FAKE RONJAN!!GotY Follow-up: Tiering the Mario Platformers
Last week, I named Super Mario Odyssey as my favorite game of 2017. At the end of the article, I started placing it and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in their respective context of my all-time favorite Mario and Zelda games.
I figured I'd finish that exercise in earnest since I love ranking things and I love debating and discussing Mario and Zelda! I'm not going to strictly rank these games, but rather place them into tiers that I'll title or explain.
We'll start with Mario today (Zelda will follow soon), including all platformers - 2D and 3D - where you control Mario for the majority of the game. This means that both Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island are out, as fun as both of those games are. Non-platformers, including RPGs, are also out.
As far as criteria and rules go, the primary driver of this list is how much I personally enjoy each game today, but I will probably bump games up a bit for historical significance or nostalgia. Finally, I haven't beaten every game on this list, so for each game I will note how far I progressed in explaining its placement on my personal list. If a game doesn't appear, it's because I haven't played it at all.
Now, let's start tiering!
Super Mario Platformers: RJ's Tiers
Tier 1: Totally Skippable
New Super Mario Bros. 2 (2012 - 3DS)
I actually downloaded and beat this game right around a year ago while playing through my 3DS backlog:
It's true that I did have fun playing this, but I also immediately deleted the game from my 3DS. Its big "innovation" was putting coins everywhere, making extra lives worthless and neutering the challenge. I can't imagine ever playing this game again. It's competent and not much else.
Tier 2: Oddball Experiments
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (1986 - NES in Japan, 1993 - SNES remaster in USA)
Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988 - NES, 1993 - SNES remaster)
Super Mario Sunshine (2002 - GameCube)
Of these three games, the only one I've beaten is the ludicrously hard one, The Lost Levels! What can I say, "College RJ" was motivated.
I can appreciate that each of these games was at least trying something different. The Lost Levels (Japan's Super Mario Bros. 2) experimented with Kaizo-level challenge and a differently controlling Luigi. USA's Super Mario Bros. 2 (a reskin of the Japanese platformer Doki Doki Panic) brought a new vegetable throwing mechanic to the series. And Super Mario Sunshine gave us the FLUDD jetpack.
While I don't love any of these games, they're at least trying something new and different. We need Nintendo to keep trying things that are new and different. Even if the most memorable outcome is Super Mario Bros. 2's sanguine overworld music:
Tier 3: On the Go Revelations
Super Mario Land (1989 - Game Boy)
New Super Mario Bros. (2006 - DS)
Super Mario 3D Land (2011 - 3DS)
Mario on-the-go is no big deal today - Super Mario Odyssey is proof of that! But back in the day, being able to play even a "lo-fi" version of Mario in the car, on the plane, or anywhere else was a big deal. I beat each of these games for different reasons in different eras.
Super Mario Land doesn't hold up well today, but it was literally the first 2D platformer I can remember on my Game Boy and as such was one of my most played Mario games. It also had an impressively eclectic soundtrack to its name:
New Super Mario Bros. was the first new 2D Mario title in 15 years upon its release (following 1991's Super Mario World), and it hit just as people like me were getting nostalgic for good ole' left-to-right gameplay. A few years later, Super Mario 3D Land functioned well as a countercurrent by reinforcing the fun and value of full 3D movement but having Mario run around in smaller, more tightly--designed funhouses.
Each of these games would be easily eclipsed by similar home console games that released soon after (Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Super Mario 3D World respectively), so it's hard to see them as true classics in their own right. But for most of Mario's history, playing on-the-go was a revelation and should be remembered as such!
Tier 4: Frenetic Family Fun
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009 - Wii)
New Super Mario Bros. U (2012 - Wii U)
Super Mario 3D World (2013 - Wii U)
These games are perfectly competent at being normal single-player Mario games, but that's not why I'd ever play them today. Each of these games feature simultaneous four-player co-op gameplay, and each of them deliver pure and utter hilarious chaos as a result.
I can vividly recall the first weekend after New Super Mario Bros. Wii released. I was in Ohio for Thanksgiving and spent basically the entirety of the holiday weekend playing that game with some friends as we passed controllers around the room. I enjoyed my role as the troll - throwing people off ledges, stealing their power-ups, and so on. It redefined what a Mario experience could be. It was basically exactly like the Giant Bomb (one of my favorite gaming websites) crew's experience:
New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario 3D World function similarly as a way for me to play games with my 3-year-old son. He struggles with some of the basics, but he loves running and jumping around as Luigi and Peach while I carry him over the hard parts.
Of the three, I've actually only beaten New Super Mario Bros. U and that was in single-player mode. But these are the only games on the list that I don't really care about beating. The fun is in playing together.
Tier 5: Literally Changed the Game
Super Mario Bros. (1985 - NES, 1993 - SNES remaster)
Super Mario 64 (1996 - N64, 2004 - DS remaster)
These games are basically unimpeachable on merit. Super Mario Bros. effectively invented the 2D sidescrolling platformer, and Super Mario 64 effectively invented the 3D exploration platformer. They're completely revolutionary and each blew my mind when I first played them (and beat them) within their own eras. They're still a blast to go back and play today.
They also each have pretty impressive speedrun scenes to this day. Super Mario Bros. has been almost perfectly "solved" in the race for frame-perfect completion. Meanwhile, Super Mario 64's free-flowing movement and acrobatics make it among the most visually impressive of speedrun games that exist:
All of that said, I also feel pretty strongly that games that followed are simply better because the newer games had time and the opportunity to refine the formula. This isn't a knock on these games. They're the foundation for an entire genre.
Tier 6: Amazing Formulas Refined
Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990 - NES, 1993 - SNES remaster)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010 - Wii)
Super Mario Maker (2015 - Wii U, 2016 - 3DS)
Wow, are we getting into classic territory now!
Super Mario Bros. 3 was the first Mario game I ever beat, albeit while using a Game Genie at my friend's house. It's a truly epic adventure with the perfect amount of weirdness - like World 4 where the enemies are gigantic, World 5-3 with Kuribo's Shoe, or the Tanooki Suit. And while the levels are sometimes short and the ideas within sometimes disposable, it's the peak of Nintendo's 2D level design creativity.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 is perhaps the peak of Nintendo's 3D level design creativity, adding Yoshi to an already incredible and established formula in Super Mario Galaxy.
Finally, Super Mario Maker is the Mario game I've spent the most time with across its releases on Wii U and 3DS. You could argue that it's not a real Mario game, or you could argue that it's all of the real Mario games. For me, the game is special as it brought the Mario community into the creative process.
My first level was truly stupid:
But over time, I got better. I made one where you play as a Goomba escaping a dungeon in which Bowser is torturing other Goombas:
Next up, a level based off Aladdin's Cave of Wonders:
And finally, a level that you can beat three ways - by doing nothing, by just running forward, or by playing normally:
While the community did the legwork in Super Mario Maker that Nintendo did themselves in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario Galaxy 2, the outcome is the same. It's the peak of Nintendo's crowdsourced level design creativity.
Tier 7: All Time Classics
Super Mario World (1991 - SNES)
Super Mario Galaxy (2007 - Wii)
Super Mario Odyssey (2017 - Switch)
Making these lists isn't easy, and each of these three games has a "rival game" that is oft-debated as superior. So I'm going to take a little time to explain my personal preferences.
Let's start with Super Mario World vs. Super Mario Bros. 3. These were probably my two most-played games of the early 1990s, and I adore them both. Super Mario Bros. 3 had more wacky power-ups, but Super Mario World had Yoshi. Super Mario Bros. 3 introduced the Koopa Kids, but Super Mario World had them doing more interesting and varied things.
Super Mario Bros. 3 was a bigger pop culture sensation, but ultimately, Super Mario World is the one I come back to. I've completed it with all 96 exits several times across the original release on Super NES and the Virtual Console releases that came afterwards. And as soon as they release it on the Nintendo Switch, you can bet I'll be doing it again.
Similarly, it's very difficult to differentiate between Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2. I rank the former higher strictly because I actually finished it, while I stopped playing the sequel about halfway through. Both games had incredible level design, music, and presentation, but Super Mario Galaxy was able to hold my attention with a slightly more involved plot, a more interesting hub world in the Comet Observatory, and one of the best Mario musical pieces ever written.
Finally, Super Mario Odyssey. In the past week since I named it my 2017 Game of the Year, I played several more hours and picked up another ~100 moons. I haven't stopped smiling, and I don't think I will. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is of course the "rival game" to Odyssey and I stand by my preference. And after seeing Peach tour the different worlds on her own terms in the post-game, I wonder if it's time for Peach to take over the reins and star in her own series?
If she does, Mario's highest tier is a tough bar to top!
-rj