The caveat when talking about the best Super Mario games is that there really is no bad Super Mario game. Over the course of three decades and more, Nintendo’s flagship series has seen its ups and downs, but even the blandest, most uninspired of the New Super Mario games still has the power to delight and excite. When the series is at its best, however, is when Nintendo’s knack for clever stage design and creative worlds shines through.
Our list of the best Super Mario games focuses on the series’ mainline entries, so there’s no Mario Maker or Super Mario RPG here.
New Super Mario Bros. 2
New Super Mario Bros. 2 suffers from an identity crisis. Where its predecessor revitalized 2D Mario for a new age, New 2… makes you collect coins. Millions of them. There’s not really a reason for it, and your reward for gathering them is basically nothing. New 2 doesn’t feature any notable improvements over the original’s stage design, has no use for 3D, and reuses the same few tunes far too often. This is the Mario series at its most confused, with no clear idea of what it should be or who it appealed to.
New Super Mario Bros.
New Super Mario Bros. was the first brand-new 2D Mario since Yoshi’s Island a decade earlier, though it didn’t quite recapture the majesty of Mario World or the original Super Mario Bros. A series of simple stages with trimmed-down platforming challenges characterize it, with few secrets and a handful of new power-ups that feel more like a gimmick than anything.
Take the highly-advertised Mega Mushroom, for example. Sure, it made Mario swole, but you also destroyed most of the stage and cut off access to underground and aboveground portions in the process. The DS game feels more like a prototype for something else, though it took almost another 10 years for that something else to finally materialize.
Super Mario Bros 2
If you’re familiar with Mario history, then you know the story behind this already. With The Lost Levels deemed too difficult for Western audiences, Nintendo took Doki Doki Panic, a quirky platformer with absolutely no Mario connections, put Mario characters in, and shipped it. The result is a unique, but unpolished experience with repetitive level design that, unsurprisingly, doesn’t feel like Mario.
It does have some creative innovations, though. It introduced the idea of playing as someone who isn’t Mario, which resurfaced later in Mario 64 DS and Super Mario 3D World, and it gave us a counterpart for Yoshi in the iconic Birdo.
Super Mario 3D Land
Mario 3D Land attempts something bold and new in its level design, with fun-sized stages that play like portions of Mario Galaxy repurposed for a handheld device. It’s one of the few 3DS games that makes strong use of the system’s stereoscopic 3D without feeling too gimmicky, though the same can’t be said for how the game plays.
The problem is those small stages often feel like they don’t have time to reach their full potential before 3D Land moves on to something else, a feeling made more pronounced by 3D World, which improves on practically everything Nintendo tries in 3D Land.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Mario Bros. Wii is a small step up in design from the DS and 3DS entries, but the real draw – aside from a handful of fun new power-ups, was the inclusion of multiplayer. The whole adventure might feel rather too familiar to anyone who played New Super Mario Bros. on the DS, but the added chaos of clearing courses with friends and, sometimes, hurling them to their doom makes it much more enjoyable.
Super Mario Land
Nintendo got weird with Super Mario Land, as the plumber bids the Mushroom Kingdom farewell and visits Sarasaland to save its princess, Daisy. Gunpei Yokoi’s development team handled this one and took an “everything and the kitchen sink” approach. Mario delves into pyramids, pilots a submarine, fights off aliens, and throws fireballs at living statues. It’s all very un-Mario like – and all the better for it.
Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels
You might know Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels was originally Super Mario Bros. 2, but Nintendo considered it too difficult for international audiences and kept it in Japan for decades. It’s pretty evident why the Big N thought this, too. The Lost Levels is full of brilliant stage design that forces you to make the most out of every move, but that’s also its biggest problem. Unlike the original Super Mario Bros. there’s a substantial barrier to enjoyment. Clearing even early stages requires careful precision, which easily – and often – turns the fun into something more frustrating.
New Super Mario Bros. U
The Wii U is where the New Mario series finally had a chance to shine, even if it was still stuck trying to recapture 2D Mario’s glory days. Nintendo tossed the simplistic level structure out and replaced it with a much more varied and interesting set of stages, all of which look substantially more appealing thanks to the Wii U’s power. Multiplayer returned, made more hectic and fun thanks to the added complexities in each level, and Mario could even turn into a flying squirrel. Is it groundbreaking? No, but it is adorable.
The Switch version even includes the grueling New Super Luigi U DLC with its harsher completion requirements and the green bro. as its hero.
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
Mario Land 2 introduces Wario, Mario’s greedy, thieving nemesis, for the first time and takes its predecessor’s strangeness to new levels. On Mario’s journey to collect the coins Wario stole, he travels through a turtle and a haunted forest, a factory, fights the three little pigs (because why not), and transforms into a super rabbit.
There’s a world map complete with secrets, just like in Mario’s console counterparts, and a surprisingly diverse chiptune soundtrack that gives a unique personality to each zone. Mario Land 2 sticks in the mind, in part because Nintendo never reached the same bizarre creative heights again, even with the Wario Land series that took over from Mario Land.
Bowser's Fury
Bowser’s Fury comes as a packaged add-on in Super Mario 3D World for the Switch, and it’s an exciting glimpse at what the future of Mario might look like. Bowser’s Fury plunks Mario down on a series of islands with no loading screens or disconnected areas and features some of the 3D series’ best platforming challenges. It’s a giant Mario playground, though the super-powered battles between Bowser and giant Cat Mario interrupt all too frequently and grow stale fast.
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario Sunshine might be my personal favorite, though even I can recognize its flaws. Isle Delfino is a brilliant setting with some of the series’ most memorable stage designs, vibrant designs, and a buoyant soundtrack. Nintendo turned hotels, beaches, and theme parks into sandboxes filled with secrets and clever, but brutal platforming challenges, and created a hub world that surpassed Peach’s castle in Mario 64 in terms of secrets and visual interest.
The problem is that Sunshine’s central mechanic – cleaning goop with a talking hose called FLUDD – isn’t particularly interesting, and, more problematic for a 3D platformer, the camera is often wonky and difficult to control.
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. on the NES is where it all began, and it’s a testament to the brilliance of its design that it holds up so well over 30 years later. Nintendo took the simple concept of jumping and built a masterpiece around it. Its challenges are tough, but (mostly) fair, there are secrets aplenty for those willing to look, and it was one of the first times the concept of movement was fun and exhilarating in itself and not just a way to get from point to point.
Sure, later games refined pretty much everything from the original, but it’s still a blast to play.
Super Mario 64
Super Mario 64 is the most significant evolution in the series and the fulfillment of what Nintendo promised in the original NES game. It effortlessly translates the thrill of classic Mario’s running and jumping into 3D and gives you an impressive range of new abilities to play with across its themed worlds and their challenging, but thrilling platforming puzzles. Those worlds and even Mario’s movement may seem dated and clunky now, but the influence they had on Nintendo and the broader games industry was immeasurable.
Super Mario 3D World
Super Mario 3D World seamlessly combines the 3D and 2D series and feels like a celebration of all things Mario. It brings back Mario 2’s character selection and drops the red-hatted hero and co. in an impressive variety of levels. Nintendo’s full creativity is on display in 3D World’s stages, which range from pristine pastures ideally suited to Cat Mario’s unique abilities to a festival in the sky, with the best and most devious stages waiting for you after the credits roll.
In between all this, 3D World builds on 3D Land’s attempts to downsize Galaxy-style courses into smaller puzzles. The blend of styles and inspirations, along with excellent pacing, makes 3D World feel like a greatest hits collection. It doesn’t innovate, but it doesn’t really have to either.
Super Mario Odyssey
Some call Mario Odyssey the true sequel to Mario 64, and it’s not hard to see why. This is, as Nintendo advertised heavily at the time, the series’ return to sandbox platforming. Our hero, equipped with a ghostly hat that lets him possess foes, travels to planets inspired by different cultures, where veritable truckloads of puzzles and obstacle courses await. These range from complex puzzles that alter the planet’s landscape to just finding the right spot on the ground to pound.
There’s a definite sense that Mario Odyssey tries to do a bit too much at times, as some challenges feel forgettable and inessential. However, with its gorgeous array of worlds, brilliant soundtrack, and a sense of joy that permeates the entire game, it’s hard to hold that against Odyssey.
Super Mario Galaxy
Mario might have visited space before, but Super Mario Galaxy made it and its weightlessness central to Nintendo’s next big platforming innovation. Mario Galaxy is an exciting, breathless rush through the cosmos as the mustachioed plumber leaps and twirls across planetoids with the help of some fun new powerups. There’s a hint of Nintendo’s later “throw everything in” approach to the series as well. Mario encounters cosmic ghost houses, swims with penguins on a beach planet, and even puts away his jumping boots for a stint as a honeycomb climber.
Equally as memorable is Mario Galaxy’s story with Rosalina at its center, a touching tale of abandonment and newfound families made all the more refreshing by how rare a proper narrative is in the series.
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Mario Galaxy 2 is more than just a set of leftover ideas from the original Galaxy that didn’t make the cut. Nintendo refined the new gravity-based platforming and included an excellent mix of puzzles, power-ups, and platforming challenges.
The worlds are more vibrant and visually interesting, and there’s a general sense that the team felt more confident in its work this time. Mario’s trusty reptilian steed even makes a comeback. The downside is there’s no interesting narrative hook – unsurprising for a Mario game, but noticeable after Mario Galaxy’s touching story about love and loss.
Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Bros. 3 introduced much of what became standard later in the series, from world maps and castles, to side-scrolling stages, unique power-ups, and more than one Koopa getting in Mario’s way. Nintendo tweaked what made the original so exceptional and somehow managed to improve it, with even better stage design and an added layer of verticality that puts Mario’s new abilities to good use. The world map and its events, random enemies, and secret passages make for a more immersive experience and give the Mushroom Kingdom a sense of place like it never had before.
The challenge level is still quite high, though it is, thankfully, not as cruel as The Lost Levels.
Super Mario World
Super Mario World is the Galaxy 2 to Super Mario Bros. 3, retaining and refining much of what makes Mario 3 special. Super Mario World has a better world map rife with secrets, new movement abilities for Mario, deviously designed castles in place of fortresses and airships, and a delightfully horrible set of bosses ruling each region that make for a notable step up in challenge compared to their more limited NES versions.
Mario visits a star world, navigates a haunted forest, and visits a land made entirely of chocolate, all populated by strange new enemies and brought to life with the Super Nintendo’s vibrant pixel art and soundtrack. Yoshi makes his debut in grand fashion, with several varieties of eggs Mario can hatch, each with their own unique abilities. Even better is that Mario World tones the overall difficulty down just a notch, making it the perfect entry point for platforming newcomers and those looking for a breezier time.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
