I have a bunch of reviews planned for the end of this year. I'm planning on covering:

Dark Souls (PS3)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U)
Pokémon Gold & Silver (3DS VC)
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona (PSP)
Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)

A lot of these will probably end up bleeding into 2018 (in fact, I can almost guarantee that Dark Souls will). But I've been playing a lot of Odyssey lately, and what's really cool about the game is that it feels like such a big celebration of the Mario franchise as a whole. It's filled to the brim with tasteful references to the classic games, yet it never feels gratuitous, masturbatory, or as if it's just pandering to nostalgia-blinded 30-somethings.

It's a game that fills me with joy and excitement like I haven't felt for a Mario game since 2005, when I first played Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and it's inspired me to make a series of mini-reviews for every Mario game that I've beaten or played a substantial amount of, before I go all-out and make a full-fledged review of Odyssey some time in the next few weeks.

I'll order them chronologically, and you guys can just talk about your personal favorite Mario games as well, assuming you have any. I can understand if you don't—I've been pretty jaded over this franchise for quite some time, but Odyssey has honestly rekindled some of my passion for it.

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Rating some of these older games /10 feels kind of disrespectful to their legacy, so instead, I'll give them stars (or asterisks) instead. That means they're all good, classic games in their own right—but the more stars I give a game, the more I personally enjoy it. I'll give up to three.

Donkey Kong (1981, various platforms) To be perfectly honest, I was never really a huge fan of this timeless arcade classic. Its "competition" at the time consisted primarily of games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders, and of the three, I'll pick the latter two any day. There's just something about how sluggish and slow-paced this game feels that has always turned me away from it. Mario runs at a painfully grueling pace that's difficult for me to tolerate—and though he may have been called Jumpman, he wasn't exactly living up to it at the time. Your jumps have to be timed rather precisely to dodge those barrels, which would've meshed a lot better as a mechanic if the rest of the game wasn't so damn slow. And in this game, Mario can't take a fall for shit. He seriously cannot drop even one body height without dying, which can get pretty frustrating in 75m. The only reason I'd ever play it nowadays is to appreciate the iconic level design, and to see if I'm still capable of beating it without growing impatient with its archaic-ness. *

Mario Bros. (1983, various platforms) Now, this game is a little bit better—though, if we're talking about old arcade games, I'd still much rather play Pac-Man. Either way, this is where the franchise really started to come into its own in terms of gameplay and overall aesthetic. It has pipes, POW Blocks, Shellcreepers, colorful graphics, and rudimentary platforming. Fortunately, Mario (and Luigi) don't feel nearly as sluggish to move this time around, and at this point, they've actually begun to develop their signature jumping skills. You still can't change your trajectory mid-arc, but in this game, it's honestly better that way. Being forced to commit to every single jump you make is an interesting relic of a gameplay mechanic that we don't really see too much of anymore in modern platformers, and it works fairly well here, even if it comes across as "early installment weirdness." The game itself is a simple and enjoyable little time waster, but of course, not exactly something I would spend more than twenty minutes at a time on. **

Wrecking Crew (1985, Wii VC) Really not into this one. It's an interesting and weird relic from Mario's history, and all, but I don't even really understand it, to be honest. All you do is break walls, then break more walls, and then break even more walls. It gets pretty fucking boring, and even if I try to immerse myself within the decade in which this was released, I'm hard-pressed to find anything very entertaining about it. That said, it DOES have a motherfucking level editor, a couple years after Lode Runner and Excitebike first did it, which is actually kind of amazing. If only the game was fun enough to justify tinkering around with that. *

Super Mario Bros. (1985, NES) There's really nothing much I can say. Basically, if you consider yourself a fan of video games, or if you consider it a passion of yours, you MUST play this game at least once. This game is the reason your favorite game exists, no matter what it is. I think that should mean something to you. ***

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (1985, Wii VC) The reason this game wasn't initially released outside of Japan is because they thought we'd be turned off by the intense difficulty, on top of the fact that the graphics haven't changed at all. The game is certainly much more challenging than the first, and almost deliberately so—I think Nintendo was aware that there were some hardcore players out there trying to beat SMB in all sorts of crazy ways, so they wanted to see what they'd be able to pull off in a more challenging game. Perhaps as a result of this, I personally don't find it nearly as fun, though I suppose it was worth trying out if you wanted something a little different. Not that anyone in America had the option back then, but still. **

Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988, NES) Though technically just a Doki Doki Panic reskin, it's fortunate that the two franchises were similar enough in tone that this weird marriage was able to take place. The coolest thing about the game is the ability to choose between four characters—Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Toadstool, complete with their own unique stats and abilities—and it inadvertently introduced some of Mario's most iconic enemies: Shy Guys, Bob-ombs, and Pokeys. The game itself is kinda fucking wonky, and even as a kid, I could kinda tell that something was a little "off" about it. When I eventually discovered the truth about the game, I was like, "Yeah, that makes sense." I could never quite beat it—whether it's because I sucked, or the game is just genuinely difficult, I'm not too sure. In any case, I don't really have a strong desire to revisit this one any time soon. It never really left a strong impression on me. **

Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988, NES) One of the best games that the NES has to offer. It may not be my personal favorite Mario game, but it's definitely up there for me—and for many people, this is the definitive Mario title. Amazing level design, excellent music, eight beautiful worlds, and strong, addicting, and overall rock-solid gameplay. Not to mention, it's at this point in the series where the franchise's signature charm and personality really starts to shine through. There's so many little touches here and there that make it obvious that the game was made with love, and it's just an absolute joy to pick up and play, even after all this time. ***

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I'll go back to rating games out of 10 now. I think the year 1990 is a good cutoff for that.

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Super Mario World (1990, SNES) My third favorite video game of all time. It practically embodies my childhood. Basically, take all the praise I just gave out to SMB3 and amp it up to 11 or 12. It's fucking incredible, and perhaps nearly perfect. Very few other platformers have come close. I have to play it at least once a year. 10/10

Mario Paint (1992, SNES) Probably the coolest and most memorable art-making games I've ever played. The game requires this very odd mouse-like peripheral in order to play it, and the one we ordered online wasn't functioning properly, so I was never able to play this game to its fullest extent. It has The feature that everybody remembers is the music composer, though, and that's the one I tried to play the most. You've probably seen lots of Mario Paint Composer clips on YouTube, which is an emulated and modified version of this module, but let me tell you—it's not nearly as charming without seeing Mario hop on each and every note as the song plays. I wish music composing software made the entire process as simple and as easy as this game, where you're physically placing notes exactly where you want them to be, instead of fidgeting around with weird knobs and shit. 8/10

Donkey Kong Country (1994, SNES) Yeah, yeah, I know—this isn't a Mario game, but I've always considered the Donkey Kong franchise (as well as the Yoshi and Wario franchises) to be part of the overall Mario canon, so fuck it, I'm just gonna include it here. The game's 3D-rendered graphics, while revolutionary at the time, may look a little bit goofy and dated nowadays, but I still think it's one of the better looking games on the SNES. What has really aged is the gameplay and level design, which is not exactly the best. Everything feels so random and haphazard, and some levels honestly feel like they were designed by a three-year-old. It still has a ton of personality, though, and David Wise really made a name for himself with the music for this game. It's one of the best soundtracks ever. 7/10 (or 8/10, it's hard to decide)

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995, SNES) Currently, this is my first contender for becoming my fourth 10/10 game. I don't think it's 10/10 just yet, but I'm planning on replaying it very soon, and when I do, I'll be able to determine if it truly deserves that rating. As it stands, this is another one of the best video games ever made. Again, it's kind of weird to consider it a Mario game, since most people consider it a Yoshi game—but we'll disregard that for the time being. The gameplay is out of this world. The level design is stellar, and not only is there a billion of them, they're ALL extremely unique and beautifully, meticulously crafted. Visually, I think this is definitely the most gorgeous game on the SNES, with Super Metroid running a close second. Even the premise is ingenious—they could've made it yet another damsel in distress story, but instead, they got a little creative and said, "Let's make Mario an innocent baby, and let's make it so Yoshi has to help him reunite with his lost brother from whom he was separated!" I don't know, something about that really resonates with me. It's brilliant. I might even like it more than Super Mario World, but I'll have to play it again and see. You should play it yourself, too, if you just want to play a god-tier platformer. 9/10

Super Mario 64 (1996, N64) This is where I start to diverge from popular opinion—I do not like this game, at all. For many people, this is their favorite game, but for me, this is probably one of my least favorite Mario games. After World and Yoshi's Island, both of which rocked my socks, this honestly felt like the biggest step down of all time. And while I'm not one to care about a game's graphics, I do care a lot about visuals. There's a difference. A game can have "bad graphics" from a technical standpoint and still look gorgeous. Just look at Mario 3, which STILL looks great. Mario 64, on the other hand, is ugly as sin. I'm well-aware that 3D technology was super new at the time, because I was alive during a time when there wasn't much anything better. But even when I was six years old, I thought this game looked like shit. It literally makes my eyeballs sore just from looking at it. But don't worry, that's definitely not the only thing I dislike about it—the gameplay itself took a pretty huge nosedive, too. We've gone from simply platforming linearly from level to level to a mind-numbingly boring collectathon where you perform a series of menial (and increasingly tedious) tasks to collect a certain number of Power Stars in order to visit other worlds—Worlds that become difficult to navigate because of the game's janky controls and abysmal camera, which may be one of the worst cameras in gaming history. It's not all bad, though—Mario himself controls quite fluidly, and mastering all of his acrobatic movement options is quite fun and satisfying. The music is great, and the Mario charm is still very much there—even if it feels slightly diluted by the terrible, ugly, soullessly textured worlds. It also happens to be one of the coolest games to watch speedruns of. It's kinda funny how the best way to play this game is to figure out how to play the absolute least of it. All that being said, most of my issues with the game have been solved with the DS port, which adds more playable characters, fun minigames, and polishes the game to a much higher standard—but even then, it's still not what I'd call a great game, because I fundamentally dislike collecting Power Stars in a big poorly-designed world. 4/10

Mario Kart 64 (1996, N64) In general, I hate Mario Kart. This is probably my least favorite one, if only because all the other games in the series are just better in every way. It's been completely obsolesced by every single future installment, so there's pretty much no reason to play this game other than for nostalgia, or if you just really like the tracks for some reason (even though most of the better ones are featured in all the later games, too). 5/10

Super Smash Bros. (1999, N64) This game is fun. Pure, unadulterated fun. The premise is every Nintendo-loving kid's wet dream. It was made on an extremely low budget, which explains the terrible music, models, and overall
lack of polish—but even with those flaws, it still manages to be an incredibly solid and extremely important game. I'm glad I played Melee first, though. 7/10

Wario Land 3 (2000, GBC) Play this game. It's one of the most underrated platforming gems ever made. It's absurdly creative and well-crafted. If you don't know what you're doing, it's actually rather punishing—but if you're patient, and you can appreciate the game's deranged sense of humor, you won't be able to put it down. Top 10 Game Boy Color games, easily. That's all I'm going to say. 9/10

Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001, NGC) I cannot express to you in one short paragraph just how important this game is to me, so I won't try. Instead, I'll just reiterate that this is in my top 5. When you consider its sheer entertainment value—its capacity to be the ultimate game NOT ONLY for parties and casual play, but also high-octane competitive tournament play—how could it not be one of the greatest games of all time? Poor character balance is the only thing preventing this game from being a 10/10 in my eyes. 9/10

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! (2003, GBA) For how goofy and impenetrable it is, it's actually extremely addicting, but like Mario Kart 64, it's been superseded by almost every other installment in the franchise—most notably, Twisted! It's still worth playing if you haven't before, though. Just be prepared for a wild sugar rush of crazy shit. 7/10

Wario World (2003, NGC) I feel like I should replay this, since I haven't touched it several years. I remember thoroughly enjoying it back when I was a kid, but it feels like one of those games that I only would've enjoyed as a kid. I could be wrong, but I've grown to dislike beat-'em-up style games in my teen years, and I don't much care for them in my adulthood, either. I also seem to recall it having some icky collectathon elements, even if they weren't overblown. I'm open to replaying it, but the only question is when. 6/10

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (2003, NGC) This seems to be everyone's favorite Mario Kart. As someone who's not a fan of this series in general, I think it's okay. There's some really cool tracks on it, and the double/signature item gimmicks are pretty cool and interesting. The game still suffers from feeling obsolete, because every Mario Kart game tends to invalidate everything that came before it. I also wish I could pair up the characters myself, but that's just me. 6/10

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (2004, NGC) The only Mario RPG you ever really need to try. It's probably the most text-heavy game in the entire franchise, and there are certain elements of the game that feel distinctly Japanese and un-Mario-like (owing to the fact that the same people who made Fire Emblem made this), but I wouldn't let either of those two things distract you from the amazing gameplay, wonderful characters, compelling story (for Mario, at least), and great sense of humor. This is a top 10 GameCube game, if not top 5. 9/10

WarioWare: Twisted! (2004, GBA) The best WarioWare game, in my opinion. The gyroscope gimmick is really cute, and they do a lot of insanely creative stuff with it. It's also unexpectedly jam-packed with content and shit to unlock, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I probably put at least a hundred hours into it when I still played it. 8/10

New Super Mario Bros. (2006, DS) Generic. Bland. Soulless. Boring. These are the only words that come to mind when I attempt to describe what is one of the more disappointing 2D platformers in the series, and the beginning of a downward spiral where my interest in the franchise seems to almost dwindle into nothingness. 5/10

WarioWare: Smooth Moves (2006, Wii) If you play this, I would suggest playing it alone. Some of the movements the game asks you to do will make you look like a complete jackass, unless you're absolutely shameless. If you hate motion controls, stay away. It's the most wagglin' Wii game on the system, and it's PROUD of it. 7/10

Mario Party 8 (2007, Wii) Actually, I changed my mind—THIS is the most wagglin' Wii game of all time. It's definitely a tossup between the two, at least. This also happens to be the Mario Party game I've played the most, and it might be my personal favorite—if only because it's the one that lets you play as a Blooper. If you love motion controls, it has the best minigames. If you hate motion controls, it has the worst minigames. Take it or leave it. 7/10

Mario Party DS (2007, DS) I've never been able to play this in a group, but if I ever get an opportunity to, I can see this one becoming my favorite. 7/10

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008, DS) I've really come to hate this game over the years for reasons that are far too plentiful to list here. Basically, take everything that made Melee so fucking good and just suck it ALL away. Sakurai can shove Subspace Emissary up his casual-pandering ass for this. 4/10

Mario Kart Wii (2008, Wii) This game is the reason why I'm an atheist. 5/10

New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009, Wii) More vapid, soulless trash. What I thought was the nail in the coffin for my love of this series. 5/10

Mario Kart 8 (2014, Switch) I played the Deluxe version for the Switch, and it's the first Mario Kart game that not only didn't make me want to kill myself, but the first and only one where I actually cared to achieve 100% completion on it. I'm not sure what it is, but it was a fun time. It's easily the most polished game in the series on top of having the best selection of tracks and characters (which, in Deluxe, have all been unlocked from the start except for one). I honestly wouldn't have liked the game nearly as much if I played it when it first came out on the Wii U. 8/10

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS (2014, Wii U/3DS) Beats Brawl, but still too casual. As such, I prefer it on 3DS. Smash Run is super addicting. Fuck Bayonetta and anyone who voted for her. 8/10

Super Mario Odyssey (2017, Switch) I can't give my full opinion yet, but I'm thoroughly enjoying myself so far. ?/10

Games I've played, but not a substantial amount of:

Donkey Kong Jr. (1982, various platforms)
Super Mario Land (1989, GB)
Dr. Mario (1990, NES)
Yoshi (1991, NES)
Super Mario Kart (1992, SNES)
Yoshi's Cookie (1992, NES)
Wario's Woods (1994, SNES)
Mario's Tennis (1995, VB)
Mario Clash (1995, VB)
Virtual Boy Wario Land (1995, VB)
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995, SNES)
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (1996, SNES)
Game & Watch Gallery (1997, GB)
Game & Watch Gallery 2 (1997, GB)
Mario Party (1998, N64)
Game & Watch Gallery 3 (1999, GBC)
Paper Mario (2000, N64)
Mario Tennis (2000, N64)
Mario Party 3 (2000, N64)
Super Mario Sunshine (2002, NGC)
Mario Party 4 (2002, NGC)
Game & Watch Gallery 4 (2002, GBA)
Mario Party 5 (2003, NGC)
Mario Party 6 (2004, NGC)
Mario Party 7 (2005, NGC
Mario Kart DS (2005, DS)
Super Paper Mario (2007, Wii)
Super Mario Galaxy (2007, Wii)
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (2007, Wii)
Mario Super Sluggers (2008, Wii)
Donkey Kong Country Returns (2010, Wii)

Games I've never played:

World
64
the rest in whatever order

>He doesn't like Super Mario 64

Man, must suck to lose at life LMAO

I played Super Mario Bros., Yoshi's Cookie, Dr. Mario and Mario is Missing! on (technically)NES. I remember first 3 games as good, my mom would still play first one if she didn`t break controller month ago and I remember last one as most boring game I've played on NES in my entire life.

Super Mario World

I have to admit Mario 64 hasn't aged well.

I don't understand this. I played it for the first time only a few years ago and loved it. I'd say it's aged perfectly well.

>The only Mario RPG you should ever play

Better add SuperStar Saga and Paper Mario when you're done playing them boy 😏

i'm open to playing the mario & luigi games

i've played enough of paper mario 64 though, i think ttyd invalidates it in every way

1 - Yoshi’s Island
2 - Paper Mario
3 - Super Mario 64
4-8 - Smash 64/Melee, Mario Party 3, Mario Kart 64/8