In a rather unexpected turn of events, Super Mario Galaxy brings Mario into outer space for an adventure that spans various galaxies. This change of setting isn’t just an arbitrary thing either as this game brings with it quite a host of new gameplay features. Often you’ll have to navigate across small planetoids (which have their own gravity) or hop between various rocks and debris that are floating out in the vacuum.

This game, quite nicely for the Mario series, has a rather interesting story line as well. Mario heads down to Princess Peach’s castle so that they can celebrate the Star Festival together (an event which comes once every hundred years). Sadly, Bowser soon turns up in a giant flying saucer and uses its powers to pull the entire castle out of the ground and into space. Mario tries to stop this happening, but is thrown off into the void. He later wakes up on a small planetoid and meets Rosalina in her Comet Observatory who helps him to travel throughout the galaxies to collect all the necessary Power Stars and to defeat Bowser.

This is the first appearance of Rosalina, and I’m very pleased that this game introduced her as she has become one of my favourite Mario characters. You can speak with her at any time in the Observatory and you’ll eventually learn her backstory through various interactions. She’s a very interesting and mysterious character and her presence adds a lot to the game. Looking at a picture of her, you might think that she’s just a copy/stand in for Peach but in reality she is a very different (and in my opinion much better) character.

I think a big thing that makes this game so wonderful is its atmosphere (despite the condition of the atmosphere in space in reality). The entire soundtrack is made up of performances by an orchestra and it gives it a feeling of being a big grand adventure and sets the tones of several areas perfectly. There’s one level in particular where you are hopping across pieces of junk which have just been abandoned out in space and I think that that area perfectly captures the quiet and emptiness of the place. There are also some absolutely beautiful ice worlds and there you can become Ice Mario who is able to ski across flowing water (by freezing it) and it just feels so good.

The whole game is a big step away from the ‘norm’ for the Mario series. Instead of big bright colours with fast paced music and gameplay, you have the cold darkness of space to contemplate along with a glorious sound track to add an exclamation point to its beauty. But while there has been this change, at the same time it doesn’t feel unnatural, because you still have all the usual elements that you expect from a Mario game (Goombas, mushrooms, coins, Koopas) but they’ve all been moved into this wonderful new environment. A beautifully innovative title and certainly not one to be missed!

Rating: 9.2/10

With this game, the Mario series took its first real step into the world of 3D gaming. There had been games in the past, such as Super Mario RPG, which had technically been in 3D, this is the first one to That we would recognise as a true 3D game.

What happens is that Mario is invited to visit Princess Peach at her castle, because she tells him that she has a nice cake baked for him, sadly, when he arrives, he finds that Bowser has taken over the building and trapped Peach in its walls. Inside the castle Mario finds that there are numerous paintings which serve as portals to other worlds and, using the castle as a hub, he then sets out into the various different worlds to collect Power Stars so that he can pass through special doors and rescue Peach.

For being the game that laid the groundwork for pretty much every 3D title which came afterward, Super Mario 64 is very impressive. There are some really exciting worlds like the inside of a volcano, a huge underground labyrinth filled with poison gas, an island which changes size and so many more. Everything is so fun to explore and the worlds all feel very open and natural. The boss fights are suddenly much more exciting too, and there are multiple battles with Bowser which are all very fun and memorable.

Furthermore, there’s a whole new set of power-ups this time. There’s the Wing Cap, which allows Mario to fly through the air for a limited period of time and which really lets you see how open the world is. There’s the Metal Cap, which is my personal favourite, and that turns Mario into the indestructible Metal Mario who can also walk around at the bottom of bodies of water. Maybe it’s the cool music, maybe it’s that Metal Mario looks really cool or maybe it’s the fun of being invincible, but I really love the Metal Cap. Finally there’s the Vanish Cap and it turns Mario invisible and lets him walk through certain walls (which is nice, but not great).

But while it is certainly a very good game, there are one or two downsides. The first is, that while the worlds are all very nice to explore, they sadly feel a little empty, it would be nice to have seen some of the various citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom and been able to interact with them. As things are, the levels are all populated almost entirely by enemies, which is a bit of a shame. The enemy designs also often look a bit like generic video game enemies and are graphically rather unimpressive, I feel that they sometimes spoil atmosphere. But these are only small problems with what is an otherwise very good game.

Rating: 9/10

Buy it here.

This game is the third in the original trilogy of Mario games and, by far, I think that this is the best of them. While the other two (or three) all seem a little bit dated in areas, Super Mario Bros. 3 has gameplay and even graphics that will look fine by today’s standards.

This time, Bowser is not alone in his attack on the Mushroom Kingdom and each of its seven ‘worlds’ have be conquered by one of his seven Koopalings (who may or may not be his children). So Mario must travel across and liberate all of these worlds. Sadly, Peach and Toad are not playable in this game, but it does bring back Luigi in the capacity of a multiplayer character. I’ll talk more about that later.

For the first time in the Mario series, this game gives you a world map which therefore gives you a degree of choice about what levels to do. On the map there are things like Toad Houses where Mario can collect power-ups. This time around there are more power-ups than just the Fire Flower and Super Star of the first game. Here you also have a Super Leaf (which allows you to fly), a Frog Suit (which allows you to swim and jump better), a Tanuki Suit (which allows you to fly and become a statue) and many more exciting items. You’re also given the highly useful addition that is the ability to store items, meaning that if you are already Fire Mario and you collect a Super Leaf from a Toad House, you can save that Super Leaf for use on a harder level.

But I think the best thing about this game, is that it has a much bigger variety in every area than the first two Mario games. There are so many more levels which range from caves, to deserts, to oceans, to castles, to pyramids, to rivers and so forth. There are also several very exciting air ship levels, where Mario has to make his way across an air ship covered in canons and enemies in order to reach a Koopaling. Those levels are very hard, but they’re also very fun. Plus, not only does this game feature all the enemies from the original Super Mario Bros. but it also takes a few from Super Mario Bros. 2 and adds a whole lot of brand new ones. This truly adds to the feeling of travelling across a huge area.

As mentioned above this can all be done in multiplayer too and unlike the multiplayer in the first game, turns alternate every time somebody dies or wins a level, which means that you won’t have a huge wait on your hands if you’re playing with somebody who’s really good. You also play co-operatively, so, if one level is too hard for you, your partner might win it and then you can move on. The only downside is that Luigi looks just like Mario (only wearing green) and controls just like him too, which is a shame after he was made more unique in the second game. Nicely, this also provides you with a (greatly simplified) recreation of the original Mario Bros. game.

To this day, this is one of the best Mario games and it is certainly not to be missed. Rating: 9.4/10

After the success of the original Super Mario Bros. of course there was going to be a sequel. Interestingly, there were actually two ‘second’ games in the series, a Japanese one and an American one. The Japanese one was considered too hard for overseas gamers and so the rest of the world instead got a remake of the game Doki Doki Panic which had been changed to include Mario characters. This is a review of the American version, and while it is technically a remake, I will review it as its own entity and will hopefully get a chance to review the original at a later date.

Story-wise, this game differs quite considerably from all of the main Mario games; for one thing, Princess Peach isn’t kidnapped and is even playable! Here Mario dreams that he goes through a doorway and visits a strange world, then he wakes up and tells Luigi, Toad and Peach about it, only for them to discover the door in real life! It’s a bit weird, but nice.

This game has four playable characters and this changes up the gameplay quite a lot. First, there’s Mario. Mario fills his usual role as the ‘all-rounder’ and actually controls a lot better than he ever had before this point. Second, you have Luigi. Luigi is probably the character who requires you have the most skill to master. He jumps extremely highly, but he’s also very slide-y and float-y. Third there’s Toad. Toad’s a bit faster than the others, but he can’t jump as high (not very exciting). And finally Peach. For once she isn’t the damsel in distress and they’ve really taken it completely in the opposite direction by having her be the best of all the characters (at least in my opinion). Peach controls quite nicely (she isn’t slide-y or anything), she can jump quite high and she can also float in mid-air if you hold down the jump button. This skill is invaluable in the areas of trickier platforming and it’s what makes her my favourite.

But it’s not just the characters that I like about this game. Instead of the Mushroom Kingdom, this game takes place in a world called Subcon and the whole place looks a lot different. Instead of dirt roads and castles, you’ll be travelling through deserts (with an oasis or two), icy places and caves with rivers flowing through them. It all seems a lot more natural and has much more of an Eastern feel to it. Also, since this isn’t the Mushroom Kingdom, you won’t be finding Koopas or Goombas, but instead Shy Guys, Birdos, Pokeys and Bob-ombs in their place as the enemies, which is a refreshing change. Curiously, the attack system is also different, instead of jumping to squash them, you have to jump on them and then pick them up to throw them.

On the whole, this Mario game is sadly often over-looked and many elements of it have been forgotten. I personally prefer it over the original and find it to be very fun indeed. Unfortunately, there’s still no save system though so I suggest you play it with save states. Rating: 8/10

Buy it here.

While Super Mario Bros. is probably the most well-known game in the main Mario series, the Game & Watch game of the same title is perhaps the most obscure of all the side scrolling Mario games.

I’m sure you may think that, as this is a Game & Watch game, you can expect certain things of it, namely: all the action taking place in a one screen area, doing a simple task over and over which gets progressively harder each time and the main replay value being to beat your own high scores. Well, this game will totally subvert your expectations. It’s a side scroller and it has eight visually distinct levels of reasonable length. I was certainly very impressed by this.

All of the levels are auto-scrolling and require Mario keep going forward while avoiding getting ‘squashed’ between a wall and the left side of the screen. There are very few enemies (though occasionally a Bullet Bill or Fire Bar will appear) and it really is just a game of pure platforming. Things change a little in underwater levels, where Mario can move both up and down as well as left and right, and castle levels where he has to pass through several single screen segments and avoid Fire Bars. It’s very basic, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still fun. There are even a couple of pieces of music recreated from the NES game!

Story-wise I’m not entirely sure what is happening. Princess Peach is waiting for Mario at the end of every stage, and at the end of the eighth stage, there’s a small picture that looks a little like Bowser falling out of a castle (or something) but I really couldn’t tell. Those are the only hints to the plot. But then again, its story and how it fits in with other Mario games isn’t really important to a game like this and it’s a detail which will only really matter to fans like me.

This is a real curiosity of Nintendo’s past and is sadly very hard to come across, but if you get a chance, you should try this game.

Rating: 6.1/10