List of Mario knockoffs acknowledged by Nintendo

In its popularity, the Mario series has received attention from several smaller companies over the years, some of which have made knock-offs and bootlegs of the series. While there were several of these games developed, only a few have come to the attention of Nintendo themselves, mainly because Nintendo encourages fans to create Mario parodies and fan games, therefore not strictly managing Mario merchandise, including t-shirts or online Mario games.

This page contains a list of some notable examples of knock-offs and bootlegs that have been acknowledged and/or brought up by Nintendo.

The Great Giana Sisters

The first level of The Great Giana Sisters (top), which bears a great resemblance to that of Super Mario Bros. (bottom).

Released in 1987 on the Commodore 64, The Great Giana Sisters was published by German game developer Rainbow Arts. It features a girl named Giana, who finds herself in a world full of monsters after mysteriously falling asleep. The player must travel through the world, searching for a hidden diamond which will awaken Giana.

The game received almost immediate attention from players (and later the video game industry), due to the game's levels being extremely similar to that of Super Mario Bros.. In fact, the game's first level is nearly identical to that of Super Mario Bros., as well as the game's elements (Mushrooms with eyes and horns, and yellow blocks, resembling Goombas and ? Blocks, respectively), and the gameplay itself. Due to this, Nintendo pressured the developers to pull the game from retail shelves. Copies of the game were eventually withdrawn from sale, and it still remains a collector's item to this day. Later, in 2009, a sequel called Giana Sisters DS was released in Europe, and later in North America. This game, however, received no copyright claims from Nintendo.

Mole Kart

Screenshot of a course from Mole Kart that looks nearly identical to Mushroom Gorge, which was known as Mushroom X.

Mole Kart is an iOS/Android game developed and published by Chinese company Shanghai Shengran Information Technology. It was available on the App Store for iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch) and on Google Play Store for Android devices. Players have the choice of several characters from the Mole Man series, but only one kart.

The game was first released on the App Store in early 2012, though it was soon removed by Apple due to a copyright claim from Nintendo, due to gameplay trailers featuring graphic assets that looked conspicuously identical to those of the Mario Kart series, especially Mario Kart Wii, sharing almost identical settings, items and course maps, some of the courses include versions of Mushroom Gorge, Moo Moo Meadows and Peach Beach. However, it was re-released on iOS in May 2012. The newer version contained only four of the courses from the original release, with the only major difference in the courses themselves being the themes of the GBA Bowser Castle 3 and N64 Sherbet Land copies having their overall themes swapped.

Era's Adventures 3D

Artwork of Era's Adventures 3D.

Era's Adventures 3D was a mobile game released on the Marketplace for Android phones, developed by An-Dev. The game features a green dinosaur named Era, who looks almost exactly like Yoshi, whom the player must use to shoot flaming mucus at objects such as boxes and crates. The gameplay is extremely basic, with no maps or levels whatsoever, and its main element is the use of the Yoshi look-alike character. Era's Adventures 3D was released in late February 2013, and Nintendo took legal action only two weeks later. Botond Kopaz, who was largely involved with the development of Era's Adventures 3D stated that he was not a fan of the Super Mario series and had no knowledge on the Yoshi character.

The Era character's new design.

"Actually this is an indie game developed by one developer, so due to the limitation of effort, I purchased a cute character from TurboSquid, one of the biggest 3D asset stores, without knowing the background story of the character Yoshi, since I'm not a Super Mario fan.... Once the game was released on the Play Store, after spending hundreds of hours in making the game, I started receiving 'kind' mails from Super Mario fans that I stole Yoshi, etc. So I started Googling and I realized that the character is really from the Super Mario series."

The game was briefly removed from the Android Marketplace, but was re-released later with a new character design for Era.

Super Hornio Brothers

Super Hornio Brothers is a two-part pornographic parody of the Super Mario series, released in 1993, in anticipation of the Super Mario Bros. film. The film features a man named Squeegie Hornio and his brother Ornio (parodies of Luigi and Mario, respectively) who fall into a computer's black void and are stuck there. They learn that Princess Perlina has been kidnapped by King Pooper (parodies of Princess Peach and Bowser, respectively) and must be rescued. Along the way, the two brothers are separated, leaving Squeegie to fight King Pooper alone. While he is almost killed, Ornio suddenly arrives and kills King Pooper by pushing him into lava. He and Princess Perlina then teleport back to Earth, accidentally leaving Squeegie behind. A sequel, entitled Super Hornio Brothers II was released later that year.

The distribution rights for the film were quickly bought by Nintendo, making any release impossible according to lead actor Ron Jeremy. Due to its rarity and unusual history, the film is a collector's item and has attracted attention from several online entertainment sites.

Super Mario Bros. X

Super Mario Bros. X is a freeware PC fan game developed by Andrew Spinks (aka Redigit, developer of Terraria). The game is based on the early 2D Super Mario platformers and features a level editor. Development on the game ceased after Redigit claimed to have received a C&D notice from a law firm asscociated with Nintendo, although the existence of the notice has been debated among fans

Super Mario Bros. Z: The Movie

Super Mario Bros. Z: The Movie was a Kickstarter for a feature length episode of Super Mario Bros. Z, a flash-animated video series combining the Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog universe with plotting and battle sequences patterned after Dragon Ball Z. The kickstarter (and by extension, the project) was cancelled after receiving a takedown notice from Miller Nash, a law firm employed by Nintendo.