The 50 Greatest Mario Games

The gaming industry may owe a lot to the original Mario Bros., but let's be honest: it hasn't aged as well as other classic games in the series. It's in a totally different, much more arcadey class. So while it gets credit for originality, we're not going to be reminiscing about it like we do for the others.

The collaboration between Mario and Sonic is notable simply for the fact that a decade and a half ago, it would have seemed all but impossible. It may be little more than a collection of moderately entertaining mini-games, but Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games still gets credit for pure shock value.

During the NES days, Nintendo had a strange habit of releasing games that clearly starred Mario without branding them as such. Thus, we have gems like Wrecking Crew, which starred a Mario who couldn't even jump (weighed down as he was by that iconic hammer).

Yet another game that starred Mario but somehow neglected to put his name in the title, the Japan-only Famicom Grand Prix: F-1 Race is one of the predecessors to Super Mario Kart. Though not nearly as advanced as the game that would follow it five years later, it was still fun. It was even followed by a sequel: Famicom Grand Prix 2: 3D Hot Rally,which also failed to mention that it starred Mario (and Luigi!).

NES Open Tournament Golf was the first game in the Mario Golf series, though you'd only know that if you lived in Japan, where it was actually known as Mario Open Golf. It's also one of the more unintentionally sexist of the Mario titles, as only Mario and Luigi were actually allowed to golf—the Princesses Peach and Daisy were their caddies. Four!

You may be familiar with Nintendo's Picross games if you've played Picross 3D on the DS, but the Super Nintendo game Mario's Super Picross and its Game Boy predecessor Mario's Picross predate it by almost 15 years. It's an addictive puzzle game with some Mario charm, and it's a shame that it's never been released in English.

Mario Excite Bike, a slightly catchier nickname for the Japan-only title called Excitebike: Bun Bun Mario Battle Stadium, was simple a remake of Excite Bike with Mario characters like Mario, Luigi, Peach, Wario, Toad, and Koopa Troopas replacing the generic racers. But it also added a new mode with unlimited turbo and coins scattered around courses that raised racers' top speeds.

Mario Tennis Open isn't the best game in the tennis series, but it had the major advantage of coming out during a relative dry spell in the 3DS's library. Despite some missteps, it packed enough charm and fun to be considered a decent entry, and online multiplayer gave it an extra boost.

Mario Hoops 3-on-3 is, in some strange ways, a sequel to Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. That game was developed by Square in 1996, while Hoops was developed by Square Enix in 2006. Where Seven Stars took inspiration from Final Fantasy, Hoops included FF characters like Moogles, Cactuars, and White and Black Mages. It had some problems, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Ever since the days of Pokemon Pinball we've had a soft spot for themed pinball games, and Mario Pinball Land falls squarely in the same category: addictive and fun in short bursts, but ultimately frustrating simply because of the inescapable limits of pinball gameplay. Nevertheless, Mario Pinball Land was a unique title for the Game Boy Advance.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star wasn't the return to form that series fans were hoping for, but it's still extremely fun in its own right. Some of the sticker stuff may not work perfectly, but even so it's got more charm in one level than some games have in their entirety. And it's certainly one of the most enjoyable games on the 3DS.

Some people like to pretend that Super Mario Bros. 2 never even happened, given how different it is from every other game in the series. But while the legend that it was originally a different game, Doki Doki Panic, is completely true, what most critics don't know is that that game was actually designed by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto in the first place, making it as legit as anything other Mario game as far as we're concerned.

Mario Golf took the idea established by NES Open Tournament Golf to its illogical extremes, simplifying the realistic aspects of golf and focused instead on special abilities for the usual gang of Mario regulars. And like Mario Tennis, another N64 title, it was great fun in multiplayer.

The Mario Party series has the most entries of any Mario spin-off, but there are some notable ones to pick out, including Mario Party 6. It didn't change things up significantly from the first three games, but it did do some really interesting things with the microphone peripheral that hadn't been tried before. Then it made those things optional for those who didn't feel like singing or yelling in their living rooms.

Like its predecessor, the Game Boy's Super Mario Land 2 was developed without Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. And like the original Super Mario Land, 6 Golden Coins was still awesome. Mario's exploits on the Game Boy were more than worthy of his name, and 6 Golden Coins even featured the rare Magic Carrot power-up, which turned Mario into a hopping rabbit.

Mario's role-playing adventures in Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario were well-loved by fans, so it was logical for Nintendo to continue to explore this avenue on other platforms. Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga brought the Mario RPG action to the Game Boy Advance and let Luigi share the spotlight in an engrossing and well-written game.

Super Mario All Stars was the cartridge of choice for Mario fans in the mid 90s. Not only did it include every Super Mario game from the NES era, but the "lost levels" from the original Super Mario Bros. were in there as well, and some versions even included Super Mario World. If you owned a SNES and did have All-Stars, we feel sorry for you.

Mario Kart Wii won't go down in history as the best Mario Kart game, but it did make excellent use of motion controls with the included steering wheel peripheral. And for players who preferred more precision in their controls, it also included schemes for the Wii Remote by itself, the Remote with a Nunchuk, the Classic Controller, and the old Gamecube controller.

Somehow crazy powers, a boring sport and the Mario cast came together for an incredibly fun N64 title. It ranks up there with Goldeneye and Mario Kart as one of the best multiplayer games on the system. It's too bad no Mario Tennis title since has been able to capture that feeling quite as effectively.

The Mario and Luigi series of portable Mario RPGs has only gotten better with each entry, beginning with Superstar Saga and continuing in Partners in Time. Take the excellent writing and RPG formula of the series and add time travel, and the results can't be anything but awesome. Playing as Mario and Luigi and their baby counterparts in Mushroom Kingdom's past was an interesting choice, but it worked well. They even threw in some aliens called "Shroobs."

To fit Super Mario Land on the power-deficient Game Boy, Nintendo had to strip away much of the color and charm of other Super Mario titles. But what it left was the core of the series: fun platforming and excellent controls. Super Mario Land proved the perfect portable version of Mario in the early 90s—when you weren't planted in front of your TV, at least you could still be stomping Goombas somewhere, and it felt great.

Mario Party 9 gets major points for changing up a series that got extremely stale over more than eight previous entries. It threw away the rule book and put all the characters in one vehicle, traveling around the game boards together and competing for miniature stars instead of coins. And it worked surprisingly well, considering how different it was. It would have been even better if all the Wii Remote mini-games had worked, but oh well.

Mario's sports offerings continued to excel with Super Mario Strikers, which marked the first time Mario and his pals put on their cleats and picked up a soccer ball. Like the other Mario sports games, Strikers did away with realism in favor of power ups and special abilities that made the game more fun, especially in multiplayer.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis provided a much tighter puzzle experience than its predecessor, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, by allowing you to take direct control of the mini Marios on the DS's touchscreen. It's also special for marking the first appearance of Pauline since the original Donkey Kong.

New Super Mario Bros. U has several important distinctions. For one thing, it's the first Mario game in years that's launched alongside a new Nintendo console. Perhaps even more importantly, it's the first Mario game ever to appear in HD. As if that wasn't enough, the level design is excellent, the multiplayer is great, the Miiverse integration adds another layer to the experience, and the overworld design hasn't been this good since Super Mario World. If you have a Wii U, you need to have New Super Mario Bros. U.

Educational games were all the rage there for a while, and while most of them were shit (Oregon Trail notwithstanding), Mario Teaches Typing was definitely an exception. It managed to be fun while also teaching us a valuable life skill. We totally type stuff every day. Thanks, Mario Teaches Typing!

Whereas the third Paper Mario game featured radically different gameplay, the first sequel in the series simply took the well-written, RPG-lite mechanics and expanded on them in every way possible. Navigating the game world was a joy, and it featured the most well-rounded cast of characters of any Paper Mario game. It was also long as hell. Overall, highly recommended.

Back in 1990, everyone thought Mario was just a plumber with a hatred for turtles. But when Dr. Mario came out we realized there was more to him than we thought—he hated deadly viruses, too, and even though he chose to follow his destiny and become a plumber, he also had a PhD in puzzles. Dr. Mario rode the Tetris wave all the way to the bank, but unlike other passengers on Tetris's coattails, Dr. Mario was actually good. Plus Peach looked really cute as a nurse.

If only we were as creative as Mario Paint made us feel back in the day. The "game" came in an oversized box with the SNES mouse and a special mouse pad. Don't feel bad if you didn't even know there was a SNES mouse, because hardly any games used it outside of Japan. Mario Paint provided the tools for creating simple animations and music, and that's pretty much it. Yet for some reason, we loved it. Now here's hoping for a Wii U version!

Super Mario Sunshine is considered by some to be the odd-game-out in the 3D Mario series begun by Super Mario 64. Yet despite some issues (Yoshi's role is a joke), it also represents an important bridge between Mario 64's open world puzzle-solving and Mario Galaxy's linear platforming. Sunshine provided a fantastic mix of both styles. And the movement options provided by the F.L.U.D.D. cannon, like sliding nearly endlessly on Mario's belly, were a blast to use.

The 3DS is Nintendo's most powerful handheld to date, and Mario Kart 7 took full advantage of this to provide one of the most solid Mario Kart experiences ever. It has a perfect mix of old and new courses, tons of secrets, and probably the best online multiplayer—in terms of sheer quality and consistency—of any Nintendo game.

It's ironic that New Super Mario Bros. has "new" in the title, as more than anything else it was a throwback to a style of Mario game that hadn't been developed in around 15 years, since Super Mario World and Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Slightly boring level design aside, NSMB marked an important return to form for a series that some had become disillusioned with after Super Mario Sunshine. And these days, it's inconceivable that Mario wouldn't have consistent 2D offerings to go along with the 3D games like Galaxy.

Mario's undergone plenty of transformations and played countless roles, but first and foremost he was what he remains to be today: a rescuer of damsels in distress; a hero, even before he had a name. Despite the monkey's name on the title screen, Mario was the real star of Donkey Kong, which surely ranks among the top arcade games of all time. And it's the game that started it all.

The Mario Party series emerged during a time of great experimentation for Nintendo, when Mario was trying on all kinds of different hats, most of them related to sports. But the board game thing was totally new, and there's a reason why Mario Party games are still going strong today: they were, and remain, fun. Mario Party 2 did away with many of its predecessor's problems, including mini games that left us with palm blisters for weeks, yet provided all the devious multiplayer shenanigans that the series is great for.

If Donkey Kong is the game that started it all, then Super Mario Bros. is the game that started what's important. With impeccable level design of the type that only Mr. Miyamoto himself could deliver, Super Mario Bros. almost single-handedly saved the home video game market in the 80s. And thank goodness for that.

Paper Mario carried on a legacy begun by Super Mario RPG, and though its aesthetic changed its core values remained the same: solid RPG gameplay and humorous, high-quality writing. Oh, and that aesthetic? It's one of the most brilliant things Nintendo has come up with, and they continue to play with the idea of a world made of paper even in today (see Paper Mario: Sticker Star's foldable stacks of Toads, for example).

Nintendo spawned the kart racing genre with Super Mario Kart, and two full decades later its imitators still can't nail the same balance of fun, challenge and chaos that makes the series so accessible and engrossing. And though the Super Nintendo positively sucked at 3D, few other games of the time period (besides F-Zero) nailed the same sense of speed that Super Mario Kart's basic but charming gameplay conveyed.

Super Mario Bros. 3 may be the popular choice for greatest Mario game, but the honor here goes to Super Mario World. World injected Mario with a million gallons of technicolor paint, providing a far more attractive world than any previous game in the series had been able to. The graphics grabbed anyone who saw them and demanded that they play this game. And underneath that was the most solid combination of Mario mechanics and power-ups ever conceived, with the fire flower and cape feather providing perfect counterpoints to one another. And underneath that was the most varied and complex level design ever featured in the series, with secrets, shortcuts and mysteries everywhere. It was—and still is—the standard.