What's the best Mario game ever? Over more than four decades the Nintendo mascot has starred in many of the best video games of all time, and, let's face it, any of the top 10 could justifiably take the title.
We've compiled the following definitive ranking to help you sort the Super from the not-so-super Marios. It was a Tall Tall task, but this list of the best Mario games includes all the mainline platforming games in the series.
So, let's take a running jump and see if the princess is in the castle at the end. Here is the Super Mario series ranked from worst to best.
23. Super Mario Run (Mobile)
This game was never going to trouble Mario World in the plumber's platforming pantheon, but it was never supposed to; Super Mario Run served as Nintendo's first foray into mobile gaming (unless you count the ill-fated Miitomo), offering short bursts of fun perfect for situations where cracking out your Switch isn't an option.
Mario runs automatically, vaulting over enemies and small obstacles, and you pull off tricks by tapping at the right moment, jumping high or low depending on how long you hold your finger on the screen. It's a great translation of the plumbers' 2D oeuvre into the smartphone space, although the fact that it looks so much like an entry in the 'New' series perhaps set expectations too high for the first Mario game to appear on non-Nintendo hardware for a very long time.
Super Mario Run is an also-ran, then, but it's a polished little experience pleasantly free of microtransactions, currencies, and cooldown timers. It does what it set out to do, and well — for that, we admire it.
22. Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (NES)
The 'proper' Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan, this direct sequel was once ‘the grail’ for gamers in the West who had utterly exhausted the first Super Mario Bros. and wanted more of a challenge. The Lost Levels certainly provides that. In fact, Nintendo of America deemed it too difficult to release, and you can see where they were coming from.
It's a sequel in the truest sense of the word; difficulty-wise, it picks up where World 8-4 left off and is definitely best enjoyed by seasoned SMB veterans. Players new to Mario (yes, they do exist) will likely find it bewilderingly, hilariously tough. It's almost definitely the hardest Mario game ever made.
It wasn't until Super Mario All-Stars on the SNES that the wider world got to experience this game (which is where it picked up its 'Lost Levels' moniker). It's not bad by any means, but it's the sort of thing that would be a New Game+ mode in a modern game.
The Lost Levels is incredibly unforgiving and lacks the carefully considered balance of risk and reward associated with Mario platformers. It's available on Switch for anyone with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, so test your mettle there, if you dare.
21. New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)
A rare numbered Mario sequel, this is one from a series which continues to divide gamers. New Super Mario Bros. 2 doubled down on – of all things – coin collection to create a strangely compulsive platformer in the familiar mould.
Although hardly revolutionary, the extra autostereoscopic 3D was a nice touch and if you can embrace the banality of its obsession with gold, it’s a very solid, very enjoyable 2D Mario.
20. Super Mario Land (GB)
Super Mario Land was an impressive accomplishment in 1989. The sequel might have made this first shot at translating the plumber's platforming to the overworked, underpowered handheld seem quaint by comparison, but it's still a fun Super Mario experience, albeit a short one.
Crafted by Gunpei Yokoi's R&D1 rather than Shigeru Miyamoto's team, it's a surreal yet compelling take on the template which takes some adjusting to nowadays. And just when things are really getting good, the credits roll.
If you haven't played Super Mario Land before, you owe it to yourself to try this — it's worth playing through at least once to see where Mario's portable adventures began. Cracking music, too.
19. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (Switch)
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is an impressive package, offering madcap multiplayer and glimpses of the outrageous invention that was to come in Super Mario Odyssey.
It's a top-drawer 2D entry and arguably the best of the 'New' branch whether you play on Wii U or Switch, although ageing visuals and the irritation of being kicked back to the world map after every death stand out as things that could have been finessed in this Deluxe version.
Still, with New Super Luigi U included, this is a very fine 2D Mario (and Luigi) package, even if Wonder makes everything that came before look a little staid and static.
18. Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES)
Super Mario Bros. 2 (or Super Mario USA when this famously reskinned form of Yume Kojo Doki Doki Panic made its way back to Japan), was the follow-up to Super Mario Bros., with platforming mechanics quite different from the original. It introduced the ability to lift and throw objects and a screen that scrolled left and right and up and down.
The verticality and ability to play as different characters (including Peach and Toad) was a profound change from the first game, but despite being the odd one out in its homeland, Super Mario Bros. 2 ended up having an enormous influence on the iconography of the series.
SMB2 is definitely worth revisiting — Nintendo Switch Online is the easiest place to find it these days — if only to remind yourself just how different it is from what came before and after.
17. Super Mario 64 DS (DS)
If you've never played Super Mario 64, you'll probably want to begin as nature intended with the home console version due to its vastly superior control system. This remake controls too awkwardly on original DS hardware to compare favourably to the N64 launch title.
Still, Super Mario 64 DS takes a stone-cold classic and augments it with new characters, minigames, and small tweaks that make a playthrough worthwhile, especially if you've played the original to death. Those DS controls might be suboptimal, but we'd argue that the 3DS' analogue nub transforms the way this game plays, placing it much closer to the feel of the N64 classic.
So, if you're going to play Super Mario 64 DS (and how else are you going to play as Luigi, Yoshi, and Wario in an official release of Mario 64?), we'd highly recommend playing on the biggest 3DS or 2DS you can find. It's an intriguing twist on a genre-defining classic.
16. New Super Mario Bros. (DS)
While divisive among fans of the 8- and 16-bit classics, there was no denying the popularity of the 'New' series. In 2006, the original New Super Mario Bros. opened up 2D Mario to an entirely new generation, even if gives off a 'been there, done that' vibe these days.
The minigames were fun, and although we might pine for pixels and the 'classic' games, or wax lyrical about the myriad enhancements Mario Wonder brought with it, that shouldn't detract from what remains a remarkably solid Mario platformer.
So, absolutely essential it is not, but faults aside, there's plenty to like in Mario's oldest New adventure. Is that enough qualifications?
15. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)
Billed as a stepping stone between the 2D and 3D games, Super Mario 3D Land scaled down the grand playgrounds of the mainline titles into smaller courses that worked better on a handheld screen.
Beyond a handful of obvious and gimmicky perspective puzzles, this platformer showcased the console’s autostereoscopic 3D by subtly signalling distance and perspective – you weren’t relying on Mario’s shadow quite so much (a fact we more fully appreciated when we first played this game’s ‘big brother’, the excellent Super Mario 3D World).
It was games like this and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds which really showed off the 3DS' namesake feature and how it could enhance the gameplay experience without poking your eye out. Comfortably contained and wonderfully tailored to the hardware, Mario 3D Land should really be in your collection already.
14. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
The first 2D entry to come to a home console since Mario World in the early '90s, 2009's New Super Mario Bros. Wii brought chaotic — a little too chaotic for some — four-player local multiplayer to the series for the first time.
This game gave old-school fans yearning for a side-on Mushroom Kingdom adventure something to chew on, with plenty of clever nods to the past, although as with the rest of the 'New' series, you could argue that the visual presentation was a little bland. Cracking music in this one, though.
Arriving in a red Wii case which really made it stand out on the shelf, anyone put off by the New series' 'wah's and cuteness missed out on a real platforming treat in NSMB Wii.
13. Super Mario Sunshine (GCN)
Mario's decades-long run of hit after hit after hit is incredible when you think about it. The expectations each new mainline entry creates are astronomically high and we're continually gobsmacked that, more often than not, those expectations are surpassed with the next one.
Available on Switch if you have a copy of Super Mario 3D All-Stars, Super Mario Sunshine lacks the immaculate polish we've come to expect from the Mario series thanks to its rushed development. However, there's a unique charm and brilliance to its mechanics and setting which make it an underdog Mario game, and who doesn't love one of those?
As a direct sequel to Super Mario 64, it is not the genre-defining classic everyone hoped for. However, decades later we can look back and appreciate the many things Sunshine does superbly. The Sunshine Defence Force may be overcompensating — it's certainly got its flaws — but at the very least, it's still very good in our eyes.
The joyful, bouncing Isle Delfino theme alone makes it worth revisiting, so if you've skipped this entry in Mario's back catalogue, don't let its reputation put you off.
12. Super Mario Bros. (NES)
So much of the foundation of the series — and the medium at large — was put down in Super Mario Bros. that it's tough to evaluate all these years later without considering its historical importance.
This game, perhaps more than any other, has passed into the popular cultural consciousness and influenced countless developers since 1985. Artefacts like this delineate epochs; when it comes to video games, there was 'Before SMB' and 'After SMB'.
Going back today, it has aged, naturally, and it doesn't control quite as tightly as the Super Mario Bros. theme in the Mario Maker games. But it's still the original and, some would say, the best. Not us, but some.
You've played this many, many times before, no doubt, and you'll play it many, many times again. Good game.
11. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
The original Super Mario Land was a solid start for the series on Nintendo's Game Boy system, but nothing prepared us for what Nintendo R&D1 was able to do with this sequel.
Every aspect of the game is improved to the point that it genuinely feels of a piece with its 8-bit, home console brethren, delivering a longer, more in-depth handheld Mario adventure. It's a bit on the easy side, but it remains one of the best Game Boy titles ever released and a testament to just how capable a system it was in the hands of talented devs.
If you're a Super Mario fan, you absolutely must play Super Mario Land 2; if you're not, this legendary handheld entry is good enough to make you one.
10. Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch)
Super Mario Maker 2 took everything you loved about Super Mario Maker and turned it up to 11.
It's added more of everything: the Super Mario 3D World style, enemies, gizmos, power-ups, vertical levels, the Story Mode having an actual story, multiplayer, and more (including slopes, of course). The list of additions is truly massive.
There are a few small issues here and there — the online is still hilariously obtuse in a way only Nintendo could make it, and the slight awkwardness of button-based building is disappointing after how natural it felt on the Wii U GamePad — but they're overwhelmingly dwarfed by the sheer joy and unbridled freedom on offer.
Free updates and tweaks to the formula evolved the experience over time, much like the original, with Ninji Speedruns and various new elements — like the ability to create world maps — added to this expansive, essential Mario toybox.
9. Super Mario Maker (Wii U)
The original Wii U Super Mario Maker, with its multiple updates, additions, and tweaks over time, was a game which arguably justified the Wii U GamePad on its own.
Enabling you to craft levels in the style of the original game, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and the New series, the elegant user interface and overall polish made this an exceptional Mario experience, one that was tailored perfectly to the second screen of the Wii U GamePad. It was the system's true 'killer app', but it arrived too late in the lifecycle to make a difference.
Its Switch sequel might have added slopes and other fun doohickeys, but the sequel stands on the shoulders of the original, and the basic course creation experience is arguably still at its most intuitive on a Wii U GamePad.
You can't share your creations online via Nintendo's bafflingly backward course-sharing system anymore, but if you've ever enjoyed a 2D Mario game and have a creative, playful spirit (and a Wii U), then the original Mario Maker still deserves your attention.
8. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury (Switch)
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury takes everything that made the cat-filled Wii U original special and throws in various small gameplay tweaks to make it even more enjoyable. The first four-player 3D Mario game fuses the freedom of the third dimension with the more constrained (yet no less imaginative) courses from his 2D games to wonderful effect.
The cooperative multiplayer element brought Princess Peach, Luigi, and Toad back into the fold, mirroring Super Mario Bros. 2's lineup, and both Cat Mario and Captain Toad were also introduced here. It's the additional open-world-y Bowser's Fury mode that makes this Switch version a must-buy, even if you 100%'d the Wii U original.
The only real mark against the awkwardly acronymed SM3DW+BF is patchy online multiplayer implementation, but this Switch release is otherwise up there with the very best of the plumber's portfolio.
Bowser's Fury is probably the best Mario game for people who have never played a 3D Mario before, serving as an unintimidating introduction to a larger three-dimensional Super Mario world that can also be played with friends and family.
7. Super Mario 64 (N64)
The 3D platformer that defined what that label meant, it's remarkable just how much Shigeru Miyamoto and his team got right with its first foray.
It feels effortless, as if these mechanics were somehow self-evident or arrived at through natural evolution. Nintendo absolutely nailed the formula from the very beginning – so much so that the basic 3D template hasn't really changed much, even today. We still control Mario much as we first did with that wonderfully odd-looking N64 controller.
Super Mario 64 is available on Switch if you nabbed a time-limited copy of Super Mario 3D All-Stars or as part of a Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack subscription, and blather on endlessly about its genre-birthing mechanics, how it set the stage for 3D gaming as we know it, and the infinity of tiny details that make this a joy to fire up all these years later.
But you know all that. Do yourself a favour and blast through a couple of dozen stars next time you're pondering what to play. It still feels almost as good as it did the very first time.
6. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch)
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is, quite simply, the best 2D Mario game since Super Mario World in our opinion; the slickest, sharpest, and smartest that two-dimensional Mario has felt since 1991.
In its Wonder Flowers, badges, and online aspects, it serves up an endlessly inventive and impressive platforming adventure that will utterly hook you. From its myriad animation details to its infectious anything-could-happen spirit, it's got charm up the wazoo.
A refinement of a well-established formula, it doesn't totally upend the 2D tea table, but with local co-op and online fun adding to the replayability factor, this feels like 2D Mario with its mojo back. Super Mario Wonder is one of the very best platformers we've played.
5. Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
There's an argument to be made that Mario 64 never got a 'true' sequel until this game: Sunshine's FLUDD muddied the waters with its feature set; the Galaxy games eschewed large playgrounds for impeccably crafted planetoids designed around specific ideas; 3D Land and 3D World were deliberately contained with linear design to introduce 2D Mario players to the third dimension.
Super Mario Odyssey promised a return to the 'sandbox' style players had been pining for since 1996, and it delivered. Cappy's capture abilities keep things fresh in a game which blends all sorts of ideas and art styles into an improbably coherent, compelling whole.
It really shouldn't work, but New Donk City's human inhabitants co-exist happily with anthropomorphic cutlery, colourful sombrero-wearing skeletons, and the big-eyed Mushroom Kingdom clan thanks solely to the developers' impeccable execution. The mechanical mastery here is breathtaking, with so many distractions to discover. We don't envy the designers who have to come up with Mario's next game, but Mario Odyssey proves that absolutely anything is possible.
An utterly remarkable entry in this most celebrated of series, then. The best Switch Mario game is an essential purchase whether you like Mario or not.
4. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
With Super Mario Galaxy 2 Nintendo gave us that rarest of treats — a direct sequel to one of its finest games. While anyone who played and fell in love with Super Mario Galaxy would have been overjoyed to hear there was more on the way, the expectations couldn't have been higher. Somehow, Galaxy 2 expanded on the first game's inventiveness, turning up the colour dial to eleventy-stupid.
This was EAD Tokyo tearing up the textbook and pasting it back together in fascinating, surprising ways, flexing its beefed-up, confidently creative muscles with a huge variety of environments and obstacles, plus Yoshi and a host of new power-ups. It's a brilliant time.
To argue over which Galaxy is better is pointless, really — they're both wonderful and utterly essential, so if you never got around to playing the sequel, carve out some time as soon as possible. Inexplicably, it's missing from Switch's 3D All-Stars collection, but this game is truly worth hunting down a Wii for if you missed it.
3. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
Where Sunshine faltered, Super Mario Galaxy truly did shine. Taking Mario into space gave Nintendo the opportunity to play with gravity and give the character a whole new (final) frontier of planetoid playgrounds to blast between, setting the stage for endlessly creative snippets of platforming perfection.
All that aside, there's also Rosalina and the Lumas' story to enjoy if you go looking for it; an affecting and underrated aspect of an utterly sublime game.
It's available to play on Switch, and you really should — Super Mario Galaxy is an infectiously fun trip through the cosmos which begged the question: Where could the plumber possibly go next?
2. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
As toweringly important as the original Super Mario Bros. was, Super Mario Bros. 3 was a colossal leap forward in practically every way.
It refined the basics, switched up the visuals, and added more mechanical variety and one-and-done elements than any video game to that point — so many that even today there are certain suits, stages, and secrets that many fans never found.
So many ‘old’ games are best approached with historical context in mind, or come with caveats when playing them years after release. SMB3 needs none. It's just as boundingly inventive and fresh as the day it was released, and easily one of the very finest video games ever made. Play it, now.
1. Super Mario World (SNES)
There is endless debate about whether Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World is the better game. For our money, they are two sides of the same coin — two faces of a monumental peak in the video game landscape.
This remains an incredible achievement of invention and sheer entertainment that the 2D platforming genre has struggled to match ever since. Introducing Yoshi and an expanded overworld with multiple paths, Mario World overflows with secrets and secret exits that were perfect for fuelling playground gossip and elevating it to the upper-est echelons of platform video games, 2D or otherwise.
Decades on, it still doesn't get much better than this. All games have flaws, but if there exists an exception to that rule, Super Mario World is it.
And that's a wrap on all the Super Mario games, ranked.
Best Super Mario FAQ
Congratulations on reaching the flagpole. The princess is in this castle, we promise, but let's take a look at a handful of common questions readers ask about the best Mario Games.
What was the first Mario game?
The first Mario video game with 'Mario' in the title was Mario Bros. (1983).
Super Mario Bros. (1985) for NES marked the first game in Nintendo's side-scrolling platform series, although the character made cameos in several earlier games after debuting as 'Jumpman' in the Donkey Kong arcade game in 1981.
How many Mario games are there?
There are 23 Mario games in the mainline platformer series, not including compilations, ports, or re-releases.
Some may include the excellent Yoshi's Island, although for us it diverges too far from the other games to belong in the mainline series — the game's full title (Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island) always felt like a marketing ploy to us, but others may feel differently!
What's the latest Mario game?
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the most recent game in the series. It launched on Friday 20th October 2023.
Which Mario game should I start with?
That depends on if you want to play 2D or 3D.
With 2D, Super Mario Bros. 3 is still a brilliant game (and available to play on Switch with a Nintendo Switch Online account), but the more modern games would also be a good starting point: New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, for instance.
For the 3D Mario games, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury is a great introduction.
What's the hardest Mario game?
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is commonly said to be the most difficult game in the series.
This Famicom title is available to play on Switch via Nintendo Switch Online, which also features a handy rewind tool!
What's the best Super Mario game on Switch specifically?
Super Mario Odyssey is the best entry originally released on Switch, as you can see from the list above!
What's the best-selling Mario game?
The original Super Mario Bros. for the NES remains the best-selling Mario game of all time, with 40.24 million copies sold.
The best-selling Mario platformer, that is — Mario Kart 8 (Deluxe) is the best-selling spin-off with a dizzying 71.36 copies sold across Wii U and Switch. Wowie zowie, indeed!
Why is Mario called Mario?
Mario was named after American real estate developer Mario Segale.
Segale rented a warehouse to Nintendo of America in 1981 and, unimpressed with creator Shigeru Miyamoto's suggestion of 'Jumpman' as a name for the player character in Donkey Kong who would become the company's mascot, NOA took inspiration from their landlord and suggested 'Mario' as an alternative.
And the name stuck.