Ten of the Best Features in Mario Games

Nearly 25 years have passed since Mario became a superstar in his own right with the immensely popular Super Mario Bros. Since then, he has starred in a number of celebrated games, with Super Mario Galaxy 2 likely to be released to a lot of praise on May 23rd. Over the years, a number of features were used to make Mario's adventures worthwhile experiences. Here, I shall take ten features that I feel are among the best ones ever conceived, and are part of what makes Mario such an iconic characters. This list of features is as follows...

Super Mario Bros. 3: Tanooki Suit: This game featured a lot of power-up suits that gave Mario more abilities than ever before, and one of the coolest of them all was the Tanooki Suit. While similar to the Raccoon Suit in that it enabled Mario to fly, it also had the ability to change Mario into a statue for a few brief seconds. This allowed our hero to evade enemy attacks, plus the statue itself looked pretty neat for its time. The power-up system as a whole has presented Mario with lots of useful abilities, and promises to give him even more amazing moves in Super Mario Galaxy 2 with such new forms as Rock Mario and Cloud Mario.

Super Mario World: Yoshi: A dream of having Mario riding a dinosaur that dates as far back as his NES days became a reality with this game and the coming of Yoshi. This perpetually hungry dinosaur could eat enemies with his long tongue, and after eating shells, could spit fireballs, fly through the air, and stomp the ground with earth-shaking force. Such a useful companion could help Mario tackle even Dinosaur World's toughest challenges, and the character himself was just plain adorable. Yoshi would later become a star in his own right, and would continue to aid Mario in his further adventures, but this was where it all began for the little guy, and the game became a classic partially because of him and his usefulness.

Super Mario Bros. 2: Multiple Playable Characters: The American version of Mario's second platform adventure benefited from allowing the player to choose one of four different characters. Every character had their own strengths and weaknesses, and players could use them to make the stages as easy or as hard as they wanted them to be. Mario was well-balanced in his abilities, Luigi had a high jump but slow speed, Toad could not jump very high but compensated with his impressive strength and speed, and Peach had weak strength but could briefly float through the air. This gave players numerous ways to get through all 20 stages, and offered depth to a game seen by various people as one of the lesser games in the main Mario series.

Super Mario All-Stars: The Lost Levels: With this compilation, players could not only play the first three Mario games with enhanced graphics and music, but for the first time, the real Super Mario Bros. 2, also known as The Lost Levels, was available outside of Japan. Basically a much more challenging version of the original Super Mario Bros., this game presented Mario with lots of new hazards such as poisonous mushrooms and strong winds, as well as new stages and even warp zones that took Mario back to previous worlds instead of forward to later worlds. Players would return to the game to be challenged and to see what they had missed from the original NES version, which was finally released in North America in 2007 on the Wii Virtual Console. A nice bonus for an already amazing collection.

Super Mario Kart: Battle Mode: One of the things that made this game one of (if not the best) Mario Kart games in the eyes of many players was the inclusion of the battle mode. When they were not trying to beat their opponents to the finish line, they could instead fight each other using power-up items while driving around in a battle arena. These battles were often full of excitement, with well-designed (for their time) arenas and some nice battle music added to the mix. Multiplayer modes in Nintendo games tend to be a blast, and this was certainly no exception. To this day, people still go back to these battle arenas in order to see how well they fare against their opponents.

Super Mario Galaxy:Orchestrated Soundtrack: Never was a Mario game more epic until this game came along, and brought with it an equally epic soundtrack. For the first time in a major Mario game, actual orchestrated music was used, making an already amazing game even more fantastic. It gave the game a true movie-like feel, and showed that the series did not always have to rely on a cartoon-style soundtrack to be attractive. The songs themselves, particularly Gusty Garden, Buoy Base, and Melty Molten, have become fan favorites, and are among the most epic songs ever heard in any Mario game. From what people have heard so far, Super Mario Galaxy 2 promises to have even more epic music, which makes me wish why Nintendo does not use orchestrated music more often.

Super Mario RPG: Action Command: What made the battles in Mario's first RPG adventure so wonderful was the use of the action command. No longer did the player merely sit back and see the results of his or her commands. Instead, he or she could press a button at the right time to inflict more damage or to heal more hit points to the party members. This gave the fights a more interactive feel, and made the players feel like they were part of the action instead of merely giving out commands. The battles were also much more fun this way, and as such, action commands have been used in subsequent Mario RPG games to make them among the best fights seen in any RPG game.

Super Mario 64: Metal Mario: Among the new perks that came along with the transition to 3D was a special cap that would make Mario appear metallic. Not only did this make him look cooler than ever before, it also made him stronger. He could run right into enemies and take them out, and he could withstand the effects of poisonous gas. Mario could even walk underwater, where even the strongest currents would not faze him. All of the new cap abilities were great in their own little way, but the metal cap was the best of the bunch, and should be considered one of the best power-up abilities of all time.

Paper Mario: Peach Missions: For a change, Peach was given a lot to do instead of just merely waiting around for Mario to save her. At various points throughout the game, Peach would sneak out of her room and participate in stealth-based missions, in which she would search for clues to help Mario while avoiding the guards. This would lead to such neat things as baking a cake, participating in a quiz show, and even reading Bowser's diary! Peach can be useful when Nintendo wants her to be, and it makes me wish that she was playable in a non-sports Mario game more often.

Super Mario Bros: Minus World: A trick that was difficult to pull off would lead to one of the most well-known glitches in video game history. In the Minus World, Mario would find himself in an underwater area that had no end to it. Instead, our hero would be stuck there forever, and he would die whenever time ran out. The term Minus World was derived from the "-1" at the top of the screen in lieu of the normal world and stage number combination. 25 years later, the Minus World remains a neat, if perhaps unintentional, secret in Mario lore, and would help to make the game the beloved classic it is today.

There are a lot of features that help make Mario games the masterpieces that they have become. From useful suits and companions to never-before-seen (outside of Japan) levels to modes that add depth to a game, they have kept Mario at the top of his game for many years, and the plumber shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. With Super Mario Galaxy 2 about to hit store shelves, and plenty more titles sure to come along in the future, we will likely see even more amazing features. It is little wonder that Mario is still loved by many people...he and his games are simply awesome, and with features such as these, that trend is sure to continue for many years to come.