Super Mario

Mario Odyssey‘s Goomba-Stacking Limit Has Been Found

How many Goombas can be stacked atop one another in Super Mario Odyssey? Playing normally the answer is 30, but video game developer and dissector Skelux has managed a stack of 200. A very unstable stack of 200. They may be magical mushroom creatures, but Goombas are still subject to the laws of physics. His…

The Magic Behind 1994’s Super Mario Mac & Cheese Commercial

With the Sega Genesis edging out Super Nintendo sales in the heated 16-bit console wars of the mid ‘90s, Nintendo decided it was time to unveil their groundbreaking secret project. Of course I’m speaking about Rare’s pseudo-3D Donkey Kong Country. But the same year that brought the barrel-tossing ape back into the spotlight also featured…

The Mario 64 Trick That Takes Three Days To Complete

The Super Mario 64 A Button Challenge asks players to collect stars without ever pressing the A button, meaning Mario can’t jump. Instead, challengers use a variety of glitches and tricks. One recently discovered glitch involves waiting for three days to get a platform to the right height, allowing players to complete the game without…

Super Mario Odyssey, Six Months Later

Super Mario Odyssey came out last October and continues to delight players. Datamined secrets, awesome glitches, and a fancy balloon hunting mode have kept players exploring the game’s vibrant world long after other games have come and gone. There’s been plenty of ups and downs to Super Mario Odyssey including broken scoreboards, awesome speedruns, and…

Mario Is Officially A Plumber Again

In September, Nintendo crushed hearts across the world by declaring that Mario was no longer a plumber. This week, the publisher has remedied that horrible mistake, changing Mario’s bio to note that he is, in fact, a plumber. Previously, as translated by Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft, the official Japanese Mario bio had read: “All around sporty,…

The $80 limited edition of the Super Mario Encyclopedia comes in a surprise block slipcase with an actual surprise inside. There are four different holofoil covers—Super Mushroom, Fire Flower, Super Star, or 1-Up—and there’s no way of telling which one’s inside before purchase. How evil is that? At least medium evil.

Mario Is Getting His Own Fancy Encyclopedia

Having had tremendous success withits trio of The Legend of Zelda reference books, Dark Horse Publishing sets its sights on the Mushroom Kingdom, chronicling three decades of Nintendo gaming in the Super Mario Encyclopedia. The Super Mario Encyclopedia is an exhaustive look at nearly every Super Mario game Nintendo’s made, from Super Mario Bros. in…

Super Mario Bros. Speedruns Are One Step Closer To Best Possible Time

Super Mario Bros. speedruns are almost as perfect as humanly possible. The swift sprint through the Mushroom Kingdom has only seen incremental gains over the last few years, with runners besting times by fractions of a second. Runs of the game have become so optimized that it seemed impossible to do any better. Last night,…

What Is Your Favorite Game Level?

Super Mario Odyssey did a fantastic job melding a nostalgic love for the older retro Mario titles and its more modern 3D games. Its levels are inspired, creatively designed to balance a sense of wonder with a good challenge. Minor Spoiler Alert New Donk City’s Traditional Festival is the perfect example of that. Mario takes…

How To Skip All Of Super Mario Odyssey‘s Darker Side

Super Mario Odyssey has a hell-gauntlet at the end of the game that stymies plenty of casual players, but speedrunners have been skipping it for a while using a simple glitch. You can, too. The most difficult area in Super Mario Odyssey is the Darker Side, a hidden portion of the Moon that players can…

Fans Create Newer Super Mario Bros. DS

Newer Super Mario Bros. DS is a fan-made project that basically gives you a whole new Mario game for the DS (only you actually play it on PC or Mac). Newer DS is not technically a standalone game; instead, it’s a patch for the original ROM that was made using the New Super Mario Bros.…

Mario And Bowser Get Along Much Better As Build-A-Bears

Look at those smiling faces. They’ve had their difference in the past, but now they’ve bonded over the shared trauma of being stuffed and sold to children at the mall. Bowser and Mario join Yoshi, Toad, Luigi and Peach in Build-A-Bear’s new Super Mario collection this weekend. If you’d rather order online, you can get…

There’s An Amiibo On Every Box Of Super Mario Cereal

Nintendo’s back in the game cereal game. Rumored for days and now confirmed, Super Mario Cereal becomes part of this nutritious breakfast in December. Every box is an Amiibo, unlocking gold coins and hearts in Super Mario Odyssey. In stores in North America as soon as December 11, Kellogg’s Super Mario Cereal is a mixed…

Super Mario Odyssey Players Use Glitch To Break Jump-Rope Challenge Leaderboard

Super Mario Odyssey’s jump rope challenge is supposed to be a test of timing but a simple glitch has loaded the leaderboards with superhuman scores. One of Super Mario Odyssey’s most addictive mini-games is the jump rope challenge found in the Metro Kingdom. Completing a certain amount of jumps without hitting the rope is a…

Is Toad wearing a hat? Or is that his head? Dorkly investigates

Players Are Taking Amazing Super Mario Odyssey Photos

Super Mario Odyssey has tons of worlds and memorable sights. Thankfully, the game’s snapshot mode allows players to take pictures of their favorite memories or create bizarre pieces of modern art. This post will contain light location, enemy, and costume spoilers. A simple press down on the D-pad brings up Super Mario Odyssey’s snapshot mode,…

Last year, curated art project Back to Bits made its 8-bit debut, capturing the games of the NES era in a series of 43 outstanding animated GIFs. Today the second wave of Back to Bits, Super 16, takes on the Super Nintendo era in 40 moving images. Check it out.

The More We Learn About Mario As A Character, The More He Sucks

2017 has changed Mario for me, and not just because he might be mind-controlling poor Goombas. Nintendo has told me too much about Mario, and now I can’t look at him the same way again. In the latest episode of the Favecast, Gita Jackson and I discuss how factoids like ‘Mario is no longer a…

24 People Can Now Play Super Mario 64 Online Together

Super Mario 64 was released in 1996 as a singleplayer video game. Recent mods have let two people play together, but a new romhack allows up to 24 to jump online and play through the game, kicking and punching each other all the way through. SM64 Online is a project by Kaze Emanuar, Melonspeedruns and…

Here’s How Ubisoft Convinced Nintendo To Let Mario Use Guns

So much about Kingdom Battle is surprising, but the thing that I still can’t get over is that in this game, Mario shoots his enemies with a gun. This is Nintendo’s mascot we’re talking about, and the game wasn’t developed internally. How the hell did anyone get Miyamoto to sign off on that? Very carefully,…