Portal: Mario

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Marioluigi.jpg
Mario
Developer Nintendo
Games List of all games
Debut Donkey Kong (1981)
Gallery GH Gallery
For information regarding helping the Gamehiker Wiki with this franchise, please refer to the Mario Brothers Project Page.

The Mario series (alternately referred to as Mario Brothers/Bros. or Super Mario) is an expansive video game franchise consisting of multiple subseries. These feature the heroic plumber Mario, who usually saves princesses and/or kingdoms from forces that are most commonly led by Bowser. Luigi is his brother who initially was created as someone for a second player to control, but later games have expanded his personality and given him more of a distinctive role, although his experiences have become infrequent.

The character of Mario takes his roots back in the original Donkey Kong game that first appeared in the arcades in 1981. Since then, Mario has grown to star in his own series of self-titled games. The main games are platforming adventures in 2-D and later 3-D styles, but there are also several spinoff series ranging from sports, RPGs, party games, and independent games for other characters such as Yoshi, Wario and Peach.

History

Origins and Early Games

The franchise itself is the brainchild of Shigeru Miyamoto, and though most of the games in the franchise are made without him, he has remained the guiding hand for all of the games in the primary series of platforming adventure games. The character of Mario was originally created for the arcade game Donkey Kong in 1981, then known as Jumpman until Nintendo of America chose to name him Mario. After a brief foray as a villain in Donkey Kong Jr., Mario was spun off to his own games.

The first game to feature both brothers was the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros.. This game introduced Luigi as the character who could be controlled by a second player. It was a simple competitive one-screen action game, but it still introduced several other recurring elements of the Mario Bros. series, including the turtle enemies (later Koopas), the presence of warp pipes, and the brothers being known as plumbers.

NES

The definitive first game of the series was Super Mario Bros., which was released for the NES in 1985. This game established a foundation upon which most other Mario Bros. games were based, featuring Mario and Luigi on a quest in the Mushroom Kingdom to save Princess Peach from Bowser. Along with the setting and the new characters that would become essential parts of the series, this game also introduced a variety of enemies that would appear throughout the series such as Goombas and Lakitus. It also established the series as a side-scrolling platformer and introduced power-ups, including the Super Mushroom and Fire Flower.

Super Mario Bros. spawned two different direct sequels. The original Super Mario Bros. 2 was basically an expanded and more difficult version of the original game. Nintendo of America considered it too hard for American players, so instead the game Doki Doki Panic was reworked to feature Mario characters and was released in America as Super Mario Bros. 2 in 1988. Its follow-up was the more original Super Mario Bros. 3, which featured various new worlds, enemies and abilities, and it introduced a group of minibosses known as the seven children. It became one of the most popular of the series and has been reported as one of the best-selling games of all time.

The Mario series also began branching into more subseries.In 1989, Super Mario Land had been released for the Game Boy. This spawned a smaller platformer series that wound up introducing Mario's rival Wario as the antagonist of 1992's Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, at which point the series transitioned into Wario's own series. Additionally, Dr. Mario was released for the NES in 1990 and led to several other Mario puzzle games over the years.

Super NES

In 1990, Super Mario World, was released as the Super Nintendo's launch game. This installment expanded on the Mario formula using the Super NES's superior capabilities. The Koopalings returned, and Mario's loyal steed Yoshi was introduced, leading to the game becoming another popular installment. It was followed by Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island in 1996, a prequel game set while Mario, Luigi and Bowser were babies. This acted as a springboard for Yoshi's own spin-off games and also introduced the baby characters that would later be used a lot in spin-off games.

Super Mario Kart was released in 1992, proving to be a popular spin-off game that started the trend of kart racing games while paving the way for future Mario sports spin-offs. There was also a less successful attempt at a Mario shooter in 1993 in the form of Yoshi's Safari. In 1996, Square worked with Nintendo to make Mario's first RPG game, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, which expanded on the Mario world while influencing various Mario RPG games that would follow over the years, with writing that was largely humorous in nature while also featuring emotional elements and a unique gameplay style.

Nintendo 64

The platformer games than made a transition from 2D side-scrolling to 3D games with the coming of the Nintendo 64 in 1996. Super Mario 64, the system's launch game, defined the formula for the 3D Mario games in the same way that Super Mario Bros. had for the 2D ones. The basic premise of rescuing the princess from Bowser remained the same, but now Mario operated from a hub overworld from which various different worlds could be reached. Instead of having individual linear levels, the free-roaming worlds had specific goals that had to be accomplished to earn special items, in this case Power Stars. These collectible items could then be used to unlock more worlds and more areas of the hub overworld, as well as boss battles. Additionally, Mario was given a wider variety of acrobatic moves as well as a life meter, as opposed to the 2D Mario who could only jump without power-ups. Like the other Mario launch games, Super Mario 64 proved to be wildly popular and inspired most other 3D platformers of that era.

The Nintendo 64 era was also known for the spinoffs released in that time. It saw the release of Yoshi's Story, which cemented Yoshi's spin-off games, as well as the beginnings of the Mario Party series and the regularly released Mario sports games such as Mario Tennis and Mario Golf. Although no more platformers were made on the Nintendo 64 after Super Mario 64]], a new RPG called Paper Mario was released that combined RPG and platformer features in a new way that spawned another subseries. At the same time, most handheld releases for the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance consisted of remakes of classic Mario games as well as various sports and spin-off games.

Gamecube

In 2001, the Gamecube era launched with a non-platformer game starring Mario's brother Luigi, which was called Luigi's Mansoon. It was notable as the first to star Luigi without his brother (not counting the licensed game Mario is Missing!) and his first major appearance after he had been left out of Super Mario 64. This was a game that was more about exploration and armed Luigi with a flashlight and vacuum weapon, which provoked a mixed reception. However, A 3D Mario platformer was still in development and was released in 2002 as Super Mario Sunshine This game used an island setting and equipped Mario with a water-spraying backpack known as FLUDD, which had a variety of functions depending on the equipped nozzle. This game also received mixed reviews, due to the usage of FLUDD and the emphasis on cleaning up pollution found throughout the game, although this game also introducing popular recurring characters such as Bowser Jr. and Petey Piranha. The Gamecube also contained more sports titles, the traditional Mario Kart follow-up (in the form of Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, which also took non-traditional choices to mixed reception) and the more popular Paper Mario sequel, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

A new RPG series also started on the GBA with Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga in 2003, which starred both brothers, with a gameplay system that featured more platformer elements than the other RPG games. It was followed up by two more sequels on the DS that expanded upon the concept, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. The GBA also revisited another classic premise in the form of Mario vs. Donkey Kong, which acted as a modernized revival of the Donkey Kong concept using various influences from the 1994 Game Boy remake and ended up forming its own subseries. When the Nintendo DS eventually launched in 2004, it came with a Mario game that was an expanded remake of Super Mario 64 known as Super Mario 64 DS to show off the DS's capabilities. The DS has also featured further Yoshi games, as well as one game featuring the princess known as Super Princess Peach, in addition to the usual set of sports games, a party game and a kart racing game.

Nintendo later released its first fully original 2D Mario platformer in over a decade for the DS, known as New Super Mario Bros.. This game used the classic side-scrolling gameplay style mixed with some of the acrobatic moves and enemies from the 3D games, as well as power-ups both old and new, and the game became wildly popular.

Wii

With the release of the Wii, there was a bit of a gap before it received original Mario titles. 2007's Super Paper Mario was reworked from a Gamecube game and reversed the normal Paper Mario formula by being primarily a platformer with RPG characteristics, as well as featuring Peach, Bowser and Luigi as playable characters. The Wii later saw the latest 3D platformer in the form of Super Mario Galaxy, which featured Mario in an intergalactic setting traveling across various planets and introduced a new character, Rosalina. The Wii also featured more sports games, along with another party installment and another kart game. A series of sports game pitting Mario and company against Sega's mascot Sonic the Hedgehog and friends (Nintendo's former rival during the 1990s) also started with 2008's Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

A follow-up to the popular New Super Mario Bros. idea was released for the Nintendo Wii with the simple title of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. This game naturally expanded upon the DS predecessor with the Wii's capabilities, including a multiplayer cooperative option for progressing through the game, although the playable characters were restricted to the Mario brothers and a pair of oddly-colored Toads. This game also saw the return of the Koopalings, whom had been absent for much of a decade since Yoshi's Safari, with the exception of a surprise appearance in the first Mario & Luigi. New Super Mario Bros. Wii has also gone on to become one of the Wii's most popular titles. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was also released for the Wii in 2010 and expanded upon the gameplay of the original with the addition of Yoshi and some more new power-ups, as well as Luigi being integrated as a playable character earlier on. These games were followed by new Mario games for the 3DS in 2011 and 2012. The first was Super Mario 3D Land, which combined a 3-D environment with the linear stage design and other gameplay aspects that were primarily associated with the 2-D sidescrollers. This acted as a combination of the two Mario styles and was designed for quick and convenient play. Paper Mario: Sticker Star was also released for the 3DS, being the subseries' first handheld installment and featuring a simplified gameplay style that did not reflect the gameplay of Super Paper Mario. Miyamoto had been displeased with the previous games and their storylines, so this one was made with less of a story focus.

Wii U

In 2012, the Wii U was released with New Super Mario Bros. U as a launch title, the latest of the New Super Mario Bros. style of the main games. 2013 later saw a focus on games featuring Luigi as a promotional event known as the Year of Luigi, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the character's existence. The releases associated with this included New Super Luigi U (which was DLC for New Super Mario Bros. U), Dr. Luigi (an alternate version of Dr. Mario released as WiiWare), Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, the latter two being 3DS games.

The Wii U later featured an expanded follow-up to Super Mario 3D Land known as Super Mario 3D World, which was released in 2013. This game featured a cooperative multiplayer option and also featured multiple playable characters including Peach. In 2014, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker was made as a spin-off of Super Mario Galaxy. Afterwards, Super Mario Maker was released in 2015. This game allowed players to create their own unique sidescrolling Mario levels which could then be played and shared online.

The sports, kart racing and RPG subseries also continued to receive new installments on the Wii U, including Mario Kart 8 and Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash. The Mario & Luigi titles released for the 3DS were Dream Team in 2013 and Paper Jam in 2015, the latter of which featured a Paper Mario crossover. The Paper Mario series also received a new installment on the Wii U in the form of Paper Mario: Color Splash in 2016. Mario also made his mobile debut in the form Super Mario Run, which was based on New Super Mario Bros. and released in December 2016.

Nintendo Switch

In 2017, Super Mario Odyssey was released for the Nintendo Switch. This game revamped the 3D Mario gameplay with an open-world setting, to critical acclaim. The Switch also saw the release of Super Mario Maker 2 in 2019, which heavily expanded upon the level creation options and added a new gameplay style based on a 2-D version of Super Mario 3D World.

The Switch also became home to ports of several Wii U games, including Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe and Captain Toad; Treasure Tracker (the latter of which was also made available for the 3DS). Alphadream also began remaking earlier Mario & Luigi games for the 3DS with additional modes, starting with Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions in 2017 and set to continue with Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey in 2019.

Nintendo also expanded Mario's mobile presence in 2019 by launching Dr. Mario World and Mario Kart Tour. In 2020, the Paper Mario series continued on the Switch with Paper Mario: The Origami King.

Subseries

This section groups the Mario games by subseries, based on a mix of their titles and genres. Note that these classifications are not official.

Adventure Series

These are the mainstream games, which are based on Mario (often accompanied by Luigi or some of his other allies) going on platforming adventures. They usually feature some type of storyline as well.

Super Mario Bros.

These are the 'classic' Super Mario Bros. games that were originally released on the NES. This classification also includes Super Mario World for the Super NES, as it carried on the style of the Super Mario Bros. games. These games are side-scrolling platformers that star Mario, with Luigi as an optional playable character who is usually reserved for the second player. The games' plots mostly involve defeating Bowser in order to save Princess Peach, which would become the basic plot for most Mario games. The one exception is the American version of Super Mario Bros. 2, which contains additional playable characters and a different story due to being developed based on a different game.

Super Mario Land

This series was the handheld counterpart to the Super Mario Bros. series that was released on the Game Boy. It was of a more experimental nature and featured elements that differed from other Mario games in terms of designs for enemies and levels, as well as some gameplay features such as giving Mario vehicles to ride. They also featured characters other than Princess Peach and Bowser, and two prominent recurring Mario characters were created for these games: Princess Daisy and Wario. This series only had two proper tiles before the third game acted as a transition into the Wario Land series.

Super Mario (3D)

This classification contains the standard 3-D Mario platforming adventures. Although they are not directly tied together for the most part, they share the same basic gameplay elements. They feature Mario (usually as the sole playable character, with the exception of Luigi in the Galaxy games) exploring 3-D environments, which often contains an overworld and different sandbox-like environments. In each world, rather then traveling to the end of a level, there is usually a specific task that has to be completed to earn Mario a type of collectible item (such as a Power Star) which can be accumulated for the sake of accessing new worlds. The Super Mario games are presented as standalone titles for the most part and treated as big event games for each system. There is usually only one for system, but the prime exception for two of those rules is Super Mario Galaxy, which had a sequel on the same system, making it the only subseries within this.

New Super Mario Bros.

This subseries is intended to act as a revival of the classic 2-D Mario platforming style, hence the title. Some elements from modern games are also mixed into the game, such as some of Mario's acrobatic moves. The console equivalents of the games are also known for featuring a cooperative multiplayer experience, and New Super Mario Bros. U is also known for properly reintroducing the Koopalings (after they reappeared in Mario & Luigi) after a long absence. The mobile game Super Mario Run also uses the same style as the New Super Mario Bros. games.

Super Mario 3D

Created by the team behind Super Mario Galaxy, these games act as a blend of the two basic Mario styles. The games feature 3-D environments and gameplay, but they feature linear A-to-B levels as in the 2-D platformers instead of an overworld and/or sandbox-like environments. The first game was released on the 3DS, while its sequel was on the Wii U (and was the only 3-D Mario game released for the system). As with the New Super Mario Bros. series, the console successor added a cooperative multiplayer elements, this time including Princess Peach and Toad as playable characters.

Super Mario Maker

Remakes

These are all of the prominent remakes of Super Mario games over the years, which featured graphical enhancements and/or significant changes to the original game. This started with Super Mario All-Stars for the Super NES, which featured remakes of all four classic Super Mario Bros. games from the Super NES. Then there was Super Mario Bros. Deluxe for the Game Boy (which also included a version of the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2), followed by the Super Mario Advance subseries for the Game Boy Advance, which featured more remakes of the classic games and added elements such as voice clips and new challenges. Super Mario 64 DS stands as the only substantial remake of a 3-D Mario platformer, which adds more playable characters (Luigi, Wario and Yoshi) as well as additional challenges.

Adventure Games (Other Characters)

This classification contains spin-off series and games featuring characters other than Mario. Some individual spin-offs without series include Super Princess Peach and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, although the latter received a remake for both the 3DS and Switch.

For Wario's games, see Portal: Wario.

Yoshi

The Yoshi series officially started with Yoshi's Island, although it was preceded by several standalone games of different genres featuring the character (Yoshi, Yoshi's Cookie and Yoshi's Safari). The Yoshi series started with Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island for the Super NES, which established the basic gameplay of the Yoshi subseries. The Yoshi games could be divided into two types: ones in which Yoshis carry Baby Mario around (which are primarily the Yoshi's Island ones) and games that feature Yoshi adventuring without Baby Mario. The two most recent games have also featured the aesthetic of having the entire world being made out of different types of material (yarn in Wooly World and general craft items in Crafted World).

Most of these games are set in the past and typically feature Baby Bowser and/or Kamek as antagonists. Some of the games also use time travel to have future versions of Bowser and Kamek make appearances within the past era.

Luigi's Mansion

This is a spin-off series featuring Luigi and his adventures in capturing ghosts. These games typically feature Professor E. Gadd (and later [[Polterpup) as a supporting character and King Boo as a villain, and the plot usually involves saving Mario. These games feature a different gameplay style that involves almost no jumping and is instead based around exploring and using different devices, most prominently the Poltergust. The first Luigi's Mansion was released in 2001 as a launch title for the Gamecube, and it did not receive any follow-up until 2013, when Next Level Games began making new entries for the series.

RPG Series

The Mario RPG games originated with Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, which was released on the Super NES in 1996. It was developed by Square and acted as a standalone game, but it influenced the two Mario RPG series that followed it. These links between the RPG games include the timed hits system, Mario's basic moves (jumping and using a hammer as a special attack) and the usage of humor throughout the game. Some terms (such as FP or Flower Points, used as an equivalent of magic points) also were used in some later Mario RPGs.

Paper Mario

Developed by Intelligent Systems, the Paper Mario games follow a general aesthetic in which the characters and the world around them appear to be made out of paper or other craft materials. These games typically feature Mario as the main playable character, along with a partner character. The first two games featured their own battle system and a number of unique partners who were recruited over the course of the game. The third game, Super Paper Mario for the Wii, removed many of the RPG elements for a more platforming-like experience and allowed the player to switch between several playable characters while the partner system was downplayed. Afterwards, Miyamoto's critique of the series caused it to change course for the following entries. Sticker Star returned to RPG gameplay, but with heavily simplified gameplay and story, and only one partner character was featured per game.

Mario & Luigi

The second Mario RPG series was one for handheld systems that was developed by AlphaDream. These games featured a cartoony style, and the gameplay was based around the idea of Mario and Luigi acting as a team, and with a heavy expansions upon the concept of timed hits from other Mario RPG games. Later games of the series also featured additional playable characters, such as Baby Mario and Baby Luigi or Bowser. The last original game of the series was Paper Jam, which acted as a crossover with the Paper Mario games. Afterwards, the last two games were remakes of previous games that each added a new campaign mode wherein the player controlled Bowser's minions on their own misadventures parallel to the original games' stories. With AlphaDream's closure in 2019, the future of the series remains unclear.

Sports/Kart Racing

In Other Series

There were several licensed games that were created in the 1990s, including Hotel Mario for the Philips CD-i.

The Mario series has also been represented in Nintendo's popular crossover fighting game series, Super Smash Bros.. Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and Donkey Kong have been playable since the first game, with later games adding Princess Peach, Bowser, Dr. Mario, Wario, Diddy Kong, Rosalina and Bowser Jr/the Koopalings as playable characters. The series also features items, stages, enemies and music from throughout the various Mario games, as well as trophies and assist trophies depicting characters and other elements of the series.

In 2017, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle was released for the Switch. This was a roleplaying game which crossed over the Mario characters with Ubisoft's Raving Rabbids series.

Other Media

Animated Series

The first adaptation of a Mario game was the Donkey Kong segment of the 80's cartoon Saturday Supercade. It was made in the style of a classic Hanna-Barbara cartoon, with Donkey Kong as the lovable animal protagonist while Mario was more of an antagonist who constantly pursued Donkey Kong; Pauline was depicted as Mario's niece who accompanied him but often became a damsel in distress. There was also a mostly unrelated Donkey Kong Jr. segment in which Donkey Kong Junior (who could talk and was a Scrappy Doo-esque character) traveled with a streetwise teenager named Bones in search of the missing Donkey Kong.

Several anime adaptations were released throughout the 80's that were closer to the source material. In 1986, an anime movie called Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen (translated to The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach) was released that was based directly on the Super Mario Bros. video game. It featured Mario and Luigi being pulled into the video game world, where they went on an adventure to save Peach from Bowser. Then in 1989, a trio of OVAs were released that featured Mario characters in the roles of classic folk tales: Momotaro, Issun-boshi and Snow White. These notably featured an appearance by the Koopalings, as well as some influence from the later Super Mario Bros. games. None have been released in America.

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show was made in America in 1989 and blended concepts from the first two Western Super Mario Bros. games. This show featured Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach (or Princess Toadstool as she was known in America at the time) as the main characters. Bowser was known as King Koopa (and had a more crocodile-like design) and often appeared in different costumes, pulling off a different scheme in each episode that usually involved taking over the Mushroom Kingdom or capturing the princess. The first series also featured live action segments set in Brooklyn where Mario and Luigi often got involved in sitcom-like situations and met a variety of guest stars. The original series also featured Captain Lou Albano as Mario, although he did not reprise the role for the follow-up series.

Two follow-up shows to the Super Show were made; in 1990, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 incorporated various elements from Super Mario Bros. 3, such as the inclusion of the Koopalings as regularly-appearing characters (but known by different names). The show also featured stronger continuity and episodes set in the real world (but still depicted in animation) as well as within the Mushroom Kingdom. The last short-lived series, Super Mario World, was aired in 1991 and based on the game of the same name. Toad was omitted from this series in place of an original character named Oogtar the caveboy, and Yoshi was added to this series' cast.

Comics and Manga

From 1990 to 1991, Valient Comics' Nintendo Comics System published several Mario comics that were based on a combination of the American cartoons and the first three games.

In Japan, a manga known as Super Mario-Kun entered publication in 1991 and has been published to the current day. The manga loosely adapts Mario games as they come out, starting with Super Mario World, and infuses them with a comedic slapstick feel.

A comic series called Super Mario Adventures was published in Nintendo Power in 1992. One of the more faithful adaptations, it was drawn in manga-style and featured the Mario Bros. on a quest to rescue Peach before Bowser marries her, with several twists thrown in. This also included characters from the later games such as Yoshi and the Koopalings. Afterwards, two more follow-up comics featuring Wario and based on Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins were made.

Feature film

The Super Mario Bros. movie was released in 1993. It starred Bob Hoskins as Mario, John Leguizamo as Luigi, Dennis Hooper as Bowser (once more called Koopa) and Samantha Mathis as Daisy, who was used as the Mushroom Kingdom's princess instead of Peach. The movie took an odd science fiction turn in showing the Mushroom Kingdom as existed in a lost world full of humans whom had evolved from dinosaurs. Mario and Luigi stumble into a portal to this world by accident after Daisy is kidnapped, and they learn more about this strange world while preparing themselves to take down Koopa. This movie was critically planned and has divided Mario fans due to the movie's distance from the source material.

See Also

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