Super Mario (franchise)

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Mario or Super Mario is a long-running Nintendo video game series of platformer titles that has spanned more than twenty years over a variety of arcade, console, and handheld platforms in addition to personal and Macintosh computers. Though the series is technically a spin-off of the Donkey Kong series, Super Mario now stands independent of its parent series and is one of the most well-known franchises in the world. The series inspired any spin-offs, several of which developed into independent video game franchises such as the Yoshi, Wario Land, and Mario Kart series.

Chronological Overview

Title	Description	Technical Information
Donkey Kong	In 1981, the Mario series had officially started with the release of Shigeru Miyamoto's creation – Donkey Kong. Originally released in the arcades, Donkey Kong became a very popular game amongst gamers, eventually spawning many remakes and ports. In 1981, Mario had yet to be called so – rather, he was called "Jumpman" during that brief era; it was only a few years later that Mario Segali would rename the aforementioned character to "Mario". Since then, the name has become very popular among the video game community; he is considered to be one of Nintendo's mascots. Since the release of Donkey Kong in 1981, Mario has appeared in over 200 games, and cameoed in several more.	Year Released: 1981 System: Arcade Machine Ratings 1up.com — A+
Donkey Kong Jr.	One year later, in 1982, Mario – still "Jumpman" at the time – appeared as the antagonist of the game Donkey Kong Jr.. The story revolved around Donkey Kong's son, Donkey Kong Jr., saving his father from being trapped in a cage by Mario. Donkey Kong Jr. had to climb across many vines, avoiding several Snapjaws along the way. Eventually, after Donkey Kong Jr. collected several keys, he freed his father from his cage and defeated Mario.	Year Released – 1982 System – Arcade Machine Ratings 1up.com — F
Mario Bros.	One year later, in 1983, Mario got his own game – using his current name. In the game Mario Bros., Mario and his brother Luigi – who first debuted in this game – were traversing the creature-infested depths of the sewers. Mario and Luigi had to fight such creatures as Shellcreepers and Sidesteppers; but with the help of a POW Block, things could get easier.	Year Released – 1983 System – Arcade Machine Ratings 1up.com — A-
Golf	Before the release of Super Mario Bros., Mario appeared in his first ever sports game: Golf — it was released in 1984. This game's gameplay is relatively simple: the player must strike the ball with the correct amount of force in order to get a good shot. The more good shots and the player gets, the more points he or she is likely to earn. Golf was the very first game in the Mario Golf series to ever be released. Mario was the only playable character, and even he is not seen in his traditional clothing.	Year Released: 1984 System: NES Ratings 1up.com — B+
Super Mario Bros.	In 1985, Mario starred in his very first game outside of the arcades. With the release of Super Mario Bros., the NES was an extreme success. Mario, and his brother Luigi, had to set out on a massive adventure across the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Toadstool and the Mushroom Retainers from the evil King Bowser Koopa. After traversing through eight massive worlds, filled with enemies, the brothers eventually reached Bowser's Castle, finally rescuing Princess Toadstool. Super Mario Bros. eventually became the best-selling video game for the NES in 1999.	Year Released: 1985 System: NES Ratings 1up.com — A+
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels	After the extreme success of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels was released just one year later in Japan. The gameplay and story were almost identical to its predecessor, but it was not released in the United States due to its extreme difficulty. Some gameplay elements were changed slightly, such as Bloopers flying in midair, wind to help the player jump across abysses, and other minor changes.	Year Released: 1986 System: Famicom Ratings 1up.com — A-
Super Mario Bros. 2	Another two years later in 1988, Nintendo released yet another Mario game for the NES – Super Mario Bros. 2. Despite the fact that the game's title has "2" in it, it was not the direct sequel to Super Mario Bros. — Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels was. In this game, Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad had to save the dream world of Subcon from the diabolical Wart. After fighting their way through seven strange world, they eventually saved the world of Subcon.	Year Released: 1988 System: NES Ratings 1up.com — B
Super Mario Land	Mario made his first appearance on Nintendo's first handheld system in 1989, with the release of Super Mario Land. Selling a total of 18.06 million copies, it became the bestselling video game not to be bundled with a system in history. In this game, Mario had to traverse across the four worlds of Sarasaland to save the Princess Daisy from the alien Tatanga. With the help of new features such as the Superball, Marine Pop, and the Sky Pop, Mario was able to stop Tatanga and save Daisy.	Year Released – 1989 System – Game Boy Ratings 1up.com — B+
Super Mario Bros. 3	Another two years had passed by the time the next mainstream Mario game had been released: Super Mario Bros. 3. This was by far, the most expansive Mario game on the NES, as it featured many levels, items, and enemies. Bowser and his seven Koopalings wreaked havoc across the Mushroom World after turning all of the Mushroom Kings into various animals. Mario and Luigi had to traverse through many worlds, castles, seas, forests, and deserts to fix the wrongs the Koopalings had caused. Eventually, the Bros. reached Bowser and defeated him, rescuing Princess Toadstool once again.	Year Released: 1990 System: NES Ratings 1up.com — A
Super Mario World	One year after the release of Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World had been released on a whole new home console — the Super Nintendo. It was with this game that the Mario series had been upgraded from 8-bit to 16-bit graphics. Though the games' graphics would later be revolutionized once again, this was indeed a huge step at the time. During the story of Super Mario World, while Mario, Luigi, and Princess Toadstool were vacationing in Dinosaur Land, Bowser and his seven Koopalings once again kidnapped the Princess. With the help of the Yoshis and Dolphins, the Bros. traversed across the vast area of Dinosaur Land. As they made their way to Princess Toadstool, they thwarted each Koopaling who stood in their way until they reached Bowser. Once again, Bowser had been defeated and Princess Toadstool had been rescued.	Year Released: 1991 System: SNES Ratings 1up.com — A+
Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins	Three years later, Mario reappeared on the Game Boy with the release of Super Mario Land 2. Super Mario Land 2 was less popular than its predecessor, Super Mario Land. This story picked up right where the last one left off. After rescuing Princess Daisy, Mario returned to his castle, only to find that it had been taken over by his old nemesis, Wario. Mario must collect six golden coins scattered across Mario Land in order to regain access to his estate and defeat Wario.	Year Released: 1992 System: Game Boy
Super Mario Kart	Over a decade ago, in 1992, the Mario Kart series had begun with the release of Super Mario Kart. It was one of the first games ever to be made that was 2-dimensional with 3-dimensional renderings. The game featured eight playable characters: Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, Yoshi, Toad, Bowser, Donkey Kong Jr., and Koopa Troopa. Though the player could not pick from a selection of karts, each character was pre-assigned with a kart, each with a different weight, speed, and acceleration. This game was also heavily influenced by Super Mario World, as many of the racecourses took place somewhere within the borders of Dinosaur Land; the game also featured the Cape Feather, which was found in Super Mario World.	Year Released: 1992 System: SNES Ratings 1up.com — A
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island	Four years after the release of Super Mario World, its sequel — which takes place before the events of Super Mario World — was released. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island marked the start of the Yoshi series by telling the events that occurred when the Yoshis first met Mario when he was a baby. After Kamek had kidnapped Baby Luigi, (and had also attempted to kidnap Baby Mario), Baby Mario fell onto Yoshi's Island. After a Yoshi had picked up Baby Mario, it decided to help him find his brother before he was harmed by the evil Kamek. This story would not be continued until eleven years later with the release of Yoshi's Island DS.	Year Released: 1995 System: SNES Ratings 1up.com — A
Mario's Tennis	In 1995, the first installment to the Mario Tennis series was released — Mario's Tennis. It inspired the creation of several more games in the series, (the next being Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64). The game had seven playable characters, all of which were featured in Super Mario Kart, with the exception of Bowser who did not appear in this game.	Year Released: 1995 System: Virtual Boy
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars	The first Mario RPG to be made was one of the last Super Nintendo games to be released — Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. To many, it was a success, as it received great reviews amongst players. This Mario game also introduced the turn-based battle system to the series. HP, Speed, Attack, Defense, Magic Attack, and Magic Defense were all features that Mario, his partners, and enemies all carried. In the story, Princess Toadstool was kidnapped once again by King Bowser; Mario set off on a brief adventure to rescue her. After battling Bowser, Mario did not get the chance to fully rescue the princess. A large sword fell from the sky and plummeted straight into Bowser's Castle, destroying the Star Road, while sending the three into different directions. After Mario wakes up back in the Mushroom Kingdom, he sets out on an adventure to find out what happened all the while still having to rescue Princess Toadstool. Along his journey, Mario meets characters such as Mallow and Geno, all of whom join him in hopes of defeating Smithy, the cause of the Mushroom Kingdom's current state. This is the first game in which Bowser allied with Mario, and in which Bowser and Princess Toadstool were playable characters.	Year Released: 1996 System: SNES Ratings 1up.com — A
Super Mario 64	Not long after the release of Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Nintendo released a new system and a new game — Super Mario 64. The game was a success. It was the first fully 3-Dimensional Mario game to ever be made, thus revolutionizing the appearance of Mario games to date. The game sold over eleven million copies by 2007. Because the game had such amazing success, people began to create rumors of glitches and unlockables in the game. Perhaps one of the most notable rumors of the game was that Luigi was a playable character in the game, somehow able to be unlocked. This was also the first game to call Princess Peach by her current name. In the game, Mario was invited to Princess Peach's Castle to eat a cake she had baked. However, when Mario arrived at her castle, he had discovered that Bowser had taken it over and had stolen almost all of the castle's Power Stars — there were some which he did not know existed. As Mario traversed through fifteen different painting worlds, he eventually recovered enough Power Stars to battle Bowser and take back the castle, freeing Peach from her stained-glass prison.	Year Released: 1996 System: Nintendo 64 Ratings 1up.com — A Gamespot — 9.4: Superb
Mario Party	In 1999, Nintendo released the first Mario Party game to ever be made — Mario Party. The game was a whole new aspect on multi-player capabilities in the Mario series; most games up until now mainly featured a 2-player versus mode, with the exceptions of a few sports spin-offs. The game mechanics worked near-identically to that of a board game: players would rove around the board, moving from space to space, and hitting a Dice Block in order to move said spaces. The players could earn coins by playing and winning mini-games; with a certain amount of coins, the players could by stars. Despite the fact that this was a party game, it also had a single-player mode, in which the player would play against CPUs. There were six playable characters in the game: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Wario. Each character had one board modeled after them, in addition to two other boards in the game — one dedicated to the game's antagonist, Bowser, and the other unlockable after collection one-hundred stars.	Year Released: 1999 System: Nintendo 64 Ratings 1up.com — A Gamespot — 7.2: Good

Game Boy Advance Era

The Game Boy Advance was released in mid-2001. In its launch was Super Mario Advance, which was a remake of the American Super Mario Bros. 2, adding new graphics and a few new additions, such as a remake of Mario Bros. that could be played with 4 players. Later that year, the Nintendo GameCube was introduced to the gaming world, as was a game starring Luigi, Luigi's Mansion. The game strayed away from platforming and focused on the use of the Poltergust 3000 to solve puzzles and capture ghosts haunting the green-clad plumber's new abode. 2001 also saw the sequel to 1999's fighter Super Smash Bros. with Super Smash Bros. Melee, the best-selling game on the Gamecube.

Super Mario Advance 2 came out early in 2002. A remake of Super Mario World, it had new graphics, but unlike the original Advance, it had many new features as well. Mario's first big GameCube game was also released in 2002: Super Mario Sunshine. Like his brother, Mario was wielding a new device in his latest quest; in this case, it was F.L.U.D.D. Also in 2002 came Super Mario Advance 3, a port of Yoshi's Island.

In mid-2003, Mario Golf had a huge update on the GCN with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour. It did not have any of the humans from the original; instead, it added tons of new features to add to its wackiness, plus a new, easier mechanic for swings. Mario got his first RPG on a portable system in 2003. For the Game Boy Advance, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga featured both of the brothers fighting simultaneously.

2004's Super Mario Advance 4 was more or less a port of Super Mario All-Stars's remake of Super Mario Bros. 3, but it had a few tiny changes, such as yet another Mario Bros. remake addition. Also in 2004, Mario Golf: Advance Tour was released. It was a lot like the GBC version of Mario Golf, but now it has new characters, courses, and 3D graphics. There were RPG elements to the game, too, which meant one's character stats could be totally different from another's of the same character. It was possible to link to Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour and transfer characters to it.

The year continued to be groudbreaking as Mario went back to his roots and went up against his old antagonist Donkey Kong for the first time in 10 years. Mario vs. Donkey Kong's gameplay was similar to Donkey Kong '94's gameplay, but with entirely new levels. Mario Power Tennis, the sequel to 2000's Mario Tennis, was also released; it featured several new characters and modes, along with Power Shots. Finally, the sequel to Paper Mario came out in 2004: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door played similarly to its predecessor, but in a new setting with an unrelated story.

2005 stretched Mario's boundaries a bit further by adding rhythm games his resume. Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix featured remixed games as well as characters from the Mario series. Mario also tried a couple of new sports in 2005. Mario Superstar Baseball mixed the great American pastime with Mario; Super Mario Strikers, on the other hand, brought an exiting version of contact-soccer/football to the series. The GBA version of Mario Power Tennis came out in 2005, called Mario Tennis: Power Tour. It added RPG elements and Humans to a game that was otherwise similar to the GBC Mario Tennis. Unfortunately, the GCN version could not link up to the GBA game.

Late in that same year, two Nintendo DS titles came out featuring Mario. The first was Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, the sequel to Superstar Saga that threw time travel and Baby Mario and Luigi into the RPG fray. Next came Mario Kart DS, which was the very first Nintendo online game. Along with 16 new courses, it included 16 old favorites (4 from each of the past Mario Karts).

Princess Peach got her own game in 2006. Super Princess Peach is an easier platformer than the previous Mario platformers, but it has its own unique characteristics. The next DS title continued the old Super Mario Bros. genre in a unique way with the New Super Mario Bros. With new abilities and graphics added to the old platforming action, the game is truly a worthy successor. Mario then tested his skills on the courts with Mario Hoops 3 on 3. Along with his usual friends, he also went up against some opponents from the RPG Series Final Fantasy. 2006 also saw a sequel for the SNES's Yoshi's Island: Yoshi's Island DS. This time, the game featured the younger versions of several favorite characters.

Wii Era

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Super Mario Galaxy is one of the newer titles in the series of Mario's 3-D platformers.

The technological advancements of the Wii resulted in a slew of innovative new ideas swelling the Mario series from 2007 onwards. The first glimpse of this was the dimension-flipping of Super Paper Mario, which set it apart from the previous Paper Mario titles and blurred the lines between 2D side-scrollers and 3D RPGs. After some Wii installments of staple Mario series, such as Mario Party 8 (Mario Party series) and Mario Strikers Charged (Mario Strikers series), the gravity-defying Super Mario Galaxy (sequel to Super Mario Sunshine) was released. Walking off platforms no-longer resulted in Game Overs as Mario traveled through space to rescue Peach, defeat Bowser, and change the face of gaming yet again.

Later in 2008, Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Super Smash Bros. Series) and Mario Kart Wii (Mario Kart Series) and Mario Super Sluggers (Mario Baseball series) were released.

External Links

• The History of Mario Bros