When gamers think of Super Mario, they instantly think of brilliance and his impact on the world of video games today. He’s a (former) plumber with a difference, spending much of his time on the tail of arch-enemy Bowser and doing his all to save love interest Princess Peach. Having made his first appearance all the way back in 1981 release Donkey Kong, he’s a part of a franchise that spans decades, entertaining legions of gamers throughout the 35+ years he’s been around to-date. With games such as Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Galaxy and the recently-released Super Mario Odyssey in his back catalogue, you’d be forgiven for thinking that everything the pint-sized crime fighter touches turns to gold. They are after all the games that make headlines.
Unfortunately, that’s not always been the case. In fact, there are probably a whole host of Mario games out there that you’ve never heard of, never played and, even some that should never have been made in the first place. Whether they’re a product of their time, misjudgment from developers behind-the-scenes or something that just went catastrophically wrong, these weak links are often buried in the depths of Nintendo’s vaults. Some never even made it out of Japan, though a couple we wager would do better if remastered and re-released in today’s world.
Here are 7 weird Mario games you never got to play, and 8 that should have never made it past their early development stages! Bonus points if you’ve managed to play over half on the list…
15 Get Rid Of: This One’s Just Insensitive
We know Mario’s somebody who’s got a varied resumé, but not many realize he once delivered bombs as a member of the armed forces, all whilst enemy soldiers tried to stop him at every turn with torches, lighting the bomb’s fuses and forcing them to explode right in Mario’s face. One of the biggest gripes players had with Mario’s Bombs Away was because of fellow troop ‘heavy smoker’. He’d do as little work as possible and flick his burnt out cigarettes into the stream of spilled oil behind him, turning the player’s task into an even harder one.
The game seems simple, but when you look into the setting (that of a jungle) and the green uniforms worn by Mario and his comrades, it becomes clear that it’s based on the Vietnam War. The US lost over 58,000 lives during that time, so to see it glorified and turned into something for light entertainment is a little distasteful!
14 Weird: Jack Of All Trades
Mario’s Cement Factory’s a pretty self-explanatory one, as players here had to control Mario as he added yet another notch to his workers’ belt, taking charge in a cement factory. Loading up trucks with the sometimes deadly material (as he would soon find out), our hero would only be able to move from side to side, and platform to platform when an elevator came to him. Missing it would cause Mario to go crashing to the ground, or even get crushed by the platform if it was coming from above. A strange occupation for Mario to take on, but as we’ve learned throughout the years, he’s a man of many talents.
Fortunately, for those of us who never got the chance to play Cement Factory on the Game & Watch Table Top device, the game’s now available in the Nintendo eShop!
13 Get Rid Of: We Weren’t Ready For FMV
Just a few minutes with Hotel Mario will see most players recognize exactly why the game is widely regarded as the worst Mario title of all time. Combining the creepy full motion video cutscenes with clunky controls and in-game animations that would confuse even the most hardcore gamers on a regular basis was a recipe for disaster. Even the voice acting was all over the place and not befitting of the characters involved. This is the stuff nightmares are made of.
There are a lot of things a games developer could do with the title Hotel Mario, so to find out that the entire game revolved around players shutting doors was disappointing to say the least, especially when it was marketed as a puzzle game. There’s no nostalgic magic to capture here, and certainly no puzzles to solve. Steer well clear.
12 Weird: Sew Cool!
Only ever released in Japan, I Am A Teacher: Super Mario Sweater was a game originally designed as a sewing simulator, allowing the player to get more creative than ever before with Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and other characters from the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond. Stitching Nintendo characters to virtual clothes has never been so exciting!
Whilst it was fun to see the various creations you could come up with on screen, the meat of the game really came in when your design could then be made by the company behind the title, Royal Industries Co., Ltd., who would charge 2900 yen for the garment. It was an extremely innovative idea for the time, and we imagine that if something similar dropped in today’s world, it would go down a storm.
11 Get Rid Of: A Failed Game On A Failed Console
Produced for the Virtual Boy, Mario Clash served as the first ever stereoscopic 3D Mario title, and as a new vision for the original Mario Bros. game. Rather than being an exciting and liberating experience however, it turned out to be more confusing than anything else, and wouldn’t even allow the player to save their progress in-game, meaning players had to go right back to the start every time they turned off the gaming device.
Even the score a player would garner meant nothing, as high scores and leaderboards weren’t present. The only thing gamers would play for here is pleasure and unfortunately, that’s not something that comes in high doses. With graphics and the traditional Virtual Boy colors like those seen in the picture above, is it any wonder? An instant headache.
10 Weird: It Wasn’t Luigi’s Time To Shine
For the first time ever, gamers were allowed to step into the shoes of Mario’s twin brother Luigi in Mario Is Missing!, as one of the weirdest plots in video game history took place. Bowser had finally been able to kidnap Mario, so it was up to his younger brother to save his sibling and the world from a strange fate.
Bowser’s plan this time around? To steal all of the biggest and best monuments around the planet, sell them on for a huge price and buy a massive amount of hairdryers with the money he gained. With those at his disposal, he planned to melt Antarctica and flood the Earth in the process. Unfortunately, the game failed to make a good impression and it wasn’t until almost a decade later that Luigi would be given the chance to shine as a primary protagonist again.
9 Get Rid Of: An Unnecessary Sequel
As if the first instalment of Mario Teaches Typing wasn’t enough, a sequel would arrive and become the final game in the educational Mario games series. Several new features came to Mario Teaches Typing 2, such as an on-screen keyboard and certificate of achievement, but this was a wholly unnecessary repeat of a storyline that saw Mario and Luigi come across a magical typewriter, only for Mario to break it and see the pieces scattered across the land.
Whilst bringing education into the world of video games is a very good idea, what developers must do to ensure those learning from their product are having a good time, is deliver a fun and enjoyable experience alongside the learning being delivered. That’s not what happened here.
8 Weird: Whatever Happened To Wanda?
Another game that was only ever released in Japan, Mario & Wario saw the game’s antagonist dropping various objects such as a bucket onto Mario’s head, so that he couldn’t see where he was going. Instead of controlling the titular hero, players would take on the role of a fairy called Wanda, who would manipulate various aspects of the stage so that Mario didn’t get hurt.
The game was one of just a handful that utilized the SNES Super Famicom Mouse accessory, which players would just to point and click points on the stage, not dissimilar to the gameplay in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series.
Unfortunately for Wanda fans, this would be the only gaming title she would make an appearance, only ever later briefly turning up in a Japanese-exclusive manga series, in which she would be quickly crushed by Bowser! A sticky end to a sweet little sprite.
7 Get Rid Of: A Lesson In Claustrophobia
The Mario Kart series is one of the most celebrated to come out of the Mario universe, and whilst putting two players into the same kart for Double Dash was an interesting twist for the franchise to take, it turned out to be a move that didn’t work in the long run (despite really positive reviews upon release).
Race tracks quickly became too littered because of the high volume of people racing and weapons being thrown out, and with everything being doubled up, the courses felt smaller than ever before, leaving players with a sense of claustrophobia. When you factor in the bad voice acting, it stands to reason that this is more of a stain on the Mario Kart series than a stand-out moment. Still, it did manage to become the second best-selling GameCube game ever!
6 Weird: Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads
Serving as the sequel to Mario Is Missing!, Mario’s Time Machine had a lot to prove. This time round, the educational series of Mario games would delve into human history, but failed here to ever really focus on the truly monumental and interesting events to have taken place.
The fictional storyline didn’t fare much better with the critics, failing to ever be very entertaining, despite it focusing on Mario using a time machine to return various artifacts, formerly stolen by his nemesis Bowser.
Still, the idea is an interesting one, and something that, if revisited and revamped, could go down quite well with modern-day gamers. Many may not have had the chance to play this title, but hopefully in the future it can be brought back with a complete overhaul and exciting narrative.
5 Get Rid Of: Advancing Toward Failure
There are so many Mario Party games (with one released just last month!) that for many, it’s been hard to keep up with the series. One of those that’s better left in the back of everybody’s minds however is Mario Party Advance, which saw Nintendo finally port the celebrated Party franchise to their smaller console, the Game Boy Advance. Unfortunately, the fun didn’t exactly come in spades.
There were a massive selection of mini-games to jump into, but the majority of them just weren’t very fun. The whole experience also felt as if it were aimed at single players rather than a group of friends, which is a case of falling at the first hurdle when you consider the original idea behind Mario Party. Not one you should exert yourself to play if you’ve not had a chance to yet.
4 Weird: It’s Too Early For This
A collection of three different titles were offered up here with Mario’s Early Years!; Fun With Letters which helped kids read, Fun With Numbers which of course was all about mathematics and Preschool Fun, which was targeted at the youngest of gamers with simple comprehension puzzles and challenges.
Mario, Princess Peach and Yoshi all featured in the game, traveling to a series of different islands to learn about the varying subjects, with an art style that’s actually quite charming.
Back in the 90s, children would spend hours on end taking on the game’s activities and learning all the while, not only putting a smile on their faces, but on the faces of their parents who may have at one time been a little skeptical about just how much good a video game could do for their offspring.
3 Get Rid Of: You Should(n’t) Be Dancin’
OK, so we were all taken in by the swag that came with Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, but was getting our hands on a Mario-themed dance mat really worth the effort when all was said and done? Absolutely not. After the initial novelty excitement wore off, this version of Dance Dance Revolution actually turned out to be a boring slog of a game, with the title’s hardest mode as simple as the regular mode on all other versions of the Dance Dance Revolution franchise.
Though it would probably prove to keep youngsters quite literally on their toes for hours, giving them a good dose of exercise while doing so, for the older of us gamers it wasn’t really enough to keep us coming back for more. A game like this should be one you want to bust out at parties, but instead, it likely got shoved in millions of attics after an initial couple of play-throughs.
2 Weird: Flexing Your Artistic Muscles
Combining four Nintendo 64 titles together, Mario Artist allowed players to tackle Paint Studio, Talent Studio, Polygon Studio and the Communication Kit, all of which offered something different and exciting for those who loved to create, and wanted to swap places with the artists responsible for bringing the hero and his friends to life.
The bulk of the meat around the bones of these titles was of course swamped in creativity, but a selection of mini-games did appear in Polygon Studio, in the same style that fans would later see in the WarioWare series and other branches of the Mario universe. A great little experience if you can get your hands on a copy, and something you could pump hours into without ever really noticing!
1 Get Rid Of: Didn’t Do Anything Better Than The Original
Just a few years old, this side-scrolling platformer is without a doubt one of the most disappointing to ever be released. Developed for the 3DS console, it served as a sequel to the much better 2006 DS game New Super Mario Bros., quickly failing to light a fire in the bellies of those behind their gaming device.
While there was some fun to be had, the experience was simply too short and easy to get through, not offering much replay value and bringing only a disappointing new mode called Coin Rush to the more seasoned of Mario players. The fact that more Coin Rush stages were made available to players who were willing to spend more cash on the game also felt like a kick to the gut. This was one of the first times Nintendo truly felt like they were taking advantage of players with payable, exploitative DLC.
