Video: 9 Mario Games We Wish had Never Existed

Hotel Mario is the best game ever created and the Switch will have a gaping black hole in both its library and soul until the day it gets a sequel.

I secretly wish they'd make a New super mario bros Switch. But because of Mario Maker I truly wonder what they will do with the 2D mario games...

I was expecting CDI Mario lol

But 3rd party Mario games are currently meme generators.

I've yet to see a Tumblr timeline without a Hotel Mario meme on it

P.S. Besides, the worse Mario game is still better than any Sonic game (oh no he didn't!!!! Oh yes I did. I went there)

@mr12calvin They should make a new Mario Maker for a start.

"I hope she made lotsa spaghetti!"

I don't think I've ever played a bad Mario game.

Mario is Missing actually kind of blew my 6 year old mind back in the day.

Why is "Mario Bros" in this video?

It were a killer co-op game in the arcades before NES even existed.

@impurekind Super Mario Maker Deluxe is coming in September. They'll use it to launch their paid online plan. What about Miiverse as it's integral to the game you're wondering? It'll get a similar replacement service. It's part of what they'll use to sell the online service. Virtual Console will also be used to promote it. Super Smash Bros. Wii U Switch Deluxe will be their big Christmas title. Their respective release dates could be swapped but I think these will be their 2 big games for that period and for the paid online service.

Not fact, just a hunch. Paying for stuff that used to be free. Online play, Miiverse, discounts.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Would be cool if true. Don't think it will turn out to be.

Beat Lost Levels as a kid. It is super hard, but it is doable.

Spent most of an afternoon with another guy beating Lost Levels in the game room at an anime convention once. I think it was the only time I ever beat it.

And Hotel Mario isn't all that terrible compared to some of the other entries on this list.

@mr12calvin they will probably blow us away with a reinvented 2D style made of cardboard, sticky tape and AR. The new new mario bros. Catchy.

That last mario tennis title, ultra smash was a disgrace. Feel they pushed it’s out due to the heat of people saying there were no games(which there wasn’t). I think this new mario tennis will basically be ultra smash but finished properly

Best Nintendo Life shirt yet!!

@mr12calvin
I do too. Hopefully we'll get a new 2D Mario, that's not a Mario Maker. You would think with how good the games have sold on DS, 3DS, Wii, Wii-U it would be a no-brainer for them.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE: "Not fact, just a hunch. Paying for stuff that used to be free. Online play, Miiverse, discounts."

• Thank you for that laugh. Nintendo would do that. I just wish they'd have a function for taking screenshots, even though Miiverse is gone.

@Everyone_Else: I love SMB2! I didn't like the everyone moves mechanic being implemented in MP 9/10. Back when I was a kid, I always saw Mario's Time Machine in Staples, & wondered about it. SNes Mario Is Missing has great music; the pc version has laughable voice acting.

I think the list should go on...I know this one didn't feature Mario, it instead featured Luigi, but Super Pitfall on the NES was definitely a horrible game...the repeating same tune, the horrible play controls! Maybe next, you'll do a series of the worst games that featured nintendo-licensed characters

@Ventilator It's only the Atari 2600 version, not the Arcade or NES version.

@impurekind They most definately are no question about that. I feel like Nintendo should remake each of the games used in Mario Maker as part of a pack in with a sequel. Mario 1, 3 and World in widescreen and HD would be amazing. Also NSMB has no place in Mario Maker I litterally hold the minus button when I do 100 man so I can skip the terrible NSMB levels. NSMB as a stand alone series is awesome but in Mario Maker it feels out of place.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Do you think Maker is releasing alongside the online plan to help launch it, or is going to be PART of the online service?

Mario is Missing and Time Machine. I definitely remember those back in the day. I rented Time Machine over the weekend and had no idea what I was supposed to do. I only played it once and never again lol.

I was able to try the CDi Mario and Zelda games at a video rental store where they had a demo unit set up, all I had to do was ask if I could try them out.

How I survived that I will never know...

i could go without any mario games existing but thats just me probably

I loved Mario Bros on the 2600 back in the day. 35 years ago games were a very different beast, and this was outstanding at the time

@SLIGEACH_EIRE That's what cracks me up the most - Nintendo has done next to nothing to convince people why they should pay for an online service. You're telling me I could start paying you for a service I used to get for free? Sign me up!

I know everyone cries about maintenance, infrastructure costs, etc... but there's plenty of PC developers that factor that into their development costs, and launch games with robust online services for free. Nintendo could obviously do the same should they choose to. I'm not opposed to paying for online if it truly does bring something extra with it, but up til now, we haven't been shown anything.

-Replace Mario Party 9 with Mario Party: Island Tour
-Replace Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Lost Levels NES) with Mario Sports Superstars.

Everything else, agreed.

@KoopaTheGamer : Okay. I had never seen this terrible version.

What happened with that tinybuild announcement

How does a comment section about bad Mario games turn into a gripefest over a paid online service that (if it truly upsets you) you don't have to use?

@Rocket288 They announced Hello Neighbor, Clustertruck and some other games too. Weird that NintendoLife hasn't actually written anything about it.

The Lost Levels. I never beat it but I do put it in every once in a while just for some painful fun. It is one tough game, I much prefer SMB USA and Nintendo did the right thing re-skinning Doki Doki Panic. The Lost Levels released in the US as smb2 would've been a disaster and would've taken the franchise back.

I'm sure they wanted to avoid another Zelda II. That one, I did beat!

@Ventilator NES Mario Bros is awful, but the other versions, more specifically the version on GBA, are mostly alright. However, they did state the Atari 2600 version being the absolute worst of the ports though.

Anyway, I have a feeling Mario Tennis Ultra Smash and The Lost Levels will make the list

Really? Lost Levels is the best of the series imo. It actually offers a serious challenge (yet isn’t cheap or Kaizo), has far more content than the original (in which they just rehash 5 of the 32 levels and hope nobody notices), and it actually feels satisfying when you beat it. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was also a ROM hack sequel, but nobody seems to complain about it because it’s a fantastic game anyway. Clearly the author needs a safe space.

I have to strongly disagree with that last one on the list, how could Supah Mario Bruddas 2 baby be one of the worst games when it gets game of the year every year?

Mario Party: The Top 100, simply for beating a dead horse.

This Mario game is definetely Missing and "illegal".

Mario is Missing is fairy decent for an edutainment game. It’s not a platformer or for adults so most of us here aren’t the target audience but as a kid, I enjoyed it - and there IS a punishment for guessing and getting the answers wrong; the person makes you try again but you must wait several minutes to do so, which often makes guessing not very fulfilling, you usually could get through the quizzes faster by actually reading the information than just making guesses. Granted, I had the SNES version, and I do think it has its flaws, such as the game has 3 worlds and therefore 3 koopalings, so it seems to end abruptly, and while you “fight” those koopalings (there’s no actual way to lose to them so I say fight loosely), the confrontation with Bowser is a very anticlimactic cut scene. I only learned this within the past 5 years because I never actually beat it as a kid (it didn’t have a save function and I always lost the passwords), so I sorta feel like they just thought, “eh, how many kids will actually get past three worlds anyways?”

Mario’s Time Machine though... no. I rented it as a kid and couldn’t even figure out what to do at the start. I watched someone play it a couple years ago and saw how it works but it was still ridiculous to make sense of. If you’re making an edutainment game for young children, make sure it’s something they can actually understand, as they’re already going to be hesitant to play something educational.

I played Mario Bros to death on the Atari 2600.

@JLPick

The character in Super Pitfall did kind of vaguely look like Luigi, but it wasn't him. I can't find any references to Activision licensing him for the game either.

Pitfall Harry appears to be wearing a police hat and body armor.

http://videogamecritic.com/images/nes/super_pitfall.gif

The FAQ lists all of the characters:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/587667-super-pitfall/faqs/6843

==============

V. MAIN CHARACTERS

==============

There are really only 3 main characters in this lonely place:

PITFALL HARRY

The Mario-clone is the hero of this quest. He's pretty agile and, according to
the manual, "is basically an optimist," so he should have no trouble finding
the girl, the lion and the diamond.

RHONDA

She is Harry's beloved niece. Usually the hero has to rescue his girlfriend or
some other damsel in distress, but this time it is his niece. RHONDA has been
kidnapped and turned to stone. Hopefully when you do find her you have already
found the FLASK OF MEDECINE, otherwise she will remain a statue.

QUICKCLAW THE LION

This is Harry's feline friend. He has also been captured and thrown in a cage
in one of the dank caves. For some reason I thought QUICKCLAW looked more like
a cross between a pig and a monkey than a lion...I didn't realize it was
QUICKCLAW until I beat the game and realized that it must have been. Who put
QUICKCLAW in that cage? By the way, try typing QUICKCLAW ten times really
fast

I've beaten the All-Stars version of SMB2/Lost Levels, never the original Famicom one however.

As a kid I actually enjoyed both Mario is missing and mario’s Time machine on “the computer.” (Which at the time I viewed as a separate gaming console).

Well, I can save Mario Party 9 and Mario Tennis ultra smash because they are still fun, but I agree that really, well the first one (Party), since they have tried to "reinvent" the formula, well, merely, the charm of the original versions has been lost, but hey, it is good to see that even try to find an improvement to Mario Party, but, well, the next time...;
and second (Tennis), um, well, is a "full game", but really is a "demo" for the lack of game options.

Now, well, um, Super Mario Bros 2 because is Super Hard?!.
...
oooookeeeyyyyyy....

XD

I played Mario Teaches Typing, but I think it was the first one, not the second one. I also played Mario is Missing on Mac and Mario's Time Machine on the SNES. I remember Mario's Time Machine being incredibly confusing, but I did like the surfing music. Lol.

I agree with DarthNocturnal that Sticker Star would definitely be somewhere on my list.

Honestly Ultra Smash feels like a Mario Tennis Aces demo.

@GC-161 came here for any Olympic games mention, got this instead.

I hate Super Mario Bros 2 (JPN) too -_-

I think Mario Teaches Typing 2, Mario Is Missing, and Mario's Time Machine weren't bad for the time period. Obviously we have higher standards today, but their form of "edutainment" was challenging enough for a complete beginner to such topics. MTT2 in particular was miles better than other typist learning software during the 90's, and even later ones used at summer camp computers, such as a REALLY crappy basketball-based one... MTT2 is underrated, IMO.

And who could forget the stupidly silly yet amusing 3D Mario head, before Super Mario 64 existed? Voiced by Charles Martinet himself, even!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tQWLg4E90M

And ranking JP SMB2/Lost Levels at #1 isn't because the game is bad, it's because you're a scrub Alex. They put in the 99 lives trick in the 1st level for a reason. Only hardcore players were meant to challenge Lost Levels without save points or the 99 lives trick. Besides, if you die 99 times + however many more 1-ups you get... then honestly, you deserve a Game Over.

i didnt watch the vid so i dont know if its tongue in cheek but id say wishing for bad games to go away is not my style. i adore and love gaming history, even/ESPECIALLY the bad games that make for great reflection and 'lolz'

@ShadJV What do you mean, I beat both Mario is Missing and Mario's Time Machine back in the day as an 8 year old after a single rental from Blockbuster each, before the rollout of the Internet. (But then again, I think I was perhaps a better gamer back then compared to now...)

@Anti-Matter OMG that walking animation of faker Mario being all buff with the tank top and sweatpants....... lol I do kind of like the idea of Mario being a kung-fu disciple in a spinoff title... hasn't been done before officially.

I owned and didn’t mind the Atari 2600 Mario Bros because I didn’t yet own an NES. I mean, it’s terrible for a video game, but not terrible for an Atari 2600 game. Whenever I see the Plug and Play Atari systems, I refuse to buy one knowing that revisiting those games would ruin cherished childhood memories of Atari.

Then again, if these games didn't exist, we wouldn't have gotten all the late 2000's Mario memes like this one. (I'm aware this one was uploaded in 2018, i was just giving an example.) Man I miss that YouTube era.

Kudos on the SMB 2 inclusion. I wholeheartedly agree!

@Malcrash Mario Bros came in 1982, and were maybe the first co-op game ever. It were a damn good game in 1982.
NES came in 1985 with a inferior Mario Bros game and were quickly forgotten.
Bruce Lee on C64 were also a co-op game, and came in 1982.

Especially Bruce Lee on C64 pushed the limits on how you make games. It made Donkey Kong Arcade look like crap.

100% sticker star should have been on the list. Worst mario game to date

great video finally something negative about Nintendo

@TossedLlama it is indeed! Jackie Chan action Kung fu… how I loved it as a child...

So I recently woke up and I was watching this half asleep. By the time the creepy bodiless head of Mario presented itself on Teaches Typing Part, I was, well........ Awake.

On a side note, if they want to try and eliminate the turn based formula and waiting around in Mario Party, then maybe they should adopt a racing style game, where you are always playing and maybe setting traps or something to slow down opponents. Running through a minigame block or something will trigger a minigame and the winners in said minigame could get bonus spaces. May not work well for split screen play, but ideal for online/wireless play. Idk, just a thought.

@PlywoodStick Well said. It’s even more generous with lives than the original (as you can get an extra life at the goalpost if your coin count is a multiple of 11 - zero counts as a multiple of 11).

As Dave Bulmer would say, I just think this game has earned a place on the shelf with the good Mario games - which is all of them! Except Sunshine, obviously...

I finished Super Mario Bros. 2 'The Lost Levels' several times, on All-Stars, the GBC Deluxe version, and on 3DS VC. It's just muscle-memory and concentration that can get you through, but yes it's too hard for mainstream players who loved the original SMB.

That said, I didn't bother finishing world 9 and extra's due to the 1-life limit.