This is the heart of Mario: the mainline Super Mario platformers that defined the genre across generations of Nintendo hardware. The lineage runs from the tight 2D level design of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World through the spin-off worlds of Yoshi's Island and the portable Super Mario Land games, then makes its famous leap into three dimensions with Super Mario 64, which more or less wrote the rulebook for the 3D platformer.
What holds it all together is restraint. These games rarely chase realism or story, leaning instead on clean controls and inventive ideas introduced one at a time. Compilations like All-Stars and reissues like the Game Boy Color Deluxe kept the older entries in circulation. A games-only run, but one whose influence on how games feel to play is hard to overstate.
The Super Mario platformers franchise spans 10 games in the CrossBinge catalog.
Part of Mario.
Games
- Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (1986)
- Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988)
- Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988)
- Super Mario Land (1989)
- Super Mario World (1990)
- Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (1992)
- Super Mario All-Stars (1993)
- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995)
- Super Mario 64 (1996)
- Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (1999)