The 10 Greatest Super Mario Games of All Time, Ranked

Few video game series can claim to have genuinely changed gaming. Super Mario has done it more than once.

Since Super Mario Bros. arrived in 1985, Nintendo's moustachioed plumber has jumped from 8-bit side-scrolling adventures to fully explorable 3D worlds, repeatedly setting standards that other platform games would spend years trying to match.

But which Super Mario game is the greatest?

For this ranking, we're not simply picking the ten that are most enjoyable to play today. We're judging each game in the context of its original release: how revolutionary it was, how far ahead of its time it felt, the quality and innovation of the game itself, its popularity, its critical reception and its lasting influence.

We're also sticking to the main Super Mario platforming series. No Mario Kart, Yoshi's Island, Paper Mario, sports games, RPGs or other spin-offs.

Here are our ten greatest Super Mario games of all time.

10. New Super Mario Bros. Wii — Wii, 2009

By 2009, Mario had already conquered 3D, but Nintendo demonstrated there was still enormous demand for the traditional side-scrolling formula.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii wasn't revolutionary in the same way as the games higher on this list, but its four-player simultaneous platforming gave classic Mario a wonderfully chaotic new dimension.

The controls were tight, the level design was excellent and, crucially, it was accessible enough for families while still offering plenty for experienced players.

It was classic Mario re-engineered for the Wii generation.

9. Super Mario Bros. Wonder — Nintendo Switch, 2023

After several increasingly familiar New Super Mario Bros. games, Nintendo needed to prove it could still surprise us with 2D Mario.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder did exactly that.

The Wonder Flower mechanic allowed levels to suddenly transform in bizarre and unpredictable ways. Pipes could come alive. Perspectives could change. Mario could become something completely unexpected.

It recaptured something that had been missing from 2D Mario for years: the feeling that you genuinely didn't know what Nintendo was going to throw at you next.

It may not have transformed the industry, but as a piece of pure game design, it's exceptional.

8. Super Mario Galaxy 2 — Wii, 2010

How do you follow one of the most critically acclaimed platform games ever made?

Apparently, by making another one.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 took the gravity-based ideas of its predecessor and pushed them even further. Its levels are extraordinarily inventive, often introducing a clever gameplay mechanic, exploring it for a few minutes and then discarding it for another.

In purely mechanical terms, there is even an argument that Galaxy 2 is the better game.

It ranks slightly below the original here simply because Galaxy got there first.

7. Super Mario Odyssey — Nintendo Switch, 2017

Super Mario Odyssey represented another reinvention of the 3D Mario formula.

Its biggest innovation was Cappy, allowing Mario to possess enemies, creatures and objects and temporarily inherit their abilities. It sounds like a gimmick. In practice, it completely transformed how players interacted with Mario's worlds.

Odyssey was enormous, imaginative and beautifully polished, while Mario himself had perhaps the most satisfying range of movement he'd ever been given.

It's one of the finest modern platform games ever made.

The only reason it doesn't rank higher is the extraordinary historical impact of what came before it.

6. Super Mario Galaxy — Wii, 2007

When Super Mario Galaxy arrived, Nintendo once again demonstrated an ability to rethink something as fundamental as gravity itself.

Mario ran around tiny planets, jumped between gravitational fields and traversed levels that twisted through space in ways we'd never experienced in the series before.

It was visually spectacular for the Wii, critically adored and bursting with ideas.

More importantly, it made Mario feel magical again.

After Super Mario 64 had established what Mario could do in three dimensions, Galaxy showed just how creatively Nintendo could exploit them.

5. Super Mario 64 — Nintendo 64, 1996

It's difficult to overstate what Super Mario 64 represented in 1996.

Today, controlling a character through a three-dimensional environment using an analogue stick seems completely normal. Back then, developers were still figuring out how 3D games were supposed to work.

Nintendo didn't simply convert Super Mario World into polygons. It effectively wrote a new rulebook.

Mario could run, creep, swim, climb, crawl, triple-jump, long-jump, backflip and explore open environments with an unprecedented degree of freedom.

The camera wasn't perfect and some aspects have inevitably aged, but that's almost beside the point.

Super Mario 64 helped establish the language of the 3D platform game. Contemporary and retrospective critical reception has reflected that achievement, and it became the Nintendo 64's best-selling game.

Few games in history have represented such an enormous technological and creative leap.

4. Super Mario Bros. 2 — NES, 1988

Yes, we know.

The Western Super Mario Bros. 2 began life as Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic before being adapted into a Mario game.

But forget the history for a moment and actually look at the game Nintendo gave us.

It was brilliant.

Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess Peach all played differently. Enemies could be picked up and thrown. Vegetables could be pulled from the ground. Levels scrolled vertically as well as horizontally. There were doors, keys, potions, masks and strange dreamlike environments.

And instead of Bowser, we got Wart.

It feels unlike virtually any other mainline Mario game, and that's precisely why it remains so memorable.

Rather than simply giving players more of the original, Super Mario Bros. 2 took Mario somewhere completely different.

3. Super Mario World — SNES, 1990

For many people, this will always be the perfect Mario game.

Super Mario World took the foundations of Super Mario Bros. 3 and refined them into something extraordinarily polished.

The controls were superb. The levels were packed with secrets. The interconnected world encouraged exploration. The Cape Feather transformed how stages could be approached.

And then there was Yoshi.

Nintendo somehow created a game that was immediately accessible but contained an enormous amount beneath the surface. Secret exits opened alternative routes. The Star Road led to hidden areas. Entire sections of the map could remain undiscovered by casual players.

It also became the best-selling game on the SNES.

More than three decades later, Super Mario World barely feels old. That's perhaps its greatest achievement.

2. Super Mario Bros. — NES, 1985

Sometimes it's difficult to appreciate just how revolutionary something was once everything it pioneered has become normal.

Super Mario Bros. is one of those games.

Its scrolling worlds, momentum, jumping physics, hidden blocks, power-ups, pipes, underground sections, castles and beautifully constructed difficulty curve helped establish the blueprint for the modern platform game.

World 1-1 alone remains a masterclass in teaching a player how a game works without needing lengthy instructions.

Its commercial impact was staggering. Super Mario Bros. sold more than 40 million copies, helped turn the NES into a phenomenon and became one of the defining games in the revival of the home console market during the 1980s.

Mario became more than a video game character. He became one of the most recognisable fictional characters on the planet.

Without Super Mario Bros., this list doesn't exist.

So how can it possibly be beaten?

By this.

1. Super Mario Bros. 3 — NES, 1988

Super Mario Bros. 3 shouldn't have been possible on the NES.

That's what makes it number one.

Consider what Nintendo squeezed out of 8-bit hardware.

Eight distinctive worlds. An overworld map. Alternative routes. Fortresses. Airships. Giant enemies. Desert stages. Ice worlds. Water levels. Auto-scrolling stages. Hidden areas. Mini-games.

Then there were the power-ups.

The Super Leaf and Raccoon Mario introduced flight. There was the Frog Suit, Tanooki Suit, Hammer Suit and the wonderfully bizarre Kuribo's Shoe.

The Koopalings made their debut. So did enemies including Chain Chomps and Boos.

And despite the sheer number of ideas packed into the cartridge, it all worked beautifully.

That is the remarkable thing about Super Mario Bros. 3. It didn't feel like Nintendo had simply produced a bigger sequel. It felt like the designers had discovered possibilities that shouldn't have existed on the hardware.

Its arrival was an event. Anticipation in North America was so enormous that the game was famously showcased in the 1989 film The Wizard before its US release. It went on to sell more than 17 million copies worldwide and became one of the most successful non-bundled video games of its era.

Most importantly, it was phenomenal to play.

The original Super Mario Bros. established the formula. Super Mario World arguably perfected it. Super Mario 64 reinvented it in three dimensions.

But Super Mario Bros. 3 sits in the sweet spot.

It was ambitious, imaginative, technically astonishing, hugely popular and years ahead of what most players thought an 8-bit console could deliver.

More than 35 years later, you can put Super Mario Bros. 3 on today and understand almost immediately why people lost their minds over it.

The greatest Super Mario game ever made.