Super Mario

Super Mario (also known as Super Mario Bros. and Mario) is a platform game series developed and published by Nintendo and starring their mascot, Mario. The series was created by Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and is the flagship series of the greater Mario franchise. At least one Super Mario game has been released for every major Nintendo video game console. A limited number of Super Mario games have also released on non-Nintendo gaming platforms. There are more than 20 games in the series.

The Super Mario games are set primarily in the fictional Mushroom Kingdom, typically with Mario as the main player character. He is often joined by his brother, Luigi, and other members of the Mario cast. As platform games, they involve the player character running and jumping across platforms and defeating enemies in themed levels. The games have simple plots, typically with Mario and Luigi having to rescue the kidnapped Princess Peach from the primary antagonist, Bowser. The first game in the series, Super Mario Bros., released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985, established the series' core gameplay concepts and elements. These include a multitude of power-ups that give the character special powers such as size-changing and fireball-throwing.

The Super Mario series, part of the greater Mario franchise, includes numerous spin-offs spanning various genres and media such as film, television, printed media, and merchandise. More than 430 million copies of Super Mario games have been sold worldwide, making it the sixth-best-selling video game series, behind the larger Mario franchise, the puzzle series Tetris, the Call of Duty series, the Pokémon video game series, and Grand Theft Auto.

Objectives in the Super Mario games involve progressing through levels by defeating enemies, collecting items and solving puzzles without dying. Power-up use is integral to the series. The series has installments featuring both two and three-dimensional gameplay. In the 2D games, the player character (usually Mario) jumps on platforms and enemies while avoiding their attacks and moving to the right of the scrolling screen. 2D Super Mario game levels typically have a single-exit objective that must be reached within a time limit, leading to the next sequential level. Super Mario Bros. 3 introduced the overworld, a map of nonlinear levels that branches according to the player's choice. Super Mario World introduced levels with secret exits.

3D installments in the series are split into two subgenres: open world exploration-based games and more linear 3D games with a predetermined path. Levels in the open world games, 64, Sunshine and Odyssey, allow the player to freely explore multiple enclosed environments in 360-degree movement. As the game progresses, more environments become accessible. The linear 3D games, Galaxy, Galaxy 2, 3D Land and 3D World, feature more fixed camera angles and a predetermined path to a single goal, with minor exceptions.

The series often features the option to play as characters other than Mario, usually Luigi. Earlier games offer an alternating multiplayer mode in which the second player controls Luigi on their turn. Luigi is often only playable by player one in a second, more challenging iteration of the base game, such as in The Lost Levels, Galaxy 2, New Super Luigi U, and the special worlds in 3D Land; these feature lower gravity and reduced friction for Luigi. Later games allow four player simultaneous play. Other playable characters include Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Toads, Yoshi, Rosalina, and Nabbit, among others. Characters are sometimes differentiated by special abilities.

Mushroom power-ups appear in almost every Super Mario game. The most iconic of these is the Super Mushroom. The power-up increases the character's size, turning them into a "Super" variant, and allows them to break certain blocks. When hit by an enemy, the character reverts to their smaller size instead of losing a life. When the character is in their "Super" form, most blocks that would contain a Super Mushroom instead offer a more powerful power-up such as the Fire Flower. The Super Mushroom is similar in appearance to the Amanita muscaria, with an ivory stalk below a most commonly red and white (originally red and orange) spotted cap. Created by chance, Shigeru Miyamoto stated in an interview that beta tests of Super Mario Bros. proved Mario too tall, so the development team implemented mushrooms to grow and shrink Mario. Different variants of mushroom power-ups appear in the series. For example, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels introduces the Poison Mushroom, which causes damage when collected; and New Super Mario Bros. introduces the Mini Mushroom, which shrinks the character to miniature size; and the Mega Mushroom, which temporarily grows the character into a towering, invulnerable giant who can destroy enemies and the environment by running through them.

Super Mario Bros. 3 introduces suits to the Super Mario series, many of which are based on animals or Mario enemies. The Raccoon Suit (provisioned by a Super Leaf) and the Tanooki Suit each provide the character with a tail that enables flight. In addition, the Tanooki Suit lets the character spontaneously change into an invincible statue for about five seconds. Super Mario Bros. 3 also introduces a Hammer Bros. suit, which allows Mario and Luigi to throw hammers as projectiles to defeat enemies at a distance. Other suits in later games in the series include the Frog Suit, Penguin Suit, Cat Suit, Boomerang Suit, and Bee Suit. Super Mario Maker includes costume power-ups that depict many more characters from various franchises (Super Mario Maker 2 includes only a Link power-up).