Coins hidden throughout that you can find. This was retroactively added to Super Mario USA as well in Super Mario Advance, with each level now including five Ace Coins in a similar manner. They also tweaked the level design slightly to make these games easier, though it’s hardly noticeable unless you really do an in-depth look at them.
There is, however, one exception. In Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (boy, what a title), the game did add quite a lot of new content, albeit in a very roundabout way. So, the GBA had an accessory called an e-Reader. It could read data off of various cards. They made some cards that, when scanned, would add new levels to the game. Very few people played these levels, because the e-Reader was so abysmally unpopular. Heck, it never released in Europe at all, because it was cancelled before such a thing could happen. And also a lot of the cards that you need if you wanted to get all the levels were only released in Japan, limiting these levels further. That said, they are quite fun, and many cheat codes and hacks exist to allow you to access these levels without the cards.
SMA4 was also released on the Wii U Virtual Console, with these levels already included from the get-go, eliminating the need for the e-Reader and allowing many players to play these levels for the first time.
So does the existence of new levels count as enough to warrant a new entry onto the list of main Mario games? Remember, this is the same argument that New Super Luigi U is hanging onto.
And that brings up a great question: how different do two games have to be from one another to be considered separate games? If you draw a line, with new games on one end and remakes on the other, you would have to list the games roughly in the order of Super Mario Galaxy 2, The Lost Levels, Bowser’s Fury, Luigi U, Advance 4, 64 DS, Super Mario Deluxe, All-Stars, Advance, Advance 2, and New Super Mario Deluxe. But where exactly is the line that separates the games that count from the games that don’t? It’s very subjective.
And yeah, if it wasn’t clear, Super Mario Advance and Super Mario Advance 2 don’t have as much arguing in favor of them being separate games as Super Mario Advance 4 does.
And now we come to the third game in the Super Mario Advance series: Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (2003, GBA). This is a remake of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (1995, SNES). The remake does include a few extra levels that were not present in the original, though not many. For the most part, it’s just the same SNES game, like the rest of the Super Mario Advance series.
So, let’s talk about this game. In this game, you play as Yoshi. The game, despite being called “Super Mario World 2”, has very little to do with Super Mario World. The only connection is that Yoshi made his debut in Super Mario World. Yoshi’s Island is actually a prequel to the Super Mario Bros. series, taking place while Mario is a baby. Yoshi carries Baby Mario on his back through a series of levels. The gameplay is wildly different. They’re both platformers, but Yoshi’s Island is about making Yoshi Eggs and using them in certain situations. Resource management is key. Also, the whole “explore everywhere if you want five Dragon Coins” from Super Mario World has been expanded greatly, with each level in Yoshi’s Island including 30 Stars, 20 Red Coins, and 5 Flowers to collect. These aren’t mandatory and only increase your score, just like the Dragon Coins from Super Mario World. Though getting a high score lets you unlock extra levels to play.
So does this count as a main Mario game? Well, it is called “Super Mario World 2”, and Super Mario World is pretty unambiguously a main Mario game. Also Shigeru Miyamoto counts it as one. But both Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan exclude it from their websites, as does Super Mario Wiki, but not Wikipedia, who does include it. On top of that, much like Wario Land, Yoshi’s Island spawned a whole new series of Yoshi games, with gameplay similar to Yoshi’s Island. These include Yoshi’s Island DS, Yoshi’s New Island, and many others.
Given this, there are five possible options. Option one: Yoshi’s Island is not a Mario game because it is a Yoshi game. Option two: The other Yoshi games are Yoshi games, but since this carries the “Super Mario World 2” name, this particular one is a Mario game. Option three: Yoshi’s Island counts as both a Mario game and a Yoshi game, since there’s compelling evidence for each case, and there’s no reason it can’t be both. Option four: There is no Yoshi series, and all Yoshi games are, in fact, Mario games. Option five: Yoshi’s Island is a Yoshi game, and given that it carries the “Super Mario World 2” name, this means that Super Mario World is a Yoshi game as well. These are listed in decreasing order of popularity, though there is no clear consensus at all.
Option five is by far the least common, and it’s basically the one argument that you can make that Super Mario World shouldn’t count as a Mario game. Remember when I said I’d get back to that later? Well, it’s later now. As I said, this argument is very uncommon, so I don’t count it.
And now let’s talk about Wario Land again. Because here’s the thing. These five options could just as easily apply there too. Wario Land is a sequel to Super Mario Land 2, but it had its own unique gameplay and it also started its own line of games, just like Yoshi’s Island. And yet, the two games are often analyzed differently. Remember how I just said that you could argue against Super Mario World being a Mario game, but this is uncommon? Well, it’s far more common with Wario Land being used to argue that the Super Mario Land games don’t count.
Of course, there’s no reason why you have to analyze the two the same way. I think it ultimately comes down to Yoshi’s Island being more popular and overall higher-quality than Wario Land. As a game, more people played it and enjoyed it. And likewise based on the games that they share their titles with. More people played and enjoyed Super Mario World than Super Mario Land 2. But still, when making a numbered list of Mario games, know that you can analyze these games basically however you want.
The next game to analyze is Super Mario Maker (2015, Wii U). This is a game that lets you make your own levels based on those of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. U.
Does this count? It does have traditional 2D Mario platforming gameplay, and new levels, but, of course, that’s because you make the levels yourself. The focus isn’t on playing levels, it’s on making levels. Hence the title. But the game does come with a small handful of “sample courses”. So you can make the argument that this is a full-fledged Mario game, and it just includes a level editor. You can play this game and never once make your own level, nor download a level made by anyone else. Though the sample courses are incredibly simplistic and there are very few of them, so you’d be fighting an uphill battle with that argument.
There is a sequel called Super Mario Maker 2 (2019, Switch). This game adds a few more elements that you can add to your levels, adds multiplayer support, and puts the game on a far more successful console.
However, in SMM2, there’s far more “default” levels, and they are arranged together in what the game jokingly calls a “Story Mode”. So does this count? And while we’re on the topic, there is actually a third Mario Maker game.
Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS (2016, 3DS) is a port of Super Mario Maker. It’s a significant downgrade. While you can make and play your own levels, you cannot upload the levels you create to the internet. You can only download levels that people made from the Wii U version of the game. Though in 2021, Nintendo made it impossible to upload any further levels on the Wii U version as well (likely to promote the sales of the sequel). So this argument could hold for both versions of this game now.
However, there is one thing that’s in SMM3DS that isn’t in SMM. And that’s the Super Mario Challenge. This is a collection of 100 levels made by Nintendo. Unlike the sample courses of SMM and the Story Mode of SMM2, these levels are fully fleshed out and feel like full Mario levels and not just basic ideas (though they were made using Super Mario Maker’s course creation tools). So if you consider new levels to be the distinguishing factor between two games, then SMM3DS must be a separate game. But, of course, that misses the point of Mario Maker. This trio of games is about making your own levels, and playing levels that other people have uploaded online. The default courses that are included in the game are not really the point of playing the game.
The next game we’ll be looking at is Super Mario Run (2016, iOS). All official sources say that this is a main Mario game, but almost everyone in the Mario fandom is unanimously against it. So why is that?
Well, the gameplay is not the same as the other games. Yes, Mario does jump and run through various levels, but the game is an auto-runner, not a basic platformer. Auto-runners are popular on mobile devices and on no other actual game systems. Their main appeal is that they can be played with a single button (touching the touch screen).
But does genre matter? I mean, the Mario Maker games are creation tools, not platformers, and okay, sure, I excluded them. But plenty of people do include them. Still, what about Super Mario 64? That game is pretty commonly included, and it’s a collect-a-thon, not a 2D platformer. So what gives? Well, perhaps auto-runners are just too different to everything else by comparison.
Also, remember when I was dismissive of handhelds and whether or not they count? Well, that argument applies here too. And even more so, because not only is this game not on a console, it’s not on a Nintendo platform at all. It’s a mobile game. Also there’s no way to buy the game physically. It exists only as a digital game.
Because of this, there are a lot of arguments against Super Mario Run. The big one is that it’s unavailable on Nintendo hardware, but there’s plenty of others.
And on that topic, let’s look at Super Mario Bros. Special (1986, PC-8801). This game was made by HudsonSoft, licensed by Nintendo. It’s a relic of an era when Nintendo wasn’t as protective of the Mario name as they are today. The game plays like Super Mario Bros., but with original level designs. Though saying that it plays like Super Mario Bros. is... a bit of a stretch. It’s really glitchy and janky, as you’d expect from the hardware it’s on.
So you can make the argument that, like Mario Land, this is just a game that is meant to be like Mario, but fails due to hardware limitations. Though unlike Mario Land, this game was not made by Nintendo. But does that matter? Who cares who owns the building the game was made in? That’s not how art works. Nintendo may own the legal copyright on Mario, but corporations don’t make games. People make games, and people are merely employed by corporations. That said, none of the people who worked on Super Mario Bros. Special also worked on Super Mario Bros.
But going by that logic, very few games are Mario games. The credits of Super Mario Bros. only list two people as “programmers”: Toshihiko Nakago and Kazuaki Morita. The former worked on Super Mario Bros., The Lost Levels, Mario USA, Mario 3, Mario World, All-Stars, and 64 DS. The latter worked on Super Mario Bros., The Lost Levels, Mario USA, Mario 3, Mario World, All-Stars, and Yoshi’s Island. So if we’re saying that only these games count, then there hasn’t been a new Mario game since 2004.
Well, kind of. Toshihiko Nakago is credited as “level design adviser” for NSMB2 and NSMBU. I don’t know what this entails, but I don’t think that counts as being a programmer.
And if we look at Shigeru Miyamoto, the director and producer of the original Mario game, then the last new Mario game was Mario 64. After that, he’s just been a producer, supervisor, or creator of the game concept.
So clearly, we can’t use the fact that Super Mario Bros. Special doesn’t have the same people who made it to specifically exclude it. The big thing going against it is, therefore, the fact that the hardware you play it on is not a Nintendo system.
But isn’t that just a weird and arbitrary distinction?
Honestly, the main thing to focus on is that the game doesn’t “feel” like a Mario game. The way it plays is just... really janky. Theoretically, if Nintendo had given the license to a different developer than HudsonSoft, and that developer actually successfully captured what made the original Super Mario Bros. a good game, we’d be having a different conversation right now, and I’d be trying to include the game rather than exclude it.
On the topic of non-Nintendo hardware, let’s talk about the CD-i. This was a game system made by Philips. It was originally a joint effort by Nintendo and Philips to make a CD add-on for the SNES, but Nintendo scrapped it. Philips, however, continued to develop it without Nintendo, eventually releasing it under their own name as a standalone console. They still had the rights to use some Nintendo characters, so the CD-i did include a Tetris game, three Zelda games, and, of course, a Mario game.
Hotel Mario is the CD-i game. Like every CD-i game, it is laughably bad. It has animated cutscenes that have been immortalized through YouTube Poops. And there’s basically nothing enjoyable about it. The gameplay is similar to the arcade games that Mario was in before Super Mario Bros. came out on the NES. Some people include Hotel Mario as a main Mario game as a joke, but I don’t think anyone includes it seriously. It’s just a meme.
That said, there is another Mario CD-i game... kind of. That game is Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds (unreleased, CD-i). This game was going to be a full sequel to Super Mario World, featuring similar gameplay, but with new items, enemies, and levels. It was cancelled in 1993 and never released. If you dig around, you can find a ROM of a pre-alpha build of the game that’s full of glitches, and is largely incomplete. Does this count as a Mario game?
Well... does a game need to exist in order to count? I would say yes. So therefore, Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds does not count. But if we are including nonexistent games, then there are a couple of other games that we need to talk about. VB Mario Land (unreleased, Virtual Boy) and Super Mario 64 2 (unreleased, 64DD). Much like Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds, these games probably would have been full Mario games if they were released, but they weren’t, so they aren’t.
And that’s just the ones we know about. There’s probably loads more games that don’t exist, since Nintendo tends to not be forthcoming with information. So I’d say that a game must exist in order to count.
Which brings us to Super Mario Bros. 35 (2020, Switch). Does this count?
This game does not exist. It did exist at one point in time, but it doesn’t anymore. It was an online multiplayer battle royale version of Super Mario Bros. made to celebrate Mario’s 35th anniversary. The game was taken offline and made impossible to play in April 2021.
So, is there a difference between this game and those unreleased games that I mentioned? I mean, sure, it existed at one point. But it is impossible to play currently. Meanwhile those other games were never possible at all, because they never once existed. The other mark against Super Mario Bros. 35 is that it is just an alternate version of the original Super Mario Bros., being played as a battle royale game. It’s not an original game.
The next game to cover is Super Mario 3D All-Stars (2020, Switch). Much like Super Mario Bros. 35, this is a game that was made for the 35th anniversary of the series, and was made unavailable for purchase in April 2021. Unlike Super Mario Bros. 35, though, the game does still exist. Anyone who bought it while the game was still available can still play it. And you can also buy used copies on the second-hand market for way too much money (seriously, it’s absurd how much people are asking for it).
This game is a three-in-one collection of Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy. And if you consider remakes to count, then you should include this. Yeah, you can’t buy it from Nintendo anymore, but that’s the case for all the old NES games from the 80s too.
This brings us to BS Super Mario USA (1996, Satellaview). This is a Japan-only game for the Satellaview. The Satellaview was a Japan-only add-on to the Super Famicom. It allowed you to tune in to games being broadcast over a satellite radio station and download games to play. Because it can only download what is currently being broadcasted, each game was only available for a limited time. BS Super Mario USA is an updated version of Super Mario USA that takes advantage of this format. It was released in four parts over the course of April 1996. The gameplay is mostly identical to the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario USA, but with better music and voice acting being played over the radio. Additionally, there was a radio drama happening during this, and things could happen in the radio drama that would affect your gameplay, producing events that could help or hurt the player as the game is played. It’s honestly such a wild idea. It actually sounds like a lot of fun, so it’s a shame that there’s no way to play it nowadays. In fact, this is the case for every Satellaview game. None of them have resurfaced at all.
And there was one other Satellaview Mario game: BS Super Mario Collection (1997, Satellaview). This was released in 1997 through 1998. It included the rest of the games in Super Mario All-Stars, besides Super Mario USA. These included Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Much like BS Super Mario USA, these are just the same games as they were in Super Mario All-Stars, but with the addition of new music and voice acting, as well as gameplay elements based on the radio drama.
So, these fall into the same camp as Super Mario Bros. 35. They were possible to play at one point, but they aren’t anymore. Did these games count as main Mario games at the time that it was possible to play them? If so, then should they still be counted? I mean, you could argue that remakes in general shouldn’t count, so these don’t count, regardless of whether they exist or not.
But do remakes count? Remember, Nintendo considers New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe to count. So surely there’s more to it than that. And that brings us back to the question of: “how much new content needs to be added to a game for it to count as a new game?”. And there’s no clear answer to that question, it’s a subjective scale.
Oh, and we’re still not done with Super Mario All-Stars. Sure, I talked about the original SNES game, the Satellaview version that is very obviously based on it, and the Super Mario Advance series that is also very obviously based on it. But there’s more.
Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World (1994, SNES) is a SNES game that adds Super Mario World to the list of games that you can choose from when playing Super Mario All-Stars. And Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition (2010, Wii) is a Wii game that, if you look at the game’s code, it’s literally just a SNES emulator with a copy of a Super Mario All-Stars ROM on it. Yes, really.
The nature of remakes is complicated. A lot of franchises, when they remake their games, tend to do things like, you know, update graphics and sounds and what-not. Bring it into the modern era. Mario, in general, does not. All of their remakes just keep the original games preserved as-is, with Super Mario 64 DS and Super Mario All-Stars being the only exceptions to that.
Though, as previously mentioned, other people can draw the line in other places.
There’s Virtual Console and Nintendo Switch Online, which, of course, are not separate games. They just let you play games for older consoles on modern hardware, like an emulator (except that you pay for it).
There’s also Classic NES Series: Super Mario Bros. (2004, GBA) and Famicom Mini: Super Mario Bros. 2 (2004, GBA), which are GBA ports of the original Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels, respectively, with the latter being Japan-only. These are just the same games as the NES/Famicom versions of these games, with no differences whatsoever. The only change is that you can now play it on a GBA. Even the original glitches are preserved.
And these are far from an isolated example. These games have had an absurd number of remakes and ports. Super Mario Wiki lists a whopping THIRTY-ONE different versions of Super Mario Bros., and I’m fairly certain that this list is incomplete. Most of these would not count as separate games, but there are a few that have strong arguments in favor of them. Shall we take a look?
VS. Super Mario Bros. (1986, arcade) appears to be an arcade version of the original Super Mario Bros. at first glance, but there’s more to it than that. The levels have received some minor tweaks to make them harder. Some levels from The Lost Levels are included instead of the original levels. And the levels are not in the same order that they were originally in. There’s also a new remix of the music that appears on the name entry screen, which has become fairly popular (although few people realize that this is where it’s from).
All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. (1986, FDS) is an officially-licensed ROM hack of The Lost Levels. It’s nearly-identical to the original except that some enemies have had their sprites replaced with faces of celebrities from the radio show All Night Nippon. Much like VS. Super Mario Bros., the levels are in a new order, there’s some minor tweaks to make them harder, and they come from both the original Super Mario Bros. and from The Lost Levels, though in this case there are more from The Lost Levels than the original game (VS. Super Mario Bros. had it the other way around).
And then we come to the most recently released version of this game. Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros. (2020, Game & Watch).
What is a Game & Watch? Well, the Game & Watch was a series of handhelds created by Nintendo from 1980 to 1991. These had LCD screens with very minor games in them, and could also be used as a watch. Much later, in 2020, Nintendo brought back the Game & Watch with new versions that actually had full-color video rather than LCD screens, and allowed people to play classic Mario and Zelda games on them. The Mario one in particular has Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels in it.
In contrast to Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros., there’s also Super Mario Bros. (1986, Game & Watch). This is one of the original Game & Watch games, and it’s an LCD game. Whether it’s even a video game or not is... debatable. I mean, shouldn’t a video game have, y’know, video? A Game & Watch doesn’t have video. (Well, okay, the new ones from 2020-onwards do, but the originals didn’t.)
Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch is a platformer (kinda, you use LCD, so where platforms are is predetermined based on the screen), and it stars Mario. But it is unambiguously a different game than the NES game it shares its title with.
Most people ignore the Game & Watch when discussing Nintendo’s history. They consider the NES to be the first Nintendo system. Which is a shame, the old Game & Watch handhelds do have some value. True, they aren’t video games (by my definition, anyways), but they’re still a lot of fun.
And if we go down this rabbit hole, then there’s also the Nelsonic Game Watch, which is a wristwatch that can play LCD games on it, and there was even a few for Mario-themed games. Literally nobody cares about them. It’s impossible to find any information about them online. But they exist. Going deeper, there’s also the McDonald’s Happy Meal watches, which also had LCD Mario-themed minigames on them.
There’s seemingly no end to the rabbit hole of obscure Mario games, but this post has to stop somewhere, so I will simply discuss one final game: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (2014, Wii U).
Super Mario 3D World is mostly a series of platforming levels, but there are some exceptions. A very small handful of levels featured a character named Captain Toad. Captain Toad cannot jump, so his ability to maneuver is limited. As such, these levels are based around puzzle-solving instead. Trying to figure out how to get from A to B with a limited set of options. The levels are played more with your critical thinking than your reflexes. This was popular enough that they later made a full game around this, and that’s what Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is.
So if Super Mario 3D World counts, should Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker count as well? And if so, then where do you draw the line? Lots of games include Mario characters in spinoff titles. I already mentioned Wario Land and Yoshi’s Island, but there’s also Super Princess Peach, Luigi’s Mansion, and so forth. The thing that makes Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker unique is that not only does it feature a character that debuted in a Mario game, but it features gameplay that debuted there as well.
Sure, in Super Mario 3D World, the Captain Toad levels were few and far between, but they did exist there.
There are plenty of other games that are in ambiguous situations, and a lot more rabbit holes that I could have gone down, but opted not to. As I said, I had to stop somewhere. If this post proves popular, I might make a follow-up, but I probably won’t. It would just list even more obscure games, and the arguments for and against each of them. Except that with the more obscure games, there are a lot more arguments against than for.
So, with all that said, let’s go back to the question I posed at the beginning of this: how many Mario games are there if we exclude spinoffs? If Nintendo had continued to number them, what number would they be on? Well, it’s incredibly subjective. So how many are main Mario games? However many you want. This series is up to interpretation.
Of course, the majority of these are spinoff games, such as the Mario Kart games, the Mario Party games, the Mario sports games, and so on. But what about the games that are part of the main series? If we exclude spinoffs and only look at the main games, how many are there?
Well, back in the 80s, answering this question was simple. Nintendo released Super Mario Bros., then Super Mario Bros. 2, then Super Mario Bros. 3. It’s nice and easy to just number them. In Japan, they also released Super Mario Bros. 4, but this game would be re-titled internationally to be Super Mario World. And from then on, they just kept giving their games unique names and not numbering them, so it’s hard to put an exact count on it.
Nonetheless, we’re going to try. If Nintendo had chosen to keep numbering their games, what number would they be on today? Easy to answer, right? Just start counting. Well... no. That question... turns out to be surprisingly deep and complicated.
To give you an idea, if you go to Super Mario Wiki, Wikipedia, the official Nintendo Japanese website, and the official Nintendo American website, you’ll end up with six or seven completely different lists of which games are included in this (Wikipedia is inconsistent in itself, having a different list in its “sales and aggregate review scores” table, its navigation template, and its release timeline - also its navigation template does have some ambiguity). So what gives? This is one of the most popular game series of all time! How can there be disagreement over what games are in it? Well, let’s take a look.
So we’ll start with where it all began: Super Mario Bros. (1985, NES).
I believe this is the ONLY Mario game that exists in which there is no doubt that it is one of the main games. If you want to argue that it isn’t, then you’re either trolling or misunderstanding the question. It’s the basic platformer from which the rest of the main Mario games are based. This is pretty uncontroversial.
Moving on to Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988, NES), this is probably the next-easiest game to include. It’s a direct sequel to Super Mario Bros. and features gameplay that is based on the original game, but with a new engine, new powerups, and a world map to travel on. There is just one argument against it, but it’s a pretty weak argument. You see, the game opens with a curtain pulling up to reveal the title, and closes with the curtain coming back down, like a stage play. And, in fact, in 2015, Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed in an interview that Super Mario Bros. 3 is just a stage play, and that the events in the game never ACTUALLY happened. A lot of people were angry over this, with many, including myself, just straight-up dismissing this information as non-canonical. I believe that Super Mario Bros. 3 DID happen. If you disagree with that, I totally understand where you’re coming from though.
Overall, though, the Mario series is more so about its gameplay than its story. I mean, Mario games don’t exactly have deep compelling narratives, you know? So I think that it doesn’t matter too much and the game should count. Even if it did never happen in-universe, the story of a game being just a play is a pretty poor reason to exclude it.
And then we come to Super Mario World (1990, SNES). This game picks up where Super Mario Bros. 3 left off, and just contains more platformy goodness. Its most notable addition was the expansive world map. In Super Mario Bros., you just moved from one level to the next. In Super Mario Bros. 3, a world map was added that featured different levels, and you could sometimes find branching pathways where you could choose which levels to play when. In Super Mario World, not only is the map far more expansive, but also, some levels have secret paths in them that, if discovered, will open up new areas of the map leading to alternative levels. Super Mario World is often cited as the high point of the Mario series. It’s my favorite Mario game of all time. I never get tired of playing it.
So what’s the argument against its conclusion? Well, we’ll stick a pin in this and come back to it later. The argument against it is pretty weak, relying on a completely different game, and I’m happy with just accepting it. I will address this later though, when I get to the game in question.
For now, I think it makes sense to consider these three games to be main Mario games. For every other game? Oh boy is there a ton of controversy.
Let’s start with the 3D Mario games. This includes Super Mario 64 (1996, Nintendo 64), Super Mario Sunshine (2002, GameCube), Super Mario Galaxy (2007, Wii), Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010, Wii), Super Mario 3D Land (2011, 3DS), Super Mario 3D World (2013, Wii U), and Super Mario Odyssey (2017, Switch).
So, the gameplay of these games is completely different than the original NES and SNES games. Starting with Super Mario 64, in this game, you go around exploring 3D environments, trying to collect Power Stars. Different areas have different numbers of Power Stars, and your goal is to get as many as possible, accomplished through puzzle-solving, platforming challenges, boss battles, and the like. Super Mario Sunshine continues with the same gameplay as Super Mario 64, just in a new setting and with a different collectible (Shine Sprites). Super Mario Galaxy goes in a different direction. You’re still exploring areas collecting Power Stars, but the areas that you’re exploring are more linear pathways than wide open exploratory areas. Super Mario Galaxy 2 continues this trend, being fairly undistinguished from the original Super Mario Galaxy. Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World go back to the roots of the Mario series, and are literally just “get to the end of the stage” levels, with each level unlocking the next one on the world map, similar to Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World. The only difference is that the levels themselves give Mario an extra dimension to move around in, being 3D games rather than 2D games. And then Super Mario Odyssey goes back to the roots of the 3D series with more wide-open areas to explore and collectibles (Power Moons) to be collected.
So, naturally, this results in some controversy. Are these Mario games? The gameplay is completely different to that of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World, the three games that we’ve established as being (mostly) uncontroversially in the series.
And yet? Almost everyone includes these as main Mario games. Why? Well, it’s mostly because it’s not really clear what these games would be if they’re not main Mario games. The fact that Super Mario 64 was one of the most successful video games ever made also probably helped. It introduced basically so many concepts that we take for granted today. It was the first game to use an analog stick and the first to have a player-controlled camera. Super Mario 64 taught the world how to make a 3D platformer in the same way that Super Mario Bros. taught the world how to make a 2D platformer.
Because of this, most people say that Super Mario 64 is the definitive 3D Mario experience. And so naturally, everything that follows it counts as a main Mario game too.
But does it?
As I said, the gameplay in the 3D Mario games isn’t really consistent in itself. Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Odyssey are all 3D collect-a-thon games. These are usually considered to be the main 3D Mario games, and so the others are sometimes (but not often) excluded. Some people also include the Galaxy games and/or the 3D Land/World games. Most people just include all of them though.
There’s also another argument you could make. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is literally using the same engine as Super Mario Galaxy. There’s very little that distinguishes one from the other, besides the level layout. It’s essentially a Super Mario Galaxy ROM hack. So should it be excluded on those grounds? Some people say yes, but this is an uncommon viewpoint to have.
And you can make the same argument with Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World. They have the same gameplay, but with different levels. Now interestingly, despite Super Mario 3D Land coming first, it is usually considered that Super Mario 3D World is the “true” version of the game, and 3D Land is the knock-off of it. Why? Because Super Mario 3D Land was never available on a Nintendo console. It was only available on a Nintendo handheld.
I don’t think that this is a strong argument, especially now that the Switch exists, which makes the distinction between consoles and handhelds extremely arbitrary. But nonetheless, it is an argument that you could make.
The other big sub-series to consider is the New Super Mario Bros. series. This includes New Super Mario Bros. (2006, DS), New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009, Wii), New Super Mario Bros. 2 (2012, 3DS), and New Super Mario Bros. U (2012, Wii U). This series features gameplay identical to that of the original 2D platformers, just brought into the modern-day world. Though the games are unquestionably more similar to each other than to the NES and SNES games of old.
Though, again, we need to debate whether or not handheld games count. Two of these four games are only available on handhelds, and not on consoles.
All right. Most of those arguments were pretty weak. For the most part, we can accept all these games. There are now 14 different Super Mario games: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Super Mario 3D Land, New Super Mario Bros. 2, New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario 3D World, and Super Mario Odyssey.
Now we get to the games where the controversy is actually significant.
So, first and foremost, you probably noticed a fairly obvious gap in my list. I listed Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3, but not Super Mario Bros. 2. So why is that?
Well, there are two completely different games with the name “Super Mario Bros. 2”. Due to the popularity of the first Super Mario Bros. game, a sequel was inevitable, so Nintendo released a follow-up game called Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan. The game is a ROM hack of the original Super Mario Bros., and it plays exactly like one, with level design that is seemingly intentionally designed to try and harm the player character. There are so many cruel jokes that this game plays on you. It is brutal, and is unquestionably one of the hardest Mario games ever released. Due to this, the game was not a good fit for the western market. So Nintendo looked for a different game to give the international audiences, and Super Mario Bros. 2 would be Japan-only. They later found a somewhat obscure Japan-only game called Doki Doki Panic, and just re-skinned it to include Mario characters instead, releasing it as Super Mario Bros. 2 internationally. They also released the Mario version of Doki Doki Panic in Japan as well, under the name “Super Mario USA”. Years later, when they were remaking the Mario games, the international audiences finally got to experience the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 under the name “Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels”.
To avoid confusion, I’m going to refer to these games solely by their non-SMB2 titles. So the games are Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (1986, FDS) and Super Mario USA (1988, NES). Technically speaking, the American Super Mario Bros. 2 and the Japanese Super Mario USA are different games, but the differences are EXTREMELY minute and not really any more significant than any other Famicom game and its NES counterpart. Literally the only reason to say that these are different games is if you want to be annoying. Like... okay. The title screen is different, to include the new title. Whoop-de-doo.
Most people say that both The Lost Levels and Mario USA are main Mario games. They both count. But if you have to only include one of them and not the other, more people would say that The Lost Levels is the true second Mario game. Which makes sense, because its gameplay is identical to that of the original Super Mario Bros. By comparison, Super Mario USA features a completely different gameplay engine, given that, well, it was originally Doki Doki Panic. In this game, rather than running around, stomping on enemies, and collecting powerups, the gameplay is more so built around carrying objects from one part of the level to another, such as getting a key to a locked door. Additionally, the gameplay is built around using four different characters with slightly different abilities, so that each playthrough of a level can be made different just by changing who you choose to play as (Mario is the “average” character, Luigi moves slower but jumps higher, Toad moves faster but doesn’t jump as high, and Peach is both slow and a poor jumper but has the ability to hover in the air for a short time). Though later Mario games (most notably Super Mario 3D World) would embrace this as well, it would take a while to get there. But comparing Super Mario Bros. to Super Mario USA? Pretty much the only thing these games have in common is that they’re platformers with the same set of characters.
Interestingly, Nintendo of America’s official website says that Super Mario USA is a main Mario game, but Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is not. Meanwhile, Super Mario Wiki, Wikipedia, and Nintendo of Japan’s website all take the more commonly held belief that both of them count. I think this is just because Nintendo of America never released Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels until remakes started coming out, so from their perspective, The Lost Levels never happened. Hence why the levels are considered to be “lost”.
Though they have remade the game a bunch in America. It was included in Super Mario All-Stars on SNES and Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on Game Boy Color, as well as being on Virtual Console on the Wii, the 3DS, and the Wii U, and on Nintendo Switch Online. And many more. So it’s not like an American would have never heard of this game, you know?
So... now let’s talk about the Mario Land games: Super Mario Land (1989, Game Boy) and Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins (1992, Game Boy). The gameplay of these games is fairly similar to Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World, respectively, albeit with a LOT of compromises to make them work on a handheld at the time. The hardware of the Game Boy just wasn’t powerful enough to handle this.
It’s difficult to put into words how these games “feel” if you’ve never played them yourself. But if you do play them, they do feel very different than the Mario games that were released on consoles. And that brings us back to the whole “do handhelds count?” question from earlier. On top of that, the first Super Mario Land game was one of the first Game Boy games ever made, and it REALLY shows. There’s a lot of stuff here that feels... off. Finally, look at the release dates of these games. Super Mario Land came out in between Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World in Japan. And you’ll recall that in Japan, the name of Super Mario World is Super Mario Bros. 4. If Super Mario Land was meant to be included in the main Mario series, then surely it would be Super Mario Bros. 4 and Super Mario World would be Super Mario Bros. 5, right? Similarly, in America, Super Mario Land was released between Super Mario Bros. 2 (Super Mario USA) and Super Mario Bros. 3, again messing with the numbering system.
And then there’s Wario.
Wario is a Mario character who first appeared in Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins. He’s the main antagonist that Mario is fighting in this game. But then after that, Nintendo made a game called Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1993, Game Boy), where you play as Wario as the protagonist and go around trying to get your greedy hands on as much treasure as you can. This was followed up by further games in this genre, Wario Land II, Wario Land 3, Wario Land 4, and so on. The gameplay is pretty different, and I think it’s safe to say that these don’t count as Mario games. Not to mention that Mario doesn’t even appear in these games at all. But if we exclude Wario Land, which has the subtitle “Super Mario Land 3”, then must we also exclude the first two Super Mario Land games? You could make that argument.
The argument especially holds for Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, since the storyline of the original Wario Land picks up right where Super Mario Land 2 left off. However, if you compare Super Mario Land with Super Mario Land 2, it’s very clear that the gameplay of the latter is far closer to the gameplay of the other Super Mario Bros. games than the former is.
Basically, these games are pretty controversial, though the most common belief is that the first two Mario Lands count, but Wario Land does not. Wario Land, despite carrying the moniker “Super Mario Land 3” is nothing like the original two Mario Lands in terms of gameplay, and is indeed far closer to the series of Wario Land games that it started. It honestly feels like the name “Super Mario Land 3” is just there to help drive sales.
So... what other games can we talk about? Well, the most recent game that may or may not be in the Super Mario Bros. series is Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (2021, Switch). This game is a two-in-one pack of Super Mario 3D World, which we’ve already discussed (though this is a port of the game for Switch, the original version was on the Wii U), and Bowser’s Fury.
So what’s Bowser’s Fury? It’s a game that features the same engine as Super Mario 3D World, with the same power-ups and the same controls. You play as Mario and go around collecting Cat Shines. Unlike Super Mario 3D World, this is a game that is based more on collecting objects than clearing levels, similar to Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Odyssey. However, this two-in-one pack is the ONLY way to get Bowser’s Fury. It does not exist as a standalone game. The only way to purchase it is to get it bundled with Super Mario 3D World for the Switch.
So if a game must exist as a standalone title, then Bowser’s Fury doesn’t count. Despite this, the gameplay is clearly distinct from Super Mario 3D World. It’s very similar to how there’s an NES cartridge that includes both Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt on it. You’re getting two wildly different games for the price of one. The only difference is that Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt were also available as two separate cartridges as well. The same cannot be said for Bowser’s Fury.
And yeah, Bowser’s Fury does use the same engine as Super Mario 3D World, but the gameplay is still totally unique. It’s a lot more different than Super Mario Galaxy 2 is from Super Mario Galaxy, or Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is from Super Mario Bros.
And then that brings us to New Super Luigi U (2013, Wii U). Oh boy. So, in 2013, they released DLC for New Super Mario Bros. U. This DLC was essentially a full game (named New Super Luigi U) where you played as Luigi instead of Mario. It had totally different levels and also different game physics, to reflect Luigi’s “slipperiness”. Later in 2013, they released a physical disc for the Wii U that had this game on it, allowing you to buy it without New Super Mario Bros. U. And then, later, still in 2013, they released a two-in-one bundle New Super Mario Bros. U + New Super Luigi U (2013, Wii U), which included both games on one disc. Then, a few years later, they released a port of this bundle for the Switch, called New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (2019, Switch).
As an aside, I really hate this title. The game is not “new” if it’s a port of an existing game, it includes several playable characters that aren’t the Mario Bros. (you can play as Mario, Luigi, Toad, Toadette, or Nabbit - only the first two are the Mario Bros.), and the word “U” implies that it’s for the Wii U, when it’s actually for the Switch.
So, which of these games, if any, count as main Mario games? The divide between NSLU and NSMBU is not as vast as the divide between 3D World and Bowser’s Fury. The only differences between NSLU and NSMBU are that the game has different levels and different physics. It even has the same storyline and the same world map! The one thing that NSLU has in its favor that Bowser’s Fury doesn’t is that NSLU is available as a standalone game.
Some people do consider original new levels to be enough to differentiate between the games. After all, that’s the very difference between the two Galaxy games, or between the original Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels, right? Well, yeah. But NSLU and NSMBU do have more similarities than those other examples. The fact that they have the same exact storyline and world map (due to one of these games being DLC for the other) is a pretty major strike against NSLU. And while there are SOME new features in Galaxy 2 and The Lost Levels, such as Galaxy 2 featuring Yoshi in a 3D game for the first time, or The Lost Levels having levels that make use of wind or poisonous mushrooms, New Super Luigi U offers no new items or power-ups or anything. Just new physics and a new set of levels. Is that enough? It’s hard to say.
The other argument against New Super Luigi U is that you play as Luigi and not Mario, so therefore it’s not a Mario game, but a Luigi game instead. I feel that this argument holds no water whatsoever. Unlike Wario Land, which was based on the argument that playing as Wario and not Mario excludes the game, the gameplay of NSLU is much closer to the original Mario games than Wario Land ever was. In fact, it’s so similar that the debate of whether NSLU should be counted or not is based on whether it even counts as the same game as NSMBU or not.
So, between New Super Mario Bros. U, New Super Luigi U, New Super Mario Bros. U + New Super Luigi U, and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which of them are Mario games? I dunno. At this point, you can draw your own conclusions. Though I think, at most, you can only include two games here. Unless you consider remakes in general to count, then you’d include all four.
Nintendo of Japan and Nintendo of America’s website, interestingly, says that New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe are the ones that count. I don’t understand why you’d include New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe but not the two-in-one Wii U game that it’s a port of. But whatever.
So, overall, New Super Luigi U and Bowser’s Fury are very heavily debated about whether they should count or not, given that they are incomplete without New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario 3D World, respectively, though New Super Luigi U is available separately.
And now let’s get into another controversial game: Super Mario 64 DS (2004, DS).
This is a remake of Super Mario 64, but for the DS. I’m sure you worked that out from the title. The thing is... other than the level design, there’s not much here that’s from the original Super Mario 64. And even there, there’s a lot of differences. Super Mario 64 is one of, if not the, most over-analyzed video games ever made. There’s huge amounts of works all about the various nuances of the game, with practically every single line of code being broken down. The only other games that come close to the level of analysis that Super Mario 64 has are Minecraft and Super Mario Odyssey, and even then, I think Super Mario 64 beats both of those. And yet, almost every Super Mario 64 expert will tell you that Super Mario 64 DS is nothing like the original Nintendo 64 title. No lines of code were reused and the whole game was rebuilt from scratch.
Not to mention that there’s significantly more areas to explore, more Power Stars to collect, and even more characters to play as (you can play as Yoshi, Mario, Luigi, or Wario, each with their own set of abilities. By comparison, the original game featured only Mario). There’s also a few Power Stars, though not many, that are only in the original Nintendo 64 version and not the DS remake, in order to make room for all the new content. And they also updated the graphics and sound and such. Along with several new mechanics, such as the Power Flowers and the like.
So even if you consider remakes to not count, you can make a very compelling argument that Super Mario 64 DS is the exception to that rule. There’s enough new content here to consider it its own game. Far more so than the differences between New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, in any case.
And if we continue down the remake rabbit hole, we next come to Super Mario All-Stars (1993, SNES) and Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (1999, GBC), and the Super Mario Advance series. We will discuss each of these in turn.
So, first up is Super Mario All-Stars. This is a SNES game that remakes the classic NES games, but with SNES graphics and sound effects. It includes four games in one: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Super Mario USA, and Super Mario Bros. 3. Notably, this is the first time that anyone outside Japan could play The Lost Levels.
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe is a Game Boy Color game that includes both Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Pretty much everything is left intact with no changes, but the screen is super zoomed in to enable you to see, given that the Game Boy Color had a smaller screen than a TV, which makes the games much harder. There are some gameplay tweaks here and there, but for the most part, if you’ve played the original NES games, you’ve played this. They did add a world map (something that wouldn’t exist until Super Mario Bros. 3) and the ability to save your game anytime you want though.
In addition, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe also includes other stuff. There's "Challenge Mode", where you explore the same levels of these games, trying to find various collectibles such as Red Coins or Yoshi Eggs. And then there's the "You VS Boo" mode, where you race against a Boo through the levels. These Boos play by different gameplay rules than Mario does, so beating them can be challenging. There's also "VS Game", which is a two-player race through the levels, similar to You VS Boo, except with another human player instead, and you're both playing as the Mario Bros. (which have no gameplay differences between them). The VS game also includes blocks you can use to complicate the levels for your opponent. The game also includes a fortune-telling minigame, a calendar, and a few other bonus toys that are pretty much just as ignorable.
Then we come to the Super Mario Advance series. This series includes Super Mario Advance (2001, GBA), Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 (2001, GBA), a third game that we’ll get back to later, and Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (2003, GBA).
Super Mario Advance is a remake of Super Mario USA, Super Mario Advance 2 is a remake of Super Mario World, and Super Mario Advance 4 is a remake of Super Mario Bros. 3. However, calling these games “remakes” is generous. They are literally exact copies of the versions on Super Mario All-Stars (or, in Super Mario World’s case, just the SNES game that it was originally). There is next to no difference between the GBA versions and the SNES versions of these games. They just added voice acting for the characters (who were originally silent) and downgraded the music a bit to get it to work on a handheld.
There is SOME new content here, but not a lot. For example, in Super Mario World, each level has five Dragon Coins hidden throughout that you can find. This was retroactively added to Super Mario USA as well in Super Mario Advance, with each level now including five Ace Coins in a similar manner. They also tweaked the level design slightly to make these games easier, though it’s hardly noticeable unless you really do an in-depth look at them.
There is, however, one exception. In Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (boy, what a title), the game did add quite a lot of new content, albeit in a very roundabout way. So, the GBA had an accessory called an e-Reader. It could read data off of various cards. They made some cards that, when scanned, would add new levels to the game. Very few people played these levels, because the e-Reader was so abysmally unpopular. Heck, it never released in Europe at all, because it was cancelled before such a thing could happen. And also a lot of the cards that you need if you wanted to get all the levels were only released in Japan, limiting these levels further. That said, they are quite fun, and many cheat codes and hacks exist to allow you to access these levels without the cards.
SMA4 was also released on the Wii U Virtual Console, with these levels already included from the get-go, eliminating the need for the e-Reader and allowing many players to play these levels for the first time.
So does the existence of new levels count as enough to warrant a new entry onto the list of main Mario games? Remember, this is the same argument that New Super Luigi U is hanging onto.
And that brings up a great question: how different do two games have to be from one another to be considered separate games? If you draw a line, with new games on one end and remakes on the other, you would have to list the games roughly in the order of Super Mario Galaxy 2, The Lost Levels, Bowser’s Fury, Luigi U, Advance 4, 64 DS, Super Mario Deluxe, All-Stars, Advance, Advance 2, and New Super Mario Deluxe. But where exactly is the line that separates the games that count from the games that don’t? It’s very subjective.
And yeah, if it wasn’t clear, Super Mario Advance and Super Mario Advance 2 don’t have as much arguing in favor of them being separate games as Super Mario Advance 4 does.
And now we come to the third game in the Super Mario Advance series: Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (2003, GBA). This is a remake of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (1995, SNES). The remake does include a few extra levels that were not present in the original, though not many. For the most part, it’s just the same SNES game, like the rest of the Super Mario Advance series.
So, let’s talk about this game. In this game, you play as Yoshi. The game, despite being called “Super Mario World 2”, has very little to do with Super Mario World. The only connection is that Yoshi made his debut in Super Mario World. Yoshi’s Island is actually a prequel to the Super Mario Bros. series, taking place while Mario is a baby. Yoshi carries Baby Mario on his back through a series of levels. The gameplay is wildly different. They’re both platformers, but Yoshi’s Island is about making Yoshi Eggs and using them in certain situations. Resource management is key. Also, the whole “explore everywhere if you want five Dragon Coins” from Super Mario World has been expanded greatly, with each level in Yoshi’s Island including 30 Stars, 20 Red Coins, and 5 Flowers to collect. These aren’t mandatory and only increase your score, just like the Dragon Coins from Super Mario World. Though getting a high score lets you unlock extra levels to play.
So does this count as a main Mario game? Well, it is called “Super Mario World 2”, and Super Mario World is pretty unambiguously a main Mario game. Also Shigeru Miyamoto counts it as one. But both Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan exclude it from their websites, as does Super Mario Wiki, but not Wikipedia, who does include it. On top of that, much like Wario Land, Yoshi’s Island spawned a whole new series of Yoshi games, with gameplay similar to Yoshi’s Island. These include Yoshi’s Island DS, Yoshi’s New Island, and many others.
Given this, there are five possible options. Option one: Yoshi’s Island is not a Mario game because it is a Yoshi game. Option two: The other Yoshi games are Yoshi games, but since this carries the “Super Mario World 2” name, this particular one is a Mario game. Option three: Yoshi’s Island counts as both a Mario game and a Yoshi game, since there’s compelling evidence for each case, and there’s no reason it can’t be both. Option four: There is no Yoshi series, and all Yoshi games are, in fact, Mario games. Option five: Yoshi’s Island is a Yoshi game, and given that it carries the “Super Mario World 2” name, this means that Super Mario World is a Yoshi game as well. These are listed in decreasing order of popularity, though there is no clear consensus at all.
Option five is by far the least common, and it’s basically the one argument that you can make that Super Mario World shouldn’t count as a Mario game. Remember when I said I’d get back to that later? Well, it’s later now. As I said, this argument is very uncommon, so I don’t count it.
And now let’s talk about Wario Land again. Because here’s the thing. These five options could just as easily apply there too. Wario Land is a sequel to Super Mario Land 2, but it had its own unique gameplay and it also started its own line of games, just like Yoshi’s Island. And yet, the two games are often analyzed differently. Remember how I just said that you could argue against Super Mario World being a Mario game, but this is uncommon? Well, it’s far more common with Wario Land being used to argue that the Super Mario Land games don’t count.
Of course, there’s no reason why you have to analyze the two the same way. I think it ultimately comes down to Yoshi’s Island being more popular and overall higher-quality than Wario Land. As a game, more people played it and enjoyed it. And likewise based on the games that they share their titles with. More people played and enjoyed Super Mario World than Super Mario Land 2. But still, when making a numbered list of Mario games, know that you can analyze these games basically however you want.
The next game to analyze is Super Mario Maker (2015, Wii U). This is a game that lets you make your own levels based on those of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. U.
Does this count? It does have traditional 2D Mario platforming gameplay, and new levels, but, of course, that’s because you make the levels yourself. The focus isn’t on playing levels, it’s on making levels. Hence the title. But the game does come with a small handful of “sample courses”. So you can make the argument that this is a full-fledged Mario game, and it just includes a level editor. You can play this game and never once make your own level, nor download a level made by anyone else. Though the sample courses are incredibly simplistic and there are very few of them, so you’d be fighting an uphill battle with that argument.
There is a sequel called Super Mario Maker 2 (2019, Switch). This game adds a few more elements that you can add to your levels, adds multiplayer support, and puts the game on a far more successful console.
However, in SMM2, there’s far more “default” levels, and they are arranged together in what the game jokingly calls a “Story Mode”. So does this count? And while we’re on the topic, there is actually a third Mario Maker game.
Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS (2016, 3DS) is a port of Super Mario Maker. It’s a significant downgrade. While you can make and play your own levels, you cannot upload the levels you create to the internet. You can only download levels that people made from the Wii U version of the game. Though in 2021, Nintendo made it impossible to upload any further levels on the Wii U version as well (likely to promote the sales of the sequel). So this argument could hold for both versions of this game now.
However, there is one thing that’s in SMM3DS that isn’t in SMM. And that’s the Super Mario Challenge. This is a collection of 100 levels made by Nintendo. Unlike the sample courses of SMM and the Story Mode of SMM2, these levels are fully fleshed out and feel like full Mario levels and not just basic ideas (though they were made using Super Mario Maker’s course creation tools). So if you consider new levels to be the distinguishing factor between two games, then SMM3DS must be a separate game. But, of course, that misses the point of Mario Maker. This trio of games is about making your own levels, and playing levels that other people have uploaded online. The default courses that are included in the game are not really the point of playing the game.
The next game we’ll be looking at is Super Mario Run (2016, iOS). All official sources say that this is a main Mario game, but almost everyone in the Mario fandom is unanimously against it. So why is that?
Well, the gameplay is not the same as the other games. Yes, Mario does jump and run through various levels, but the game is an auto-runner, not a basic platformer. Auto-runners are popular on mobile devices and on no other actual game systems. Their main appeal is that they can be played with a single button (touching the touch screen).
But does genre matter? I mean, the Mario Maker games are creation tools, not platformers, and okay, sure, I excluded them. But plenty of people do include them. Still, what about Super Mario 64? That game is pretty commonly included, and it’s a collect-a-thon, not a 2D platformer. So what gives? Well, perhaps auto-runners are just too different to everything else by comparison.
Also, remember when I was dismissive of handhelds and whether or not they count? Well, that argument applies here too. And even more so, because not only is this game not on a console, it’s not on a Nintendo platform at all. It’s a mobile game. Also there’s no way to buy the game physically. It exists only as a digital game.
Because of this, there are a lot of arguments against Super Mario Run. The big one is that it’s unavailable on Nintendo hardware, but there’s plenty of others.
And on that topic, let’s look at Super Mario Bros. Special (1986, PC-8801). This game was made by HudsonSoft, licensed by Nintendo. It’s a relic of an era when Nintendo wasn’t as protective of the Mario name as they are today. The game plays like Super Mario Bros., but with original level designs. Though saying that it plays like Super Mario Bros. is... a bit of a stretch. It’s really glitchy and janky, as you’d expect from the hardware it’s on.
So you can make the argument that, like Mario Land, this is just a game that is meant to be like Mario, but fails due to hardware limitations. Though unlike Mario Land, this game was not made by Nintendo. But does that matter? Who cares who owns the building the game was made in? That’s not how art works. Nintendo may own the legal copyright on Mario, but corporations don’t make games. People make games, and people are merely employed by corporations. That said, none of the people who worked on Super Mario Bros. Special also worked on Super Mario Bros.
But going by that logic, very few games are Mario games. The credits of Super Mario Bros. only list two people as “programmers”: Toshihiko Nakago and Kazuaki Morita. The former worked on Super Mario Bros., The Lost Levels, Mario USA, Mario 3, Mario World, All-Stars, and 64 DS. The latter worked on Super Mario Bros., The Lost Levels, Mario USA, Mario 3, Mario World, All-Stars, and Yoshi’s Island. So if we’re saying that only these games count, then there hasn’t been a new Mario game since 2004.
Well, kind of. Toshihiko Nakago is credited as “level design adviser” for NSMB2 and NSMBU. I don’t know what this entails, but I don’t think that counts as being a programmer.
And if we look at Shigeru Miyamoto, the director and producer of the original Mario game, then the last new Mario game was Mario 64. After that, he’s just been a producer, supervisor, or creator of the game concept.
So clearly, we can’t use the fact that Super Mario Bros. Special doesn’t have the same people who made it to specifically exclude it. The big thing going against it is, therefore, the fact that the hardware you play it on is not a Nintendo system.
But isn’t that just a weird and arbitrary distinction?
Honestly, the main thing to focus on is that the game doesn’t “feel” like a Mario game. The way it plays is just... really janky. Theoretically, if Nintendo had given the license to a different developer than HudsonSoft, and that developer actually successfully captured what made the original Super Mario Bros. a good game, we’d be having a different conversation right now, and I’d be trying to include the game rather than exclude it.
On the topic of non-Nintendo hardware, let’s talk about the CD-i. This was a game system made by Philips. It was originally a joint effort by Nintendo and Philips to make a CD add-on for the SNES, but Nintendo scrapped it. Philips, however, continued to develop it without Nintendo, eventually releasing it under their own name as a standalone console. They still had the rights to use some Nintendo characters, so the CD-i did include a Tetris game, three Zelda games, and, of course, a Mario game.
Hotel Mario is the CD-i game. Like every CD-i game, it is laughably bad. It has animated cutscenes that have been immortalized through YouTube Poops. And there’s basically nothing enjoyable about it. The gameplay is similar to the arcade games that Mario was in before Super Mario Bros. came out on the NES. Some people include Hotel Mario as a main Mario game as a joke, but I don’t think anyone includes it seriously. It’s just a meme.
That said, there is another Mario CD-i game... kind of. That game is Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds (unreleased, CD-i). This game was going to be a full sequel to Super Mario World, featuring similar gameplay, but with new items, enemies, and levels. It was cancelled in 1993 and never released. If you dig around, you can find a ROM of a pre-alpha build of the game that’s full of glitches, and is largely incomplete. Does this count as a Mario game?
Well... does a game need to exist in order to count? I would say yes. So therefore, Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds does not count. But if we are including nonexistent games, then there are a couple of other games that we need to talk about. VB Mario Land (unreleased, Virtual Boy) and Super Mario 64 2 (unreleased, 64DD). Much like Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds, these games probably would have been full Mario games if they were released, but they weren’t, so they aren’t.
And that’s just the ones we know about. There’s probably loads more games that don’t exist, since Nintendo tends to not be forthcoming with information. So I’d say that a game must exist in order to count.
Which brings us to Super Mario Bros. 35 (2020, Switch). Does this count?
This game does not exist. It did exist at one point in time, but it doesn’t anymore. It was an online multiplayer battle royale version of Super Mario Bros. made to celebrate Mario’s 35th anniversary. The game was taken offline and made impossible to play in April 2021.
So, is there a difference between this game and those unreleased games that I mentioned? I mean, sure, it existed at one point. But it is impossible to play currently. Meanwhile those other games were never possible at all, because they never once existed. The other mark against Super Mario Bros. 35 is that it is just an alternate version of the original Super Mario Bros., being played as a battle royale game. It’s not an original game.
The next game to cover is Super Mario 3D All-Stars (2020, Switch). Much like Super Mario Bros. 35, this is a game that was made for the 35th anniversary of the series, and was made unavailable for purchase in April 2021. Unlike Super Mario Bros. 35, though, the game does still exist. Anyone who bought it while the game was still available can still play it. And you can also buy used copies on the second-hand market for way too much money (seriously, it’s absurd how much people are asking for it).
This game is a three-in-one collection of Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy. And if you consider remakes to count, then you should include this. Yeah, you can’t buy it from Nintendo anymore, but that’s the case for all the old NES games from the 80s too.
This brings us to BS Super Mario USA (1996, Satellaview). This is a Japan-only game for the Satellaview. The Satellaview was a Japan-only add-on to the Super Famicom. It allowed you to tune in to games being broadcast over a satellite radio station and download games to play. Because it can only download what is currently being broadcasted, each game was only available for a limited time. BS Super Mario USA is an updated version of Super Mario USA that takes advantage of this format. It was released in four parts over the course of April 1996. The gameplay is mostly identical to the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario USA, but with better music and voice acting being played over the radio. Additionally, there was a radio drama happening during this, and things could happen in the radio drama that would affect your gameplay, producing events that could help or hurt the player as the game is played. It’s honestly such a wild idea. It actually sounds like a lot of fun, so it’s a shame that there’s no way to play it nowadays. In fact, this is the case for every Satellaview game. None of them have resurfaced at all.
And there was one other Satellaview Mario game: BS Super Mario Collection (1997, Satellaview). This was released in 1997 through 1998. It included the rest of the games in Super Mario All-Stars, besides Super Mario USA. These included Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Much like BS Super Mario USA, these are just the same games as they were in Super Mario All-Stars, but with the addition of new music and voice acting, as well as gameplay elements based on the radio drama.
So, these fall into the same camp as Super Mario Bros. 35. They were possible to play at one point, but they aren’t anymore. Did these games count as main Mario games at the time that it was possible to play them? If so, then should they still be counted? I mean, you could argue that remakes in general shouldn’t count, so these don’t count, regardless of whether they exist or not.
But do remakes count? Remember, Nintendo considers New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe to count. So surely there’s more to it than that. And that brings us back to the question of: “how much new content needs to be added to a game for it to count as a new game?”. And there’s no clear answer to that question, it’s a subjective scale.
Oh, and we’re still not done with Super Mario All-Stars. Sure, I talked about the original SNES game, the Satellaview version that is very obviously based on it, and the Super Mario Advance series that is also very obviously based on it. But there’s more.
Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World (1994, SNES) is a SNES game that adds Super Mario World to the list of games that you can choose from when playing Super Mario All-Stars. And Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition (2010, Wii) is a Wii game that, if you look at the game’s code, it’s literally just a SNES emulator with a copy of a Super Mario All-Stars ROM on it. Yes, really.
The nature of remakes is complicated. A lot of franchises, when they remake their games, tend to do things like, you know, update graphics and sounds and what-not. Bring it into the modern era. Mario, in general, does not. All of their remakes just keep the original games preserved as-is, with Super Mario 64 DS and Super Mario All-Stars being the only exceptions to that.
Though, as previously mentioned, other people can draw the line in other places.
There’s Virtual Console and Nintendo Switch Online, which, of course, are not separate games. They just let you play games for older consoles on modern hardware, like an emulator (except that you pay for it).
There’s also Classic NES Series: Super Mario Bros. (2004, GBA) and Famicom Mini: Super Mario Bros. 2 (2004, GBA), which are GBA ports of the original Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels, respectively, with the latter being Japan-only. These are just the same games as the NES/Famicom versions of these games, with no differences whatsoever. The only change is that you can now play it on a GBA. Even the original glitches are preserved.
And these are far from an isolated example. These games have had an absurd number of remakes and ports. Super Mario Wiki lists a whopping THIRTY-ONE different versions of Super Mario Bros., and I’m fairly certain that this list is incomplete. Most of these would not count as separate games, but there are a few that have strong arguments in favor of them. Shall we take a look?
VS. Super Mario Bros. (1986, arcade) appears to be an arcade version of the original Super Mario Bros. at first glance, but there’s more to it than that. The levels have received some minor tweaks to make them harder. Some levels from The Lost Levels are included instead of the original levels. And the levels are not in the same order that they were originally in. There’s also a new remix of the music that appears on the name entry screen, which has become fairly popular (although few people realize that this is where it’s from).
All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. (1986, FDS) is an officially-licensed ROM hack of The Lost Levels. It’s nearly-identical to the original except that some enemies have had their sprites replaced with faces of celebrities from the radio show All Night Nippon. Much like VS. Super Mario Bros., the levels are in a new order, there’s some minor tweaks to make them harder, and they come from both the original Super Mario Bros. and from The Lost Levels, though in this case there are more from The Lost Levels than the original game (VS. Super Mario Bros. had it the other way around).
And then we come to the most recently released version of this game. Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros. (2020, Game & Watch).
What is a Game & Watch? Well, the Game & Watch was a series of handhelds created by Nintendo from 1980 to 1991. These had LCD screens with very minor games in them, and could also be used as a watch. Much later, in 2020, Nintendo brought back the Game & Watch with new versions that actually had full-color video rather than LCD screens, and allowed people to play classic Mario and Zelda games on them. The Mario one in particular has Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels in it.
In contrast to Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros., there’s also Super Mario Bros. (1986, Game & Watch). This is one of the original Game & Watch games, and it’s an LCD game. Whether it’s even a video game or not is... debatable. I mean, shouldn’t a video game have, y’know, video? A Game & Watch doesn’t have video. (Well, okay, the new ones from 2020-onwards do, but the originals didn’t.)
Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch is a platformer (kinda, you use LCD, so where platforms are is predetermined based on the screen), and it stars Mario. But it is unambiguously a different game than the NES game it shares its title with.
Most people ignore the Game & Watch when discussing Nintendo’s history. They consider the NES to be the first Nintendo system. Which is a shame, the old Game & Watch handhelds do have some value. True, they aren’t video games (by my definition, anyways), but they’re still a lot of fun.
And if we go down this rabbit hole, then there’s also the Nelsonic Game Watch, which is a wristwatch that can play LCD games on it, and there was even a few for Mario-themed games. Literally nobody cares about them. It’s impossible to find any information about them online. But they exist. Going deeper, there’s also the McDonald’s Happy Meal watches, which also had LCD Mario-themed minigames on them.
There’s seemingly no end to the rabbit hole of obscure Mario games, but this post has to stop somewhere, so I will simply discuss one final game: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (2014, Wii U).
Super Mario 3D World is mostly a series of platforming levels, but there are some exceptions. A very small handful of levels featured a character named Captain Toad. Captain Toad cannot jump, so his ability to maneuver is limited. As such, these levels are based around puzzle-solving instead. Trying to figure out how to get from A to B with a limited set of options. The levels are played more with your critical thinking than your reflexes. This was popular enough that they later made a full game around this, and that’s what Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is.
So if Super Mario 3D World counts, should Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker count as well? And if so, then where do you draw the line? Lots of games include Mario characters in spinoff titles. I already mentioned Wario Land and Yoshi’s Island, but there’s also Super Princess Peach, Luigi’s Mansion, and so forth. The thing that makes Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker unique is that not only does it feature a character that debuted in a Mario game, but it features gameplay that debuted there as well.
Sure, in Super Mario 3D World, the Captain Toad levels were few and far between, but they did exist there.
There are plenty of other games that are in ambiguous situations, and a lot more rabbit holes that I could have gone down, but opted not to. As I said, I had to stop somewhere. If this post proves popular, I might make a follow-up, but I probably won’t. It would just list even more obscure games, and the arguments for and against each of them. Except that with the more obscure games, there are a lot more arguments against than for.
So, with all that said, let’s go back to the question I posed at the beginning of this: how many Mario games are there if we exclude spinoffs? If Nintendo had continued to number them, what number would they be on? Well, it’s incredibly subjective. So how many are main Mario games? However many you want. This series is up to interpretation.