The 10th Hour 09.25.09: Top 10 Mario Games

Posted by Adam Larck on 09.25.2009

From Mario’s platforming games to his games from various other genres, see Adam Larck’s top 10 Mario games inside.

Hello and welcome to another week of the 10th Hour. I'll be taking over as host this week, so I'll start off on my usual update.

- Unlike Robbin's comment last week about Scribblenauts, I'm still having a great time with it. Trying to gold star every level currently. I just really like the freedom you have in trying to solve a puzzle. To get a star down from a tree, I found that there were dozens of ways to do it. Having the freedom to find a solution however you want to by trying different variations of words is something few games offer, but is always great to have.

- On the 360 side, I'm almost finished with Batman: AA. Between class and work, progress in that game has been slow. Plus, I still keep wandering around to do riddles. On top of this, I'm working on a review of Wet, plus I also have Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 and Halo 3: ODST staring at me to play. Hopefully this weekend you will see me in at least one of those games, maybe all.

Reader Feedback

The last column I did was all about Mario power-ups, and I had quite a few comments about the list. So, let's see what people have to say about my choices.

First, we have the letter R, expressing a feeling that many people had.

"This is list is full of fail due to the exclusion of the leaf and/or P-wing from SMB 3. Seriously, those were innovative powerups, and mainstays. FAIL."

As far as including the Leaf goes, I really felt that there were better powers that incorporated the Leaf's ability, such as the Tanooki suit and the P-Wing. After thinking about it for a while, I do agree that the P-Wing should have been on there around the middle of the list. While it's actual effect of infinite flying only lasts one level, it was worth it to have the Leaf power-up still afterwards.

As far as being mainstays, I do question that choice of wording. There were variations of the flying power in some of the later Mario's, but these haven't been seen in a majority of games like the Mushroom or Fire Flower has.

Next up, we have JP. JP's a regular commenter here, so let's see what they have to say.

"Have you just never played Mario 64 or something?
Wing Cap, Metal Cap, Invisibility Cap? None of these are better then the blue shell? Come on now"

Surprisingly, I have played Mario 64, but when it came to power-ups I had a hard time deciding whether or not to include them. I never did really care too much for the Metal and Invisibility Caps, but the Wing Cap was fun to fly around in from time to time. Originally, when I had made up the list, I wanted to let the Star be the only temporary power up on the list. However, when I had written and posted the list, I ended up putting a few more on there as well. When I did that, I should have gone back and written the Wing Cap in around 9 or 10 on the list.

Finally, I have differing opinions from Squid Vicious and Zingy over the Frog Suit.

"FROG SUIT! FROG SUIT! FROG SUIT!"

"Guys, the frog suit should have been left off the list because it sucked. It made the water levels a tad easier but once you hit land wearing that thing everything went straight to hell. The fire flower is a better choice to use in a water level than the crappy frog suit."

As far as the Frog Suit goes, it would have been on the list if it had just been based on looks. The suit looked cool, and seeing Mario hop around like a frog was unique. As far as functionality goes, I have to agree with Zingy here. It helped in the water, and the higher jump was nice on land, but the slower movement and the hopping while trying to walk became a bit of a pain after awhile.

Now, on with the list.

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The 10th Hour – Top 10 Mario Games

After doing my favorite non-Mario games and Mario power-ups, you knew that this list would be coming. Originally, I thought of doing just his platforming games, but the farther I got in the more games I thought of including. So, this list will include any game that Mario was playable in. That being said, there were quite a few games that were left off of this list that I wanted to include. If I left your game out, it was probably considered at one point, I just had a lot of games to choose from here.

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10. Super Smash Bros. Melee - While not technically a Mario game, there's no denying the fun to be had in SSB. Out of the three games, though, I still like Melee the most.

The cast of characters was big and varied, and Mario came with new moves and stages. His cape move was good to reflect projectiles and spin enemies, and the classic fireball came back looking better. SSBM would be a good game no matter what, but having the icon of Nintendo be a playable character really makes it great.

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9. Mario Tennis - My favorite sports game that Mario has been in, this 64 game was always fun to play in short spurts.

The various characters with their strengths and weaknesses were a blast to play as. I especially liked Boo for his speed and tricky serves. The special courts were interesting to see, and the mini-games were fun to kill time with as well. I especially liked the Bower Stage, where you could use the power-ups against the opponents. While the GameCube sequel was decent, they added special shots and other things that just weren't needed. Mario Tennis was great just being simple tennis.

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8. Super Mario Galaxy - Galaxy is a fun platformer, but what really brought me into this game was the ability to run around worlds.

After the mediocre Mario game on the GameCube (I just was not a fan of F.L.U.D.D.) I started looking forward to this game after seeing the trailers. Running around and between worlds looked fun, and the game did not disappoint. The various themed worlds were cool, and it was especially fun to see the Mario themed worlds, such as the Yoshi's head. I'm looking forward to the sequel as well to see what new worlds they think of.

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7. Mario Kart 64 - The Kart franchise has been beloved by many fans. While I'm not a hardcore fan of the series (I play it every once in a while with friends) I was really a fan of the 64 version of the game.

Kart 64 had a lot of good stages that I liked, including Toad's Turnpike and Wario's Stadium. The Battle Arena's were also great to play, although it normally caused quite a bit of fights during play. Another thing that caused fights were getting to choose characters. Toad was always fought after to play as. Me? I'd just go for Yoshi as the fight went on.

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6. Super Paper Mario - While I like the whole Paper Mario series, I really liked the blend of 2D and 3D in SPM.

The game introduced various Pixls to find and use as players progressed through the game, and the ability to switch between 2D and 3D to solve various puzzles or avoid enemies. It was a good gimmick that really worked for the game. The ability to change out into different characters to use their ability was nice as well. Unfortunately, the relative shortness and ease of the game kept it low on the list.

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5. Super Mario Bros. - The original platformer, SMB is still fun to go back to even today.

Granted, it was a simple game and fairly quick to get through, but that made it no less fun. Finding the warp pipes for the first time was awesome as well. But, to be honest, I felt dismayed when I finally made it through the first castle just to find out that I've been in the wrong castle the whole time. This was a good start to Mario's long platforming career.

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4. Super Mario 64 - The first 3D platforming Mario, SM64 took a gamble that paid off.

The game brought in a lot of differences for the series. A health bar, no permanent power-ups and the 3D controls with only one analog stick all worked out for the game. The Winged Cap was fun to use in the few times that you could use it as well. Also, finally finding Yoshi in the game was a great reward. However, there are still quite a few games that I like more with Mario.

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3. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - The top non-platforming game on the list, I still think RPG deserves an actual sequel. I don't mean Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi either; I mean a game with Mallow and Geno back in it.

The storyline in this game was great, the graphics were great for the SNES and having the ability to use many of Mario's famous moves, such as the jump and fireballs, were a nice touch. The various cameos in the game were cool to see, and the special moves were great. Overall, this is still one of my favorite RPGs out there.

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2. Super Mario World - One of the top games on the SNES, SMW also happened to introduce a certain green dinosaur.

The game came with less power-ups than the number one game, but the introduction of Yoshi more than made up for that. Being able to ride around and take an extra hit without losing a power was great, plus, you still had a chance to get Yoshi back. The variety of new words, hidden worlds to find and the ability to save power-ups gave this game a solid No. 2 spot.

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1. Super Mario Bros. 3 - This game really expanded on the greatness that the original SMB introduced.

After trying to make a quick sequel of Super Mario Bros. 2 by actually just using another game and redoing the sprites, SMB 3 went back to the original formula. Short, platforming levels with enemies and power-ups. However, they went a step farther, adding unique worlds and new power-ups. Some of the best powers in the series come from this game. Even today, I still like coming back to this game just to play through and enjoy it. Mario has withstood the test of time, and none of the games exemplify this more than SMB 3.

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Well, that's all I have for this week. Like or hate what I said? Shoot me an email at [e-mail] or leave a comment below. Any feedback is appreciated.

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