Guide: Best Super Mario Games Of All Time
By Four entire decades have flown by since the day Super Mario Bros. first popped onto the Famicom in Japan on 13 September 1985. To mark the milestone, we’ve dusted off and re-shared this complete league table of every Super Mario side-scroller. Have fun!
Which entry wears the crown as the ultimate Mario title? Across forty-plus years, Nintendo’s moustachioed icon has headlined countless all-time classics, and—let’s be honest—any of the front-runners could legitimately claim top honours.
We’ve stitched together the following, supposedly final, pecking order to separate the standouts from the also-rans. Ranking them was a sky-high chore, yet the roster below gathers every core 2D and 3D hop-and-bop outing under one warp pipe.
Ready? Let’s bolt forward, leap across gaps and discover whether royalty awaits at the flagpole. Presenting the Super Mario lineage, counted down from weakest to masterpiece.
23. Super Mario Run (Mobile)
This auto-sprinter was never destined to dethrone Mario World, and it never pretended otherwise; Super Mario Run simply served as Nintendo’s opening gambit on phones (unless you count the short-lived Miitomo), delivering bite-size stages ideal for moments when fishing out your Switch feels impossible.
The portly plumber tears ahead on his own, vaulting over goombas and tiny ledges, while you tap to time somersaults—brief taps for hop, long presses for soaring pirouettes. It’s a slick retrofit of the side-scrolling formula to glass rectangles, though its near-identical ‘New’ art style perhaps promised more than a mobile debut should have.
Consequently, Mario Run sits in the midfield, yet it gleams with polish and mercifully spares players loot-boxes, gems and stamina bars. It achieves exactly what it aimed for—and we respect it for that.
22. Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (NES)
Known as the ‘real’ Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan, this direct follow-up became holy-grail material for Western players who had every 8-bit pipe memorised and hungered for harsher trials. The Lost Levels absolutely delivers—so much so that Nintendo of America labelled it unfair and locked it overseas.
True to its name, the difficulty leaps straight from the eighth world’s closing gauntlet and never lets up; newcomers risk total bewilderment, whereas seasoned vets savour perhaps the cruelest Miyamoto-approved gauntlet ever printed to silicon.
Europe and North America finally tasted the pain via Super Mario All-Stars, hence the “Lost” nickname. Quality isn’t the issue—today it would ship as New-Game-Plus DLC rather than a standalone sequel.
Expect zero sympathy: hidden blocks sprout where you land, poisonous mushrooms lurk in plain sight, and wind drags you into pits. The balance of risk versus reward here feels more casino than carnival, though Switch Online subscribers can sample the misery any time they dare.
21. New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)
A numeral in a Mario logo is rarer than a 1-Up, yet New Super Mario Bros. 2 proudly flaunts its ‘2’. The hook? Golden coin madness—entire stages rain money like a busted slot machine, turning the usual hop-scotch into a compulsive scramble for glinting loot.
Nothing here overturns the playbook, yet the pop-out stereoscopic depth glistens and, if you surrender to the midas-touch gimmick, you’ll uncover a rock-solid, textbook side-scroller that hums along with breezy confidence.
20. Super Mario Land (GB)
Back in 1989, squeezing a recognisable Mushroom Kingdom into the pea-soup green of the original Game Boy felt nothing short of wizardry. Its successor may have eclipsed it, yet the maiden handheld outing still charms—just don’t blink or the credits will greet you before the fun peaks.
Gunpei Yokoi’s R&D1 helmed development rather than Miyamoto’s squad, resulting in a slightly surreal remix: sphinxes, aliens and shooter levels share real estate with goombas and pipes. Stick with it at least once to witness Mario’s portable origin—complete with one of the catchiest chiptune soundtracks ever pressed into a tiny grey cartridge.
19. Arcade Archives VS. Super Mario Bros. (Switch eShop)
Finding Super Mario Bros. on a Nintendo console is hardly front-page news, yet Nintendo chose the coin-op variant—VS. Super Mario Bros.—to mark the NES classic’s Switch debut. Expect the same jingle, control nirvana and the bulk of the iconic stages, but fresh brick layouts and cruel enemy placements shred any muscle memory you relied on.
Several of these remixed courses later migrated to The Lost Levels, yet their arcade context and online leaderboard scoring inject new life. Veterans who can sprint the original blindfolded will discover a welcome, knuckle-cracking challenge.
18. Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES)
Originally Super Mario Bros. 2—or Super Mario USA when it boomeranged back to Japan—this re-skinned version of Yume Kojo Doki Doki Panic tossed out the rulebook. Suddenly you could uproot turnips, hurl foes skyward, and explore vertically scrolling caverns.
The shift in perspective and the debut of Peach and Toad as selectable heroes felt radical, yet this black-sheep entry quietly seeded future Mario iconography—Shy-Guys, Bob-Ombs and even Luigi’s gangly leap all debuted here.
Fire up Nintendo Switch Online for the simplest revisit—SMB2 remains a quirky, inventive curio whose ideas still echo through the franchise decades later.
A handy spot to rediscover it nowadays — if only to register how wildly it diverges from what preceded and followed it.
17. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (Switch)
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe bundles riotous couch co-op and flashes of the zany creativity later perfected in Super Mario Odyssey.
It’s a first-rate 2D outing and possibly the pinnacle of the ‘New’ line, whether you sample it on Wii U or Switch. Ageing graphics and the nuisance of getting booted to the world map after every demise, however, feel like missed polish opportunities in this Deluxe reissue.
Still, with New Super Luigi U folded in, this remains a stellar 2D Mario (and Luigi) compilation—Wonder just makes earlier entries look a touch stodgy by comparison.
16. New Super Mario Bros. (DS)
While purists of the 8- and 16-bit era argue over its merits, the original New Super Mario Bros. undeniably reintroduced 2D Mario to a fresh audience in 2006, even if it now radiates a “been there, done that” aura.
The mini-game collection delivered breezy fun, and though we may reminisce about pixel-art classics or rave over Mario Wonder’s upgrades, that doesn’t erase this entry’s rock-solid platforming core.
Indispensable it isn’t, but strip away the caveats and Mario’s inaugural ‘New’ quest still offers heaps to enjoy. Enough disclaimers?
15. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
Positioned as a bridge between flat and fully polygonal Marios, Super Mario 3D Land shrank the sprawling playgrounds of console entries into bite-sized stages tailor-made for a portable display.
Beyond a few gimmicky perspective stunts, the adventure leveraged the handheld’s autostereoscopic 3D to convey depth—you stopped leaning on Mario’s shadow so much (something we only noticed when we later tackled its bigger sibling, the superb Super Mario 3D World).
Titles like this—and A Link Between Worlds—proved the 3DS gimmick could actually enrich play instead of poking your eyes out. Compact, bespoke, and essential: 3D Land belongs in your handheld library.
14. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
The first side-scrolling home-console Mario since World in the early ’90s, 2009’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii introduced manic—occasionally too manic—four-player local chaos to the franchise.
Veterans hungry for a retro-styled Mushroom Kingdom romp found plenty to devour, including clever nods to yesteryear, though, like its ‘New’ siblings, the art direction skewed a tad plain. The soundtrack, however, absolutely slaps.
Housed in a crimson Wii case that screamed from store shelves, anyone who balked at the series’ cutesy “wah” moments missed a masterclass in cooperative platforming.
13. Super Mario Sunshine (GCN)
Mario’s streak of successes spanning decades is absurd when you stop to think about it. Each new entry shoulders sky-high anticipation, and somehow the next release usually clears the bar—often pole-vaults it.
Grab it today via the limited Super Mario 3D All-Stars and you’ll notice Sunshine lacks the usual Nintendo sheen, a casualty of its hurried schedule. Yet its exotic setting and gadget-driven mechanics lend it an underdog magnetism—and we adore an underdog.
A direct follow-up to 64, it never became the genre-redefining juggernaut fans dreamed of. Still, hindsight reveals a laundry list of things it nails. Yes, the Sunshine Defence Squad can overreach, but bottom line: we reckon it’s very good.
That jaunty Isle Delfino theme alone justifies a revisit, so don’t let the naysayers deter you from trying this slice of Nintendo history.
12. Super Mario Bros. (NES)
The bedrock of the franchise—and of modern gaming—was poured in Super Mario Bros., making detached critique nearly impossible nearly four decades on.
Few creations have seeped into mainstream culture so thoroughly or inspired legions of designers since 1985. It’s a cultural fault line: there’s pre-SMB, and there’s post-SMB.
Return now and, sure, the edges are rough; the controls feel looser than the SMB skin in Mario Maker. Yet it remains the template, the spark, the legend. We’re not calling it number-one—but plenty do.
You’ve cleared it a hundred times; you’ll clear it a hundred more. Good game.
11. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
The first Super Mario Land was a respectable Game Boy debut, but its sequel saw Nintendo R&D1 push the hardware until it sang.
Every facet is upgraded so thoroughly that the cartridge feels like a lost 8-bit console epic—bigger, bolder, and longer than its predecessor. It’s lighter on challenge, yet still ranks among the finest Game Boy titles ever published, a showcase for what skilled devs could coax from that dot-matrix screen.
Mario faithful need to play it; newcomers may find this humble handheld gem enough to convert them into lifelong fans.
10. Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch)
Super Mario Maker 2 absorbed every beloved ingredient from its forerunner and cranked the dial far past ten.
It piled on extra helpings across the board: the Super Mario 3D World theme, fresh baddies, contraptions, power-ups, upright stages, a Story Mode that actually tells a tale, multiplayer mayhem, and—naturally—slopes. The changelog is downright enormous.
Tiny gripes linger—Nintendo’s online setup remains comically cryptic, and constructing courses with buttons feels clumsy compared to the Wii U GamePad’s touchscreen (praying for a Switch 2 mouse patch)—but those quibbles vanish beneath the tidal wave of gleeful creativity on tap.
Post-launch drops and balance passes kept the toolkit growing, echoing the first game’s lifespan. Ninji Speedruns and world-map construction joined the party, cementing this as an ever-expanding, must-have Mario playground.
9. Super Mario Maker (Wii U)
The Wii U’s inaugural Super Mario Maker, bolstered by continual patches and content drips, practically single-handedly vindicated the GamePad’s existence.
Letting players whip up stages in the visual grammar of SMB 1, 3, World, and the New line, its slick UI and spit-shine polish delivered a Mario adventure engineered around the second screen. It was the console’s ultimate showpiece—just tragically late to turn the tide.
Its Switch successor may have thrown in slopes and shiny gadgets, yet it still rests atop this foundation, and many argue stage-crafting has never felt more instantaneous than with stylus in hand on Wii U.
Nintendo’s arcane course-exchange service is now shuttered, but if you own the hardware and harbor even a spark of imagination, the original toolkit remains worth dusting off.
8. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (Switch)
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury preserves every whisker of the Wii U cat classic while sprinkling in quality-of-life touch-ups that make the package purr even louder. The series’ first four-player 3D romp marries open-air movement with tightly designed, linear gauntlets to magical results.
Co-op reunites Peach, Luigi, and Toad alongside Mario, echoing the SMB 2 roster, and both Cat Mario and Captain Toad debuted here. Yet it’s the bonus Bowser’s Fury free-form campaign that pushes this port into essential territory, even for veterans who plumbed every star on Wii U.
Online co-op is patchy at best, but that lone blemish can’t derail what stands among the plumber’s finest hours.
Bowser’s Fury doubles as a friendly gateway drug to 3D Mario—an approachable, shareable sandbox for newcomers and families alike.
7. Super Mario 64 (N64)
The cartridge that wrote the dictionary entry for “3-D platformer” still astonishes with how much Miyamoto’s squad nailed on the first swing.
Controls feel innate, as though the geometry of 3-D space dictated these moves. Nintendo locked the template in place so firmly that modern titles still borrow Mario’s N64 vocabulary wholesale.
Super Mario 64 lodges inside the Switch library if you snagged 3D All-Stars during its blink-and-you-miss-it window or subscribe to the Expansion tier—rave as long as you like about its genre-forging leaps and microscopic touches that sparkle decades on.
Still, skip the history lecture, boot it up, nab a handful of stars. The jump-thump joy lands nearly as sweetly today as it did in ‘96.
6. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch)
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is, in our eyes, the pinnacle of 2-D Mario since 1991’s Super Mario World—a razor-sharp, exuberant reinvention of side-scrolling play.
Wonder Flowers, collectible badges, and smart online hooks conspire to deliver a kaleidoscope of surprises that keep thumbs glued to the controller. From split-second animation flourishes to its “what-next?” whimsy, charisma oozes from every pipe.
It doesn’t flip the tea table of 2-D design, but local and networked multiplayer give it legs long after credits roll. Wonder is platforming at its most alive.
5. Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
You could argue Mario 64 waited over two decades for an honest follow-up: Sunshine’s hosepack hijinks split opinion; the Galaxy pair traded playgrounds for compact planet puzzles; 3D Land and 3D World drew rigid paths to shepherd 2-D fans into the z-axis.
Super Mario Odyssey finally restored the sandbox spirit of ’96, and Cappy’s possession gimmick keeps every moon hunt feeling novel. Somehow, human businessfolk, sentient cutlery, sombrero skeletons, and the Mushroom gang coexist in a single cohesive fever dream—testament to Nintendo’s peerless craft.
Mechanical depth is off the charts, distractions abound, and pity the team tasked with topping this magic trick. Odyssey proves that in Mario’s universe, anything flies.
This is the Switch’s crown jewel—essential whether you’re a lifelong fan or a curious outsider.
4.
Nintendo delivered one of its rarest gifts — a straight follow-up to a masterpiece — with Super Mario Galaxy 2. Veterans who adored the original were thrilled to learn extra galaxies were en route, yet the bar had never been higher. Somehow the sequel cranked the chromatic madness past eleven, trumping its predecessor’s ingenuity at every turn.
EAD Tokyo shredded the design documents, re-assembled them into wild new shapes, and flexed newly bulging creative muscles: a glut of themed planets, a toy-box of fresh power-ups, and Yoshi along for the ride. Pure joy from launch to credits.
Debating which Galaxy reigns supreme is wasted breath — both are indispensable. If the second star saga passed you by, clear your calendar immediately. Oddly, it was left out of Switch’s 3D All-Stars bundle, yet the hunt for a Wii copy is absolutely worth the effort.
3. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
Sunshine stumbled; Super Mario Galaxy soared. Launching the plumber into orbit let Nintendo toy with gravity and litter the cosmos with miniature playgrounds, enabling bite-sized slices of platforming bliss.
Buried beneath the acrobatics is Rosalina and the Lumas’ quietly moving tale — an under-appreciated narrative nestled inside an otherwise radiant adventure.
You’ll find the adventure waiting on Switch. Don’t miss this irresistibly jolly trip across the stars that left everyone wondering where on earth (or beyond) Mario could possibly head next.
2. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
As groundbreaking as the maiden Super Mario Bros. was, Super Mario Bros. 3 catapulted the template forward on every front: tighter control, richer audiovisuals, and more one-off mechanics and power-suits than any title of the era — secrets so obscure that plenty of players still haven’t seen them all.
Where plenty of retro classics demand historical context or apology, SMB3 needs none. Decades later it remains spring-loaded with invention and stands tall among the greatest games ever crafted. Play it today.
1. Super Mario World (SNES)
Fans will argue until the sun explodes whether Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World earns the crown. We see them as twin peaks framing a golden era — two facets of platforming Everest.
Mario World’s knockout combo of boundless creativity, Yoshi’s debut, and a branching overworld stuffed with hidden exits set playground rumour mills alight and cemented its reputation atop the 2D genre. Decades on, “better” is almost impossible to find. Every game has blemishes — if an exception exists, it’s this one.
That wraps our ranking of every core Super Mario adventure.
Best Super Mario FAQ
You reached the flagpole — the princess is indeed inside. Before you dash off, here are quick answers to frequent Mushroom Kingdom queries.
What was the first Mario game?
The inaugural release actually titled “Mario” was Mario Bros. (1983).
Super Mario Bros. (1985) kicked off the side-scrolling platform series, though the character popped up earlier as “Jumpman” in the 1981 Donkey Kong arcade cabinet.
How many Mario games are there?
Twenty-three entries form the mainline platformer lineage, compilations and ports excluded.
Some count Yoshi’s Island; we consider it a spin-off that birthed its own franchise, much like the “Super Mario World 2” subtitle was mostly marketing gloss — but your mileage may vary.
What’s the latest Mario game?
Super Mario Bros. Wonder arrived on 20 October 2023.
Which Mario game should I start with?
Pick your dimension:
2D: Super Mario Bros. 3 (on Switch Online) or the newer New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe and Wonder.
3D: Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is the friendliest on-ramp.
What’s the hardest Mario game?
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (aka the Japanese SMB2) owns that infamy, though Switch Online’s rewind feature softens the punishment nowadays.
What’s the best Super Mario game on Switch specifically?
From our list, Super Mario Odyssey reigns as the console’s original crown jewel.
What’s the best-selling Mario game?
The NES classic Super Mario Bros. still tops the platformer charts at 40.24 million units.
Among spin-offs, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe rockets past with 71.36 million across Wii U and Switch.
Why is Mario called Mario?
NOA named him after warehouse landlord Mario Segale during the Donkey Kong days, swapping out the placeholder “Jumpman.” The moniker stuck worldwide.
Hang on, why isn’t [insert Mario game here] included?
We list every mainline platformer (2-D and 3-D) plus Super Mario Run, but omit sports outings, RPGs, rereleases, and pre-’85 Mario Bros. arcade titles.
Yoshi’s Island and Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 feel like separate franchises to us — brilliant, but not core “Super Mario.” We also skipped ports and collections (GBA Advance lines, etc.) where Switch upgrades exist.
How can I change the ranking in this article?
Our order pulls live User Ratings from Nintendo Life readers. Scores shift as new players weigh in — refresh tomorrow and the list might already look different.
Can’t stomach the placement? Search your favourite below, slap on a score, and nudge the tally yourself.
Where does your chosen Mario land? Are you team 2-D or 3-D? Tell us below, and remember: reader votes continuously reshape the standings.