I doubt I'll ever repeat
it enough times. I LOVE the Mario series. Some people grew up with
Sonic, others grew up with Zelda, others grew up with PlayStation or
Xbox franchises... Me, it's Mario. I was stomping Goombas twelve
years ago and I still do, as I control the red-clad plumber in his
quest to save the princess.
However!
One MAJOR point of
criticism about the Mario series is how it's the simplest plot ever.
I gotta say, I understand. It all started with a plumber saving a
princess from a fire-breathing turtle-dragon, and twenty-eight years since
that first encounter, Mario is still doing that. Except things have
gotten bigger now. How, you may ask?
As I mentioned also
before, the Mario series has become extremely diverse. 2D
platformers, 3D platformers, RPGs, puzzle games, party games, sport
games (golf, karting, baseball, soccer, dancing, the list goes on)...
In the past, Mario even had educational games! ...Yeah, you certainly
heard of Mario is Missing, A.K.A. Weegee Teaches Us Geography.
Still, for a series that
is claimed to have had very little plot for so long... It sure
doesn't deserve that reputation. I mean, Mario, Luigi, Peach and
Bowser are still around, and most plots revolve around the four of
them in a way, but aside from that, the series really expanded on its
own universe and brought us many, MANY examples of complex
stories. And yeah, most of those come from the role-playing games, I
prefer to tell you right now, because it's so obvious. Okay, what am
I waiting for? I present to you the Top 12 plots from the Mario
series!
Remember that this is all opinion-based, so you have every right to disagree with me on one or more of the choices on this list. But I'd like to hear which games you thought had a good enough plot that they would be on a similar list.
12. Super Mario 64 DS
I'd be the first to admit
that Super Mario 64 is just the regular Mario formula. Peach gets
kidnapped, Mario must reach Bowser, give him a beating, saves Peach, end of story.
The REMAKE for the Nintendo DS, however... Now that's a bit better.
For the recap, this game's story is still pretty similar. Bowser
kidnaps Peach and holds her hostage in her own castle, but guess
what? HE ALSO MANAGES TO CAPTURE MARIO, LUIGI AND WARIO. Now that's
badass. Who's left to oppose Bowser? Well, none other than Yoshi, who
was sleeping peacefully on the castle's roof! Yes, Yoshi collects
stars and frees Mario. Then Mario searches through the castle and
frees Luigi. Last but not least, Luigi recovers the key to unlock
Wario's prison. And now you still have to collect 80 Stars in order
to battle Bowser. And only Mario can go against the final Bowser. I
believe this is an improvement over the original, if only because you
get to control four different characters. This still has the simple
plot, with only the added aspect of “more characters”, but think
about it. Mario teams up with Luigi, Yoshi and anti-hero Wario. They
all have different abilities (Mario can fly, Luigi can turn
intangible, Wario can become super-strong), and I can't help but
imagine what the game would be like if they interacted more. Imagine
all the stories we could create around their teaming up! Fanfiction fuel for sure!
11. Mario Party Advance &
Mario Party DS
The Mario Party series
has little to no plot. Something happens, Bowser is usually the
cause, a group of characters from the series duke it out on game
boards and in mini-games to solve the problem. I'd say, however, that
the best plots for this party series are found in the handhelds.
Mario Party Advance twists the whole Mario Party formula around by
having everything happen on the same giant board that represents the
Mushroom Kingdom, and the four playable characters must win Stars by
helping citizens of the Kingdom with their troubles. And each time
they collect enough Stars, they must battle Bowser and his entire
ARMY of Koopa Kids. As a story, it's not so special, but it shows an
aspect we see in the RPGs, yet hardly ever in the platformers: Those
critters Mario defeats in most games? They're sentient beings, they
can need help, they have emotions. Makes you think twice the next
time you head out to stomp a Goomba... Mario Party DS is an odd case.
All eight characters are miniaturized by Bowser's scepter, and thrown
into the wild, too small and too weak to put up much of a fight. They play the
party games to get back to Bowser's Castle and go back to their
normal sizes. It's interesting as the Story Mode unveils a bit of
plot on each board. Board 3 is regular size Donkey Kong turned into a
statue by a wizarding Dry Bones. Picture that. Anyway, those two
party games have a better plot than all the other party games, and I
definitely recommend them.
10. Super Mario Land 2
Mario came back from the
odd Sarasaland, only to find out that his personal castle (Um...
okay??) has been stolen by Wario. The evil cousin plumber has locked
the door with six golden coins, and Mario must retrieve them to
access his castle and kick Wario out. This is one of the rare
platformers to have such a complex story. Because, as you find out
while playing, Wario's plan to steal Mario's castle had started in
the original Super Mario Land. Mario was gone to battle the evil
alien Tatanga in Sarasaland,. But you find out in the sequel that
Tatanga worked for Wario, and was a diversion! Wario had little
personality at the time, but clearly he was already gross, greedy and
unlikable. He could also use the same power-ups as Mario, imagine
that! As a result, this odd Game Boy game has more depth - and more story - than we'd
think at first glance, which made it a pretty interesting addition to
the franchise.
9. Super Mario Bros. 3
Talking about diversions,
one of the better plots in Mario's early history has to be the third
installment for the original NES. In it, the seven Kings of the
Mushroom Kingdom, each reigning over a themed part of the world,
were transformed into other things by bizarre creatures. Mario has to
reach the castle in each world, board the Airship, and defeat the
creature, which happens to be one of Bowser's (then) seven kids.
After each world, Peach sends a letter to Mario with a good power-up
to help him. However, while Mario was on that quest, Bowser took the
opportunity to kidnap Peach and brings her to Dark Land, a Hellish
world where he lives with his children. You heard right; Bowser
doesn't kidnap the Princess until near the end of the game. Truly the
Koopalings' moment to shine, and Bowser's first instance of showing
intelligence. It's kind of sad how the Koopalings were reduced to
world bosses in the recent New Super Mario Bros. games, without such a good plan behind them aside from participating in the Princess' kidnapping. Also sad that they show little personality, but I guess it's not easy to give a character some personality in a platformer.
8. Mario & Luigi:
Bowser's Inside Story
One of Bowser's traits,
while I'm discussing him, is that he's a truly powerful enemy, as
proven with the Super Mario Galaxy series, but in some cases he shows
his own weaknesses when he is upped by an even more dangerous threat.
This is the basic plot in most Mario RPGs: Something worse than
Bowser shows up, Bowser decides either to help or not (depending on
how personal his grudge against today's opponent is), and the
characters must still battle the villain by the end. In Bowser's
Inside Story (the third installment of handheld RPG series Mario &
Luigi, in which you control both brothers all the time), Bowser's
whole army forces get hypnotized by Fawful, a weakly-looking villain
with far more brains than you'd expect. Fawful also forced Bowser to
eat a cursed mushroom, causing the turtle-dragon to become a living
vacuum that can suck anything inside himself, from characters to
items. And as it turns out, Mario and Luigi must help Bowser from
inside himself while Bowser is on his quest to retrieve his
possessions. Fawful's plan involves, as is the case again with most
Mario RPGs, a powerful item of darkness that will cause the end of
the world as we know it. Third time in all the RPGs that we can take control of Bowser, and God do we enjoy every minute of it.
7. Luigi's Mansion
Mario rarely takes the
role of person-in-distress. When he does, however, he has to count
on the others. Once it was Peach, but in most cases it's Luigi who must
man up and save his bro. In Luigi's Mansion, King Boo captures Mario and traps him in a portrait. Luigi has to use the Poltergust 3000, an invention by Prof E. Gadd, and suck all the ghosts in so that he can find a way to save his brother. This was Luigi's main moment to shine (because the games where he was the hero, I mean games before this one, were... um... Again, let me remind you that Mario Is Missing was an educational game about geography). Still, seeing Luigi take up the hero business is quite great. All-new game mechanics, a new powerful enemy, the lesser bro's spotlight... this game couldn't be any better. Or it could. At least I hope Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is even better.
6. Dance Dance
Revolution: Mario Mix
Quite an odd choice to
put near the middle of the list, huh? At the top of the famed Truffle
Towers rest the famous Music Keys, which get promptly stolen by
today's villain. None other than... WALUIGI??? Or rather, he tries to
get them, but they scatter all over the Mushroom Kingdom. The race is
on, as Mario – or Luigi – must prove his dancing talents to
retrieve the Keys before the enemies do. After all, those Music Keys
can grant wishes when they're all recovered, and you gotta fear what
a villain could wish for...
It stats with a rather
silly way to start a Mario dancing game, until we realize something
amazing: The villain is Waluigi. This is, thus far, his ONLY moment
of plot relevance in the Mario series, ever, in which he's the main
villain for the bigger part of the story. And even then, his place
gets stolen by Bowser near the end of the game... But for once, it's
the most forgotten plumber of all who manages to have a major role.
And even with that into account, the story itself isn't too awful,
either. Though in ANY Mario sport game, the whole point with the
story is to force the characters to play the game's sport, whether it
is baseball, basketball, or, in this case, dancing. It's just one of
the more clever variations of such a basic story.
5. Paper Mario: The
Thousand-Year Door
As I mentioned earlier,
the complexity of the Mario series really shines brighter in the RPG
games than in any other game of the franchise. Of course, most of
those still require the group of heroes to collect a certain number
of legendary items. But it's the plot based around this basic setting
that makes it worth it. In The Thousand-Year Door, Peach tells Mario
about the Crystal Stars, great artifacts who, when all collected,
would let one open the titular Thousand-Year Door. However, once
Mario is gone, Peach gets abducted by a cult of aliens called the
X-Nauts. As if that wasn't enough, dark witches also get in the way.
Mario's quest raises three levels of epic as it progresses, up until
a battle with a Princess Peach possessed by an ancient dark force...
Sadly that's one of the
games on this list that I've never played, so I can't tell all the
plot details (and besides, I'd rather use a full review to discuss
such a complex story), but as you can guess, this whole story is one
of the best examples of plots in the series. But keep reading,
there's even better...
4. Super Mario Galaxy
This is the last non-RPG
game on the list. At first glance, it is a very simple story, same as
usual: Bowser kidnaps Peach, but this time brings her... IN SPACE!
When chasing them, Mario is flung away in space and is found in the
Comet Observatory, home to hundreds of Lumas... and (Princess?)
Rosalina. Mario learns a new way to defend himself from the
opponents, by spinning, and then travels from galaxy to galaxy to
recover Power Stars to bring the Observatory's power back in order to
reach the center of the universe, where Bowser holds Peach captive.
While Mario accomplishes this quest, we find out about Rosalina's sad
backstory, and how she became the “queen” or “mother of the
Lumas”.
It is a game that is very
simple at first glance, with the same formula at the beginning, but
it evolves into a whole new thing, with the player getting to know
new characters, and seeing Bowser in one of his greatest schemes ever
– no, I rephrase that, HIS greatest scheme ever. Greater than
anything else he's tried doing before. And that's saying
something.
3. Super Mario RPG:
Legend of the Seven Stars
That little big game came
out in 1996, months before Super Mario 64, which is probably why so
many people seem to forget it. However, Legend of the Seven Stars,
created in association with Square-Enix, was the pioneer title in
giving some of the main characters in the Mario series some kind of personality. Mario
doesn't say much, but his determination is amazing. Princess Peach
cares deeply for her Kingdom's citizens, serves as moral support, and
can get angry easily if you get on her bad side. This game is also
the first instance of Bowser joining Mario's team, helping against
the new villains; the turtle-dragon also shows a surprising side of himself:
He's like a father to his men, and even wishes luck to one of his
underlings who leaves his army to train as a martial artist.
Oh, the story? Silly me,
I was about to forget it. Mario was about to save Peach from Bowser
(again), when a giant sword coming from the skies destroys the Star
Road and indents itself into Bowser's Keep. From it come out hordes
of weapon-themed villains, all of them known as Smithy's Gang. They are hunting
the seven Star Pieces scattered around the world. Mario teams up with
Peach, Bowser, “frog” Mallow and “star spirit in a doll's body”
Geno. The final battle? In an alternate universe, against an
extremely powerful robot. No less!
2. Mario & Luigi:
Superstar Saga
It's sad how Luigi gets
little to no development in the Paper Mario series; well, no worries!
He gets plenty in the Mario & Luigi series! He's the odd one, the
goofball, the scaredy cat, the guy who will often make fun of his
brother but, in the end, will help him a great deal and can get over his own fears for the sake of the greater good.
And the Mario & Luigi
series starts strong with Superstar Saga. In it, evil witch Cackletta,
helped by her underling Fawful, steals Princess Peach's voice and
heads back to the neighbor Beanbean Kingdom, where everything is
bean-themed. Mario and Luigi, helped by Bowser, follow her there, and
try to retrieve Peach's voice. Cackletta's plan is to awake an item
of great good using a good voice and turn it evil, using her own. But
Peach knew it was coming, so she had someone pose as her, and...
Well, things keep getting more complicated from there.
The story contains a
demi-dozen plot twists, truly interesting villains (A living drink,
anyone?), lots of things to collect, new gameplay mechanics that were
hardly ever seen in RPGs before (those mechanics come back in all the
Mario & Luigi titles), and, most of all, an awesome final fight
against CACKLETTA'S SOUL, INSIDE BOWSER HIMSELF.
This game also upped the
comedy aspect by making it even more prominent in comparison to the
previous RPG titles, and that's no small feat. Though, the story
still retains its dark side despite more humor, and that's no small
feat either!
1. Super Paper Mario
Oh, this game... I love
this story, but I also dislike it a little. I'd love to take a whole
month discussing it, because I have just so much to say about this
game as a whole.
So, Princess Peach AND
Bowser get kidnapped by an illuminated dark being named Count Bleck,
who forces them into marriage in order to awaken the Chaos Heart, an object that
will bring forth the destruction of all the universes to have ever
existed. Bleck has a number of followers, such as O'Chunks the Irish
stereotype, Mimi who can look humanoid but is actually a giant
spider, Dimentio the jester, and Nastasia. Mario learns to flip from
2D to 3D, an ability that becomes very useful in this quest, and has
Peach, Bowser and Luigi join him in his most epic adventure. Ever.
I wrote this a short
while ago: Mario collects multiple little helpers known as Pixls,
witnesses the dangers of being an obsessive geek, goes in SPACE and
in the cavernous eras, literally sees the annihilation of a universe,
is killed and goes to (a Grecian version of) Hell, jumps BACK to
Heaven, faces dozens of troubles in a dark castle to fight against
some dark-hearted wizard hell-bent on destroying all that exists,
only for that wizard's place as boss be taken over by a jester, which
merges with the almighty evil item and Luigi to become... A total
disappointment of a final boss, but I'll get to that when I review
the whole game. The story contains a ton of clichés, from prophecies
to fortune tellers to rivaling clans, and I'm forgetting a dozen.
But the point is that, in
the end, this game has the most complicated – and most interesting
– story out of all the Mario games. Mario goes really EVERYWHERE in
this quest, beyond his own universe, beyond anything he has ever done
in his series, and that's because the threat is greater than anything
else he's ever seen; total multi-universal annihilation, imagine that!
Hence why I believe the last boss to be such a disappointment,
but... Like I said, I'll talk about this another time. This story,
despite its flaws, is STILL the best plot to have come out of the
Mario series.
Well, that's it for this list. I've played most of these games, tried a few others, and there's maybe two that I haven't ever played. This is my list, maybe the order is incorrect, maybe you believe another game should have taken the #1 spot... Feel free to comment, maybe tell me your own list, and I'll be glad to listen to what you have to say!
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