History GameBreaker / SuperMarioBros

** Mario's starting Jump ability goes up by 1 damage for every two uses, capping out at 250 jumps (giving it a base power of 125), making it Mario's strongest attack despite having the low cost of 3 FP and being easy to use. By consistently using it throughout the game, always choosing the Magic Attack/Defense bonus during level ups, and keeping a few honey or maple syrups handy (which are cheap to buy anywhere) it will guaranteed one-shot almost any enemy and allow you to breeze through any boss (including the final boss and [[BonusBoss Culex]]) unchallenged. The only drawback to this is that dying and continuing resets the attack counter to zero.

** Luigi as well, despite his late entrance to being playable. He has Mario's speed, even greater agility than the other characters, and his spring jump does double damage from below, while none of the other characters can attack from below at all. Note that charging the spring jump only increases its height, and it will do double damage no matter how little you charge it.

** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' has a good number too, generally centered around turning Mario into a GlassCannon. The craziest is the "Danger Mario" setup focused around the Power Rush badge. It adds two attack when Mario has 5 HP or less, it stacks, and you can buy as many as you want. Add in the stackable badges that make attacks sometimes miss, drop Mario's max HP to 5, and you're permanently superpowered AND nigh-untouchable. Works even better if you add in the Spike Shield and Ice Power badges which make Mario able to jump on enemies safely, as unlike his hammer attacks, Mario's jump attacks usually hit multiple times; Power Bounce with the Danger Mario setup equals a brutal and crushing defeat for all of your enemies. Finally, add a few Life Shrooms in case Mario does get hit and die, and the rest of the game becomes a breeze. This is alleviated somewhat by the fact that you can only drop Mario's max HP to 5 by visiting Chet Rippo, whose shop becomes accessible late in the game, but it's nonetheless usefulq as hell for the rest of the game, as well as the Pit of 100 Trials.

* Peach is usually considered the most useful of the four playable characters in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2''. Thanks to her iconic ability to float for a couple of seconds, she completely trivializes all platforming. Funnily enough, the Manual declared ''Toad'' to be this, due to his higher speed and power, but his poor jumping actually made him not very well suited for beginners.

* Luigi in ''VideoGame/SuperMario64 DS''. The game was made for Mario's abilities, and most definitely not with the exaggerated jumping skill of Luigi in mind. Since his backflip allows for infinite gliding, and the Vanish ability is usable from all ? blocks, you can use it to get all the stars in Hazy Maze Cave without going through the poisonous maze, get most of the stars in Rainbow Ride without tricky platforming, and completely skip having to ground pound the pillars in Shifting Sand Land.
** Hell, [[DivergentCharacterEvolution Luigi]] in ''general'' is quite superior (as far as platformers are concerned). In a platforming series known for its technical jumps and obstacles, being more floaty, having greater control over your movements in the air, and being able to jump higher and farther than your redder counterpart goes a long way in curving the actual difficulty of the game in your favor.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' was proven to be ''very'' effective in its initial release:
** The Cape earned its game breaker status with flying colors. It not only allowed Mario to perform sustained flight (which, given a few minutes practice, allows you to bypass most levels by taking a running jump and hitting the left directional button every few seconds), but it also gives him a spin attack powerful enough to kill most enemies. Even more effective is when he is flying, it is the only instance where Mario does not lose his power if he gets hit by an enemy. It also allows you to fall much more slowly than you normally would, so you can control where you'll land. To top it all off, it also comes with a screen hitting ground shaking landing.
** The Blue Yoshi (which lets you fly when he eats a Koopa shell of any color). You can find this variant in two ways: A) Hatch one in Star World 2 (the water stage) and feed him 5 enemies or 1 power-up to make him mature; or B) Use any breed of Yoshi and catch the pair of Magic Wings on the Cheese Bridge stage, which turns him into the blue variant. Once you have one, you can then bypass entire stages easily: Simply slurp up a Koopa, hold up and right, and wait. It's the easiest way to pass the hardest level in the game, the Special World's [[ScrappyLevel "Tubular"]] level. It's ''that'' useful.
*** Powerups in general are quite effective in Super Mario World. Whereas there are a finite number of Hammer Suits, P-Wings and Tanooki Suits in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' (and are a hassle to farm in remakes where they are infinite since you still have to play the levels in that World all the way back to the vendor), you can just backtrack and get another Blue Yoshi or Cape with much greater ease.
*** The Game Boy Advance version made this even ''more'' conveninent, by making Yoshis of a certain color available from ''any'' Eggs spawned from ?-Blocks (once fully grown in the Star World, of course), and also dependent on what power-up you currently have. Essentially, having the cape guarantees that any eggs spawned from ?-Blocks will consistently hatch a Blue Yoshi.

*** The earliest example was in Donut Plains 1. A training area exists (that is accessible right beside the midway goal) where players can use the Cape (with sustained flight) to glide through a massive block of coins spread out across a long distance. Experienced players could hit the midway goal, go into the area and fly back and forth through the coins, racking up two or three lives in the span of a minute-and-a-half, then exit out to the level screen. Wash, rinse and repeat.
*** The Top Secret Area is a secret level accessed through the Donut Ghost House (right at the beginning of the level, fly up). The accessible level included full item pickups (mushroom/flower/cape), a Yoshi, and a single 1-up every time the level is accessed. This led to the player being able to grab extra lives whenever they wanted.
*** In the Forest of Illusion, a glitch can be exploited (float back and forth using the Cape between a set of three Wigglers) that would max out your lives and score in three minutes. The game can't even properly describe what happens when you start receiving six or more lives per successive hit (and resorts to illegible programming language to show it on the screen).
*** Another thing you can do in the Forest of Illusion is in the first stage of the world. Take a Starman from the changing block immediately after the halfway point, run like crazy through the rest of the level, and you can get up to 17 lives in under a minute.
*** There's also Vanilla Secret 2. The first half of the stage is filled with dozens of hopping Koopas, but directly after the mid-point is one of the silver P Switches. These switches turn all enemies into silver coins, which add up during collecting like successive stomps on enemies without landing. All you have to do is carry the P Switch over to where the Koopas start, stomp it, and haul plumber ass towards the right side of the stage. This method takes awhile to rack up the lives, though....mostly because you get so many in that 20 seconds or so that ''the game needs a couple of minutes to catch up.''
* Unlike the overpowering cape, the Super Leaf in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'', which turns Mario into Raccoon Mario, only allowed him to fly for a few seconds, and its spin attack is much slower and much shorter in range. However, the Tanooki Suit, which is essentially an enhanced version of the Super Leaf, simply dominates over that and the other flying powerups for one simple reason: its statue mode. It renders you immobile and it only lasts a few seconds, but you can also slide under gaps that are too narrow for even small Mario if you're on a conveyor belt, as well as being able to kill nearly ''any'' enemy by [[DeathFromAbove statue-stomping them from above]], ''including otherwise-invulnerable enemies like the Rotodisk''.
** The Hammer Suit from the same game has [[DemonicSpiders Hammer Bros]]-style hammers that go through structures and enemies and have hilariously high damage output; one hit will defeat [[MiniBoss Boom-Boom]] and any of the seven [[BossBattle Koopalings]], and six hammers will take down Bowser himself. Hammers are also capable of killing [[InvincibleMinorMinion otherwise invincible enemies]] such as Fire Lotuses, Boos and even ''Thwomps''. The only enemies they can't kill are the Munchers (tiny, black Piranha Plants) and Jelectro AKA [[FanNickname Immortal Jellyfish]]. And that's only because, on a technical level, Munchers and Jelectro act as ''blocks''.

** The 4th and final Advance game in the series (based on ''[=SMB3=]'') can be quite effective if you have the [[BribingYourWayToVictory e-Reader and the cards]] that go with the game. You can easily get many power ups and extra lives by swiping the same cards into the game over and over. And yes, you can even get the Cape from ''Super Mario World'' this way.

* ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' has the Mini Mushroom. It shrinks Mario down to half his small form's size, and while it makes him a OneHitPointWonder who can't even kill enemies without a ground pound, it makes him more floaty, gives you greater control over his movements in the air, lets you jump higher, further, faster, and makes you far harder to hit, in addition to being able to run across water. In short, it essentially trivializes all the platforming in the game; even most bosses are far easier once you get the timing of the ground pound down.[[note]](Which is good, considering you ''need'' to beat two bosses in mini form to unlock two of the worlds.)[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'' gives us the Propeller Mushroom. It acts like a mega jump, it allows you to glide, and then you can fall on enemies at high speed to kill them. Basically, it's the power of flight all over again! In addition, having it guarantees getting a 1Up at the flag, unless you seriously botch it.

* ''3D Land'' also has the Statue Leaf. The normal Tanooki Suit is already rather useful because of how you can glide, but the statue form lets you kill/stop ''anything'' you fall on or near. Thwomps get smashed to pieces, flames do nothing, enemies ignore you or die in one hit and even giant Pillars just stop dead on contact.

** The most powerful leaf in the game however, has to be the Invincibility Leaf and subsequent [[GoldenSuperMode White Tanooki Mario]]. It's basically the game's regular Tanooki form but ''NighInvulnerable to anything that's not a OneHitKill and able to kill roughly any regular enemy on contact with no time limit'' (though it will revert to regular Tanooki suit once the stage is cleared). This is justified though, since [[MercyMode you only receive the leaf if you lose five lives on a given level]], making it the game's easy mode. It appeared in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros2'' (as White Raccoon Mario) and ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'', with its effectiveness in the former being taken UpToEleven for five reasons: 1) it has the same flight abilities as ''2'''s basic Raccoon Suit but the p-meter fills faster while running, 2) it can WalkOnWater, 3) it works just as well on bosses; though it still needs to hit Koopalings three times, it one-shots Bowser's first form, 4) it can be used in Coin Rush mode without having to die at all and 5) the block that gives you the power-up won't disappear once the level is finished or the game is beaten.
* The Super Bell in ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'' is already being called this. The ability to climb up walls is immensely useful and can easily save players who accidentally fell down a bottomless pit, and a close-range attack is always a good thing to have. This is somewhat balanced by it having a bit of a learning curve, as it's rather easy to kill yourself by accidentally dive bombing off the stage.
** However, it is topped later by the Lucky Bell. Similar to the Statue Leaf from ''3D Land'', this power up has the same function has the Super Bell, cat powers and all. However, it ups the ante considerably because when you ground pound, you become ''invincible''. Enemies can run into you and they will die upon contact. Bullies giving you trouble because you have to knock them off? Let them run into you. Oh, was it mentioned that you get free coins for simply ground pounding? It depends on the height that you ground pound at, so the higher up you are before you ground pound, the more coins you get. And you first receive it in one of the tallest, most vertically oriented levels in the game... the Lucky Bell is one of the strongest power ups in the game, perhaps one of the strongest in the whole series.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', Bowser seems very powerful at first, given the fact that he is twice as powerful as any other character and is capable of killing enemies at range with his fire breath...until you realize he is slow, a big target, and only capable of firing his BreathWeapon from the ground. Reasonably balanced enough, but by combining Bowser with the Pixl Carrie, who increases movement speed (and note well that Carrie's speed is the same for all characters), we have a LightningBruiser on our hands who gives us little reason to use anyone else unless the platforming requires it, and this is before we even factor in the thing that ''truly'' makes Carrie Bowser great: Carrie is a platform under the character's feet, which means whoever uses Carrie is treated as on the ground even while jumping. To reiterate, Bowser is capable of firing his BreathWeapon only while he is ''on the ground''. The game was very clearly not designed around the possibility of Bowser jumping and killing enemies at range, and it allows Bowser to kill nearly any enemy before they can even get close. The fact that Carrie allows Bowser to jump on most examples of TheSpiny and not take damage is just the icing on the cake.
** Luigi as well, despite his late entrance to being playable. He has the speed of Mario, even greater agility than the other characters, and his spring jump does double damage from below, while none of the other characters can attack from below at all. Note that charging the spring jump only increases its height, it will do double damage no matter how little you charge it.
** Similar to Bowser, Peach becomes much more powerful when using Carrie. She has a move that grants her complete invulnerability, but as with Bowser's flame breath, she is immobile using it and must be grounded. Again, factor in that Carrie makes Peach grounded all the time and faster means you can easily move around and attack enemies while remaining completely impenetrable. Many a challenge becomes very easy abusing this.
** While the Pixl Dottie is fairly mediocre in the main game, in the [[BonusDungeon Pit of 100 Trials]], she doesn't so much break the game as destroy it. In a MultiMookMelee, the ability to keep enemies from noticing you're there at all is more than slightly overpowering.
* The first ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' game (''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga Superstar Saga]]'') had a series of badges called Shroom Badges (Shroom Badge, Shroom Badge A, Shroom Badge AA) that increased your attack proportional to the number of mushrooms you were carrying. Ostensibly, this was supposed to have the penalty where healing yourself costs you attack, but it is both cheap and easy to carry almost 99 of all ''four'' kinds of mushrooms and to heal only using Nuts. Since carrying around 30 of each kind of mushroom was enough of a game breaker, just imagine what 396 mushrooms must be like.
** Funny thing with the Shroom Badges is that the damage increase also affects First Strikes. With enough mushrooms, you can instantly kill a lot of enemies without even starting the battle.

** In the DS sequel, ''Partners in Time'', there is the inexpensive Practice Badge right from the start, which bless the bearer(s) with infinite use of attack items at the cost of attacking power. Maybe they're weaker, but with a little practice you'll be able to spam quite high damage using Pocket Chomps, Clone Flowers or Red Shells, and not worry about buying any, saving all your money on healing and buff items. You probably won't even have to buy a single of these weapons if you grind enough, and as long as there's at least one available in your inventory, you'll be able to sell them for quite a price (more if you max out your characters' mustaches).
*** Heck, red shells in general are quite useful in this game. You can keep them going forever as long as you don't miss, which surprisingly isn't that hard thanks to their speed capping out early and at a manageable speed. Although for good reason, red shells aren't available until after Thwomp Volcano.

** For ''Bowser's Inside Story'': The Broggy Bonker could count as this for Bowser. It's his ultimate attack which does ludicrous amounts of damage as well as being quite easy to pull off, which coupled with the Economy Ring (reduces SP usage by half) makes it incredibly spammable.
*** Don't forget about what happens when Bowser reaches level 40, he receives the Intruder Fangs which allow him TWO actions per turn! Combine this with the King's Shell which is his best defensive armor, ''and'' raises his punch's power by 30%, ''then'' use moves like Broggy Bonker twice in a row to see how Game Breaking Bowser can be.
*** There's the Magic Window ability which allows Mario and Luigi to summon endless clones of themselves as long as you pushed the correct buttons at the right time. If you were quick enough, most enemies and bosses could be defeated by this single ability alone.
*** Then there is the Mighty Meteor special attack; by the time you get this, you can stock up on the best healing items in the game as after completing said move successfully, an item pops out based on how strong the enemy was. [[spoiler: Use this move in the Airway section to get Star Candies.]]
* ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'' has the Birthday equips, which have unimpressive stats under normal circumstances, but if you play on whatever day you registered as your birthday on the 3DS, their stats ''quadruple'', making them as strong as the endgame equipment, only they're obtainable much earlier and lack the drawbacks some of said equipment possesses (Such as having a chance to break upon being used or damaging you along with your enemies). The 3DS allows games that use the date to set an ObviousRulePatch penalty for changing the clock settings, but Dream Team doesn't bother, and if you want to avoid taking the penalty on your other games that do, you can just change ''your birthday''.
** There is also a certain badge effect (gained by using the Gold and Miracle badges together) that freezes time and stops enemy movement for about three turns. And the badge slots used to activate it can be filled by fighting weaker enemies beforehand and doing 'excellent' attacks. So you can literally beat any boss in the game by getting this badge combo, grinding on a bunch of weaker enemies to fill the slots and then freezing time immediately to stop it attacking before blasting it with every Bros Attack possible. Did I mention how the DOB equips can be stacked on top of this effect, and how the items affect Bros Attack power? And that you can use this effect up to four times in a row? So you've got 400% attack power, no way for the enemy to fight back and attacks that already do about 500 damage per hit. It can let you beat the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2bLk11mF1M final boss in under a minute!]]

** Boost Wear. Your badge meter goes up every time you're hit by an enemy. Sound not great? Well try using it with time freezing abilities. Or worse still, in the Antasma/Antasma X fight, where his attacks like the bat charge and the buzzsaw gauntlet dream world chase hit you tens of times in seconds! Seriously, you can fill up your badge meter in just one or two battles in the Battle Ring with this. There's also the Rally Belt, which boosts your POW whenever this happens, sort of like how Big Massif attacks in Dreamy Wakeport. The latter is really hard to get, but potentially available before the halfway mark.
** The Challenge Equipment which becomes stronger the more challenges you complete, and eventually becomes some of the strongest, if not the strongest equipment in the entire game if you do [[ThatOneAchievement all of the challenges in the game.]] This is due to the fact that finishing the list completely gets you the Duplex Crown mentioned below.

** The Golden Equipment which has stats that are based on your overall coin amount, meaning the more money you save, the stronger it is. This eventually can become so strong that at max power it's only second to the Challenge Equipment seen above. This becomes extremely easy when you realize that you don't have to shop for items and weapons as much as you think considering that a lot of ones will probably be dropped from enemies along the way, allowing you to save up money easily, especially with the Coin Gloves DX equipped.
** 1-Up Gloves. If either Bro gets knocked out, he gets auto revived immediately as long as you have a 1-Up Mushroom handy. This is so powerful that this item can be [[PermanentlyMissableContent unobtainable]] if Mammoshka doesn't drop it at the end of his battle, [[ScrappyMechanic which has a 50 percent chance of happening as opposed to the normal boss rate of dropping their rare item 100% of the time]], and possibly making you have to fight him again if you want another chance at getting them.

** Coin Gloves DX and Gift Gloves DX. Using one of these on each of your brothers respectively means that both your chances of getting items (including rare ones) and your coin amount from enemies at the end of battle are significantly increased. The Coin Gloves DX are found by beating Madame Brioche's Luiginary Ball event which isn't too tough (at least compared to the other events in her arena) and the Gift Gloves DX are the rare drop from [[FragileSpeedster Bandits]] which are easy to beat, and come in groups, which make finding them pretty easy.

** Silver + Miracle Badge combo. Reverts status to last turn (which can act as a full heal on demand), restores any BP used or items used from the inventory, is very easy to charge up, and can give you back the Bros Attacks Bowser Jr steals so you can use them twice in a row.
*** To add to this... badge effects don't use up a turn. You can use infinite amounts in one turn. And what happens if you use this effect? The badge slots you used come back! So just set the Gold/Miracle Badge, a Guard Shield Badge and the POW Up effect up before you start a battle. Then use them all. Once this is done... use the rewind effect and voila! All three used badge slots are full again, giving you another round of time freezing/POW boosting/impenetrable shields! Finally, the Miracle/Silver badge combo charges super quickly in battle, so you can theoretically do this up to five or even ten times in one fight if you're lucky.

** The Casual Bros. Bonus power which halves your Bro Point (this games version of Magic Points) consumption. There's an accessory called the Bros. Ring which does the same thing, and can ''stack on top of this effect'' as well which makes it so that one brother can literally use his Bros/Luiginary attacks for ''a quarter'' of the normal amount.

** The Star Boots, which make any jump attack or special boot based attack recover health after you damage an enemy. Combined with the Angel Bangle, you'll probably never have to worry about health again for the most part.
** Guard Badges too. Shield that nullifies all damage until each bro has been hit six times? On command? Yeah, that's more than a little overpowering. Their equippable variant of the Guard Shell is similarly useful, nullifying the same number of hits and also refreshing the barrier if a Bro is KO'd then revived.
** The Master Gloves. If you get an Excellent on a Bros. Attack or Luiginary Attack, your BP is refunded. Translation? You can spam away with the strongest attacks in the game if you can use them perfectly. Syrup Jars? Who needs them any more?

** This game has possibly one of the most useful accessories in the entire series if not the single most useful one, period. If you go to the beginning of the last dungeon Neo Bowser Castle and fight a Flaming Antasminion (a little purple Antasma robot with wings that spits fire), you have a 1% chance of them dropping their rare item (though this can be boosted by the aformentioned Gift Gloves DX), [[InfinityPlusOneSword the Farmer Boots.]] To make up for the fact that there are considerably fewer beans in this game than previous titles, these boots ''more than make up for it in spades.'' If someone equipped with these boots jumps on or uses a boot based special attack on an enemy to defeat it, the enemy has a good chance of dropping ''beans instead of coins.'' This becomes extremely useful when you realize that you can get two pairs of Farmer Boots (one for each brother), go back to early parts of the game with weak enemies that don't have spikes (who are immune to jump attacks), jump on them for a pre-emptive boot attack which at your current level should be [[OneHitKO an instant victory]] and literally [[JustForPun reap what you sow]] when the enemies each drop beans that you can use to increase your stats including your stache (which is your luck stat used to determine critical hits) that normally doesn't level up unless you use your level bonus when you level up on it to insane levels. The game and all of its difficulty, including [[ThatOneSidequest the battle arena]] will literally [[UpToEleven fall apart when you realize that you can do this in earlier dream dungeons]] where enemies attack in swarms which means you can literally get a dozen or more beans per fight.

** The Farmer Boots / Wellington Boots are back and work exactly like they did in the previous game. The only problem is they have been made a huge GuideDangIt and a LuckBasedMission to compensate. You get them from an attack by Paper Broozers in the final dungeon. The attack involves destroying barrels with hammers; they have a chance to drop loot and there is a one in seven chance that this loot will be the boots.
** amiibo cards have a variety of effects including damaging enemies, increasing coins and drops and are available as early as the first boss.
** The regular battle cards show you don't even need amiibo cards. They can do most of the things amiibo cards do plus boosting your stats, lowering enemy stats and increasing EXP. There are even two types of cards that lower the levels of the Bowser Jrs, the Bowsers and the Koopalings.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'', Peach is practically a game breaker by herself, and that's just the start of it. She's the only character possessing full party heal and resurrection spells, making any party with her extremely hard to kill as long as she's alive. This becomes doubly beffective once you get the Lazy Shell armor, which in turn for weakening wearer's attack powers highly buffs their defense. On Peach, this results in a minimal reduction to her healing abilities in exchange for making her almost impossible to kill, turning her into a WhiteMagicianGirl who can heal the entire party at once -- status effects and all -- for 4 MP, revive party members to (almost) full health (if you get a Timed Hit) for only TWO, and is herself immune to pretty much everything except HPToOne and OneHitKill moves. Then give her the Quartz Charm you receive for beating Culex to significantly raise her stats, as well as making her immune to pretty much every status condition in the book for true Game Breaking ability.

** By the same token, Mario equipped with the Super Suit is an unstoppable tank. It has virtually the same effects as the Lazy Shell Armor but with better stats (and no attack penalty). The Super Suit could be obtained as soon as you reached Monstro Town if you were skilled at timing your Super Jump attacks. You could practically take Mario into any battle alone (letting the other two party members die or otherwise make them block), and to further pile on the overkill, equip him with the Lazy Shell weapon and Attack Scarf. Once you have these three items no boss in the game can stand up to you. This is balanced out by the fact that 100 Super Jumps is absurdly difficult to pull off, and the armor itself can't be obtained until the game is 3/4th over.
** Mario's starting Jump ability goes up by 1 damage for every two uses, capping out at 250 jumps (giving it a base power of 125), making it Mario's strongest attack despite having the low cost of 3 FP and being easy to use. By consistently using it throughout the game, always choosing the Magic Attack/Defense bonus during level ups, and keeping a few honey or maple syrups handy (which are cheaply purchaseable anywhere) it will guaranteed one-punch almost any enemy and allow you to breeze through any boss (including the final boss and [[BonusBoss Culex]]) unchallenged. The only drawback to this is dying and continuing resets the attack counter to zero.
** Any player who could master timed hits became a killer machine with Geno. His Geno Whirl attack timed hit does [[OverNineThousand 9999 damage]] each time for a small amount of flower points. No, seriously it does ''that'' much damage when timed correctly, making any enemy not immune to it (including one of the endgame bosses) a joke.

** Once you get to Seaside Town, assuming you didn't blow your frog coins at the (worthless) Frog Coin Eporium, you can purchase an Exp Booster for only 20 frog coins that ''doubles experience earned''. While that's good enough, you also don't need to equip it to an active party member for it to work: slap it on one of your characters who's chilling in the back and you can still reap the rewards. Then after a certain plot point you can purchase a Lucky Hammer from the weapon shop that gives you the "lucky" double your coins or exp bonus every time if you get a timed hit (at the cost of low attack). The ease of that minigame plus the Exp Booster will often grant you an easy 44 - 50 exp per battle in nearby Lands End, and it only goes up from there.

** If you're particularly good at keeping your Power Bounces going you can take down any enemy, bosses included, just by bouncing forever. The sequel capped the amount of times you could bounce.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' has a good number too, generally centered around turning Mario into a GlassCannon. The craziest is the "Danger Mario" setup focused around the Power Rush badge. It adds two attack when Mario has 5 HP or less, it stacks, and you can buy as many as you want. Add in the stackable badges that make attacks sometimes miss, drop Mario's max HP to 5, and you're permanently superpowered AND nigh-untouchable. Works even better if you add in the Spike Shield and Ice Power badges which make Mario able to jump on enemies safely, as unlike his hammer attacks, Mario's jump attacks usually hit multiple times; Power Bounce with the Danger Mario setup equals a brutal and crushing defeat for all of your enemies. Finally, add a few Life Shrooms in case Mario does get hit and die, and the rest of the game becomes a breeze. This is alleviated somewhat by the fact that you can only drop Mario's max HP to 5 by visiting Chet Rippo, whose shop becomes accessible late in the game, but it's nonetheless useful as hell for the rest of the game, as well as the Pit of 100 Trials.
** With the Spike Shield and Jumpman badges Mario can completely eliminate all need for the hammer and get a decent attack boost on the jump which can now be used on (almost) all enemies. Add in one of the two or three items that allows one to hit flaming enemies, two or three Power Plus badges, and a couple of P-Up D-Downs and Mario is a killing machine that can do damage above and beyond that possible in the original game's method with just a charge or two combined with Power Jump. Even better, so long as Mario has about 15 HP just in case it doesn't matter how bad his defense is -- ''The Thousand Year Door'' introduced a very easily exploitable ability to have one of your partners serve as an impenetrable StoneWall. And one of those partners has this move called Rally Wink that will give your super killing machine Mario another turn each time it's used.

** Get a lot of Super Appeal badges (About 10 should do it) from the Pianta Arcade, equip them, then Appeal as Mario. Your star meter is completely filled.

* Bunny Mario from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand2SixGoldenCoins''. Bunny Mario is essentially taking Princess Peach's already game breaking float ability from Mario 2, and grant players the ability to pretty much stay airborne as long as they please, provided they tap (not hold) the jump button. You are also granted a much higher jump and much easier air control. The advantages of the bunny power more than make up for the slight disadvantage of not being able to spin jump. You'll never worry about platforming in the game ever again.
* Collectable items in ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland''. Not really any particular ones, just any you can store in the inventory. Sure they're blocked from being used in boss battles, but being able to breathe fire/freeze enemies/shoot bullet-like seeds at any point in the game? Effective to the point you can often just blast the spike pits to pieces and stroll through. Getting 20+ stars is basically an instant max health refill, and the items to change enemies to clouds or stars make tough areas a breeze, as does the ability to turn all red coins red and be able to tell them apart from the normal ones. Naturally, they were completely removed in ''Yoshi's Island DS'', forcing those seeking HundredPercentCompletion to earn their 30 stars the hard way (especially in 1-Secret, which has exactly 20 stars in the entire level).
* The Jet Hat from ''VideoGame/WarioLand'' breaks the game wide open and then breaks it even wider out of spite. It allows for a smooth 8-second sustained flight and then glides downward until it touches land. Due to a [[GoodBadBugs quirk]] in the programming, though, you could at any time during flight press B to stop flying, and ''then'' press B to start flying once more. With practice it's possible to essentially fly forever, and clear entire levels ''without even touching the ground''. For icing on the cake, the jet hat is also a fairly common item, boosts your jumping height, ''and'' makes you run faster.

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty 3'' had the Reverse Mushroom, an item that, when used, forces the target to move backwards on his next roll. The conveninence comes from the fact that going backwards is actually [[CursedWithAwesome quite handy more often than not]]: It can be used on yourself, it can send people off into undesired areas, it allows the "afflicted" person to go in any direction at most junctions -- and could thus "backtrack" to the ''Star Space'' you might have missed or have been unlucky enough to be at another area or path when it respawned. It can also let you go to areas that are normally impossible to enter without a ''Skeleton Key'' -- which tend to have ''Chance Spaces'' and ''Item Spaces'' littered there. Oh, and a random Bowser event can inflict ''everyone'' with this status. Simply put, it was not a coincidence that it was one of the ''very'' few items did not ever reappear in any future titles (that wasn't tied to the gameplay, that is), even in other forms.

*** In the Forest of Illusion, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enuCN3Gmv2s a glitch]] can be exploited (float back and forth using the Cape between a set of three Wigglers) that would max out your lives and score in three minutes. The game can't even properly describe what happens when you start receiving 6 or more lives per successive hit (and resorts to illegible programming language to show it on the screen).

*** There's also Vanilla Secret 2. The first half of the stage is filled with dozens of hopping Koopas, but directly after the mid-point is one of the silver P Switches. These switches turn all enemies into silver coins, which add up during collecting like successive stomps on enemies without landing. All you have to do is carry the P Switch over to where the Koopas start, stomp it, and haul plumber ass towards the right side of the stage. This method takes awhile to rack up the lives though....mostly because you get so many in that twenty seconds or so that ''the game needs a couple minutes to catch up.''

* ''3D Land'' also has the Statue Leaf. The normal Tanooki Suit is already rather useful because of how you can glide, but the statue form lets you kill/stop ANYTHING you fall on/in the path of. Thwomps get smashed to pieces, flames do nothing, enemies ignore you or die in one hit and even giant Pillars just stop dead on contact.

* The first ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' game (''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga Superstar Saga]]'') had a series of badges called Shroom Badges (Shroom Badge, Shroom Badge A, Shroom Badge AA) that increased your attack proportional to the number of mushrooms you were carrying. Ostensibly, this was supposed to have the penalty where healing yourself costs you attack, but it is both cheap and easy to carry almost 99 of all FOUR kinds of mushrooms and to heal only using Nuts. Since carrying around 30 of each kind of mushroom was enough of a game breaker, just imagine what 396 mushrooms must be like.
** Funny thing is with the Shroom Badges is that the damage increase also affects First Strikes. With enough mushrooms, you can instantly kill a lot of enemies without even starting the battle.
** There's also the Bonus Ring, which doubles your experience if you manage to not get hurt in battle. It's available as soon as Starbeans Cafe opens (You need to blend two different drinks for it). Since it's possible to [[NoDamageRun avoid every enemy attack in the game]], you can level up high enough to defeat the final boss by the time you're in the Beanstar FetchQuest if you're good enough.

* VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPaperJam

* The Jet Hat from ''VideoGame/WarioLand'' breaks the game wide open and then breaks it even wider out of spite. It allows for a smooth 8 second sustained flight and then glides downward until it touches land. Due to a [[GoodBadBugs quirk]] in the programming, though, you could at anytime during flight press B to stop flying, and ''then'' press B to start flying once more. With practice it's possible to essentially fly forever, and clear entire levels ''without even touching the ground''. For icing on the cake, the jet hat is also a fairly common item, boosts your jumping height, ''and'' makes you run faster.

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty 3'' had the Reverse Mushroom, an item that, when used, forces the target to move backwards on their next roll. The conveninence comes from the fact that going backwards is actually [[CursedWithAwesome quite handy more often than not]]: it can be used on yourself, it can send people off into undesired areas, it allows the "afflicted" person to go in any direction at most junctions -- and could thus "backtrack" to the ''Star Space'' you might have missed or have been unlucky enough to be at another area or path when it respawned, it can also let you go to areas that are normally impossible to enter without a ''Skeleton Key'' -- which tend to have ''Chance Spaces'' and ''Item Spaces'' littered there. Oh, and a random Bowser event can inflict ''everyone'' with this status. Simply put, it was not a coincidence that it was one of the ''very'' few items did not ever reappear in any future titles (that wasn't tied to the gameplay that is), even in other forms.

* The regular battle cards show you don't even need amiibo cards. They can do most of the things amiibo cards do plus boosting your stats, lowering enemy stats and increasing EXP. There are even two types of cards that lower the levels of the Bowser Jrs, the Bowsers and the Koopalings.

** 1-Up Gloves. If either Bro gets knocked out, he gets auto revived immediately as long as you have a 1-Up Mushroom handy. This is so powerful that this item can be LostForever if Mammoshka doesn't drop it at the end of his battle, [[ScrappyMechanic which has a 50 percent chance of happening as opposed to the normal boss rate of dropping their rare item 100% of the time]], and possibly making you have to fight him again if you want another chance at getting them.

* The Princess is usually considered the most useful of the four playable characters in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2''. Thanks to her iconic ability to float for a couple of seconds, she completely trivializes all platforming. Funnily enough, the Manual declared ''Toad'' to be this, due to his higher speed and power, but his poor jumping actually made him not very well suited for beginners.

* Unlike the overpowering cape, the Super Leaf in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'', which turns Mario into Raccoon Mario, only allowed him to fly for a few seconds, and its spin attack is much slower and much shorter in range. However, the Tanooki Suit, which is essentially an enhanced version of the Super Leaf, simply dominates over that and the other flying powerups for one simple reason: its statue mode. It renders you immobile and it only lasts a few seconds, but you can also slide under gaps that are too narrow for even small Mario if you're on a conveyor belt, as well as being able to kill nearly ''any'' enemy by [[DeathFromAbove statue-stomping them from above]], ''including the otherwise-invulnerable Rotodisk''.

** This game has possibly one of the most useful accessories in the entire series if not the single most useful one, period. If you go to the beginning of the last dungeon Neo Bowser Castle and fight a Flaming Antasminion (a little purple Antasma robot with wings that spits fire), you have a 1% chance of them dropping their rare item (though this can be boosted by the aformentioned Gift Gloves DX), [[InfinityPlusOneSword the Farmer Boots.]] To make up for the fact that there are considerably fewer beans in this game than previous titles, these boots ''more than make up for it in spades.'' If someone equipped with these boots jumps on or uses a boot based special attack on an enemy to defeat it, the enemy has a good chance of dropping ''beans instead of coins.'' This becomes extremely useful when you realize that you can get two pairs of Farmer Boots (one for each brother), go back to early parts of the game with weak enemies that don't have spikes (who are immune to jump attacks), jump on them for a pre-emptive boot attack which at your current level should be [[OneHitKO an instant victory]] and literally [[JustForPun reap what you sow]] when the enemies each drop beans that you can use increase your stats including your stache (which is your luck stat used to determine critical hits) that normally doesn't level up unless you use your level bonus when you level up on it to insane levels. The game and all of its difficulty, including [[ThatOneSidequest the battle arena]] will literally [[UpToEleven fall apart when you realize that you can do this in earlier dream dungeons]] where enemies attack in swarms which means you can literally get a dozen or more beans per fight.

*** Don't forget about what happens when Bowser reaches level 40, he receives the Intruder Fangs which allow him TWO actions per turn! Combine this with the King's Shell which is his best defensive armor, ''and'' raises his punch's power by 30 percent, ''then'' use moves like Broggy Bonker twice in a row to see how Game Breaking Bowser can be.

** 1-Up Gloves. If either Bro gets knocked out, he gets auto revived immediately as long as you have a 1-Up Mushroom handy. This is so powerful that this item can be LostForever if Mammoshka doesn't drop it at the end of his battle, [[ScrappyMechanic which has a 50 percent chance of happening as opposed to the normal boss rate of dropping their rare item 100 percent of the time]], and possibly making you have to fight him again if you want another chance at getting them.

** This game has possibly one of the most useful accessories in the entire series if not the single most useful one, period. If you go to the beginning of the last dungeon Neo Bowser Castle and fight a Flaming Antasminion (a little purple Antasma robot with wings that spits fire), you have a 1 percent chance of them dropping their rare item (though this can be boosted by the aformentioned Gift Gloves DX), [[InfinityPlusOneSword the Farmer Boots.]] To make up for the fact that there are considerably fewer beans in this game than previous titles, these boots ''more than make up for it in spades.'' If someone equipped with these boots jumps on or uses a boot based special attack on an enemy to defeat it, the enemy has a good chance of dropping ''beans instead of coins.'' This becomes extremely useful when you realize that you can get two pairs of Farmer Boots (one for each brother), go back to early parts of the game with weak enemies that don't have spikes (who are immune to jump attacks), jump on them for a pre-emptive boot attack which at your current level should be [[OneHitKO an instant victory]] and literally [[JustForPun reap what you sow]] when the enemies each drop beans that you can use increase your stats including your stache (which is your luck stat used to determine critical hits) that normally doesn't level up unless you use your level bonus when you level up on it to insane levels. The game and all of its difficulty, including [[ThatOneSidequest the battle arena]] will literally [[UpToEleven fall apart when you realize that you can do this in earlier dream dungeons]] where enemies attack in swarms which means you can literally get a dozen or more beans per fight.

** While the Pixl Dottie is fairly mediocre in the main game, in the [[BonusDungeon Pit of 100 Trials]], she doesn't so much break the game as destroy it. In a MultiMookMelee, the ability to keep enemies from noticing you're there at all is more than a little overpowered.

** Guard Badges too. Shield that nullifies all damage until each bro has been hit six times? On command? Yeah, that's more than a little overpowered. Their equippable variant of the Guard Shell is similarly useful, nullifying the same number of hits and also refreshing the barrier if a Bro is KO'd then revived.

* The Princess is usually considered the most broken of the four playable characters in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2''. Thanks to her iconic ability to float for a couple of seconds, she completely trivializes all platforming. Funnily enough, the Manual declared ''Toad'' to be this, due to his higher speed and power, but his poor jumping actually made him not very well suited for beginners.

** Hell, [[DivergentCharacterEvolution Luigi]] in ''general'' is broken (as far as platformers are concerned). In a platforming series known for its technical jumps and obstacles, being more floaty, having greater control over your movements in the air, and being able to jump higher and farther than your redder counterpart goes a long way in curving the actual difficulty of the game in your favor.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' was proven to be ''very'' broken in its initial release:
** The Cape earned its game breaker status with flying colors. It not only allowed Mario to perform sustained flight (which, given a few minutes practice, allows you to bypass most levels by taking a running jump and hitting the left directional button every few seconds), but it also gives him a spin attack powerful enough to kill most enemies. Even more broken is when he is flying, it is the only instance where Mario does not lose his power if he gets hit by an enemy. It also allows you to fall much more slowly than you normally would, so you can control where you'll land. To top it all off, it also comes with a screen hitting ground shaking landing.
** The Blue Yoshi (which lets you fly when he eats a Koopa shell of any color). You can find this variant in two ways: A) Hatch one in Star World 2 (the water stage) and feed him 5 enemies or 1 power-up to make him mature; or B) Use any breed of Yoshi and catch the pair of Magic Wings on the Cheese Bridge stage, which turns him into the blue variant. Once you have one, you can then bypass entire stages easily: Simply slurp up a Koopa, hold up and right, and wait. It's the easiest way to pass the hardest level in the game, the Special World's [[ScrappyLevel "Tubular"]] level. It's ''that'' broken.
*** Powerups in general are broken in Super Mario World. Whereas there are a finite number of Hammer Suits, P-Wings and Tanooki Suits in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' (and are a hassle to farm in remakes where they are infinite since you still have to play the levels in that World all the way back to the vendor), you can just backtrack and get another Blue Yoshi or Cape with much greater ease.
*** The Advance version made this even ''more'' broken, by making Yoshis of a certain color available from ''any'' Eggs spawned from ?-Blocks (once fully grown in the Star World, of course), and also dependent on what power-up you currently have. Basically, having the cape guarantees that any eggs spawned from ?-Blocks will always hatch a Blue Yoshi.

* Unlike the overpowered cape, the Super Leaf in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'', which turns Mario into Raccoon Mario, only allowed him to fly for a few seconds, and its spin attack is much slower and much shorter in range. However, the Tanooki Suit, which is basically a souped-up version of the Super Leaf, simply dominates over that and the other flying powerups for one simple reason: its statue mode. Sure, it renders you immobile and it only lasts a few seconds, but you can slide under gaps that are too narrow for even small Mario if you're on a conveyor belt, and you can kill nearly ''any'' enemy by [[DeathFromAbove statue-stomping them from above]], ''including the otherwise-invulnerable Rotodisk''.

** The 4th and final Advance game in the series (based on ''[=SMB3=]'') can be broken if you have the [[BribingYourWayToVictory e-Reader and the cards]] that go with the game. You can easily get many power ups and extra lives by swiping the same cards into the game over and over. And yes, you can even get the Cape from ''Super Mario World'' this way.

** The most powerful leaf in the game however, has to be the Invincibility Leaf and subsequent [[GoldenSuperMode White Tanooki Mario]]. It's basically the game's regular Tanooki form but ''NighInvulnerable to anything that's not a OneHitKill and able to kill roughly any regular enemy on contact with no time limit'' (though it will revert to regular Tanooki suit once the stage is cleared). This is justified though, since [[MercyMode you only receive the leaf if you lose five lives on a given level]], making it the game's easy mode. It appeared in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros2'' (as White Raccoon Mario) and ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'', with its brokenness in the former being taken UpToEleven for five reasons: 1) it has the same flight abilities as ''2'''s basic Raccoon Suit but the p-meter fills faster while running, 2) it can WalkOnWater, 3) it works just as well on bosses; though it still needs to hit Koopalings three times, it one-shots Bowser's first form, 4) it can be used in Coin Rush mode without having to die at all and 5) the block that gives you the power-up won't disappear once the level is finished or the game is beaten.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', Bowser seems very powerful at first, given the fact that he is twice as powerful as any other character and is capable of killing enemies at range with his fire breath...until you realize he is slow, a big target, and only capable of firing his BreathWeapon from the ground. Reasonably balanced enough, but by combining Bowser with the Pixl Carrie, who increases movement speed (and note well that Carrie's speed is the same for all characters), we have a LightningBruiser on our hands who gives us little reason to use anyone else unless the platforming requires it, and this is before we even factor in the thing that ''really'' makes Carrie Bowser broken: Carrie is a platform under the character's feet, which means whoever uses Carrie is treated as on the ground even while jumping. To reiterate, Bowser is capable of firing his BreathWeapon only while he is ''on the ground''. The game was very clearly not designed around the possibility of Bowser jumping and killing enemies at range, and it allows Bowser to kill nearly any enemy before they can even get close. The fact that Carrie allows Bowser to jump on most examples of TheSpiny and not take damage is just the icing on the cake.

*** Heck, red shells in general are broken in this game. You can keep them going forever as long as you don't miss, which surprisingly isn't that hard thanks to their speed capping out early and at a manageable speed. Although for good reason, red shells aren't available until after Thwomp Volcano.

** Boost Wear. Your badge meter goes up every time you're hit by an enemy. Sound not broken? Well try using it with time freezing abilities. Or worse still, in the Antasma/Antasma X fight, where his attacks like the bat charge and the buzzsaw gauntlet dream world chase hit you tens of times in seconds! Seriously, you can fill up your badge meter in just one or two battles in the Battle Ring with this. There's also the Rally Belt, which boosts your POW whenever this happens, sort of like how Big Massif attacks in Dreamy Wakeport. The latter is really hard to get, but potentially available before the halfway mark.
** The Challenge Equipment which becomes stronger the more challenges you complete, and eventually becomes some of the strongest, if not the strongest equipment in the entire game if you do [[ThatOneAchievement all of the challenges in the game.]] This is further broken by the fact that finishing the list completely gets you the Duplex Crown mentioned below.

** Guard Badges too. Shield that nullifies all damage until each bro has been hit six times? On command? Yeah, that's more than a little overpowered. Their equippable variant of the Guard Shell is similarly broken, nullifying the same number of hits and also refreshing the barrier if a Bro is KO'd then revived.

** This game has possibly one of the most broken accessories in the entire series if not the single most broken one period. If you go to the beginning of the last dungeon Neo Bowser Castle and fight a Flaming Antasminion (a little purple Antasma robot with wings that spits fire), you have a 1 percent chance of them dropping their rare item (though this can be boosted by the aformentioned Gift Gloves DX), [[InfinityPlusOneSword the Farmer Boots.]] To make up for the fact that there are considerably fewer beans in this game than previous titles, these boots ''more than make up for it in spades.'' If someone equipped with these boots jumps on or uses a boot based special attack on an enemy to defeat it, the enemy has a good chance of dropping ''beans instead of coins.'' This becomes extremely broken when you realize that you can get two pairs of Farmer Boots (one for each brother), go back to early parts of the game with weak enemies that don't have spikes (who are immune to jump attacks), jump on them for a pre-emptive boot attack which at your current level should be [[OneHitKO an instant victory]] and literally [[JustForPun reap what you sow]] when the enemies each drop beans that you can use increase your stats including your stache (which is your luck stat used to determine critical hits) that normally doesn't level up unless you use your level bonus when you level up on it to insane levels. The game and all of its difficulty, including [[ThatOneSidequest the battle arena]] will literally [[UpToEleven fall apart when you realize that you can do this in earlier dream dungeons]] where enemies attack in swarms which means you can literally get a dozen or more beans per fight.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'', Peach is practically a game breaker by herself, and that's just the start of it. She's the only character possessing full party heal and resurrection spells, making any party with her extremely hard to kill as long as she's alive. This becomes doubly broken once you get the Lazy Shell armor, which in turn for nerfing the wearer's attack powers highly buffs their defense. On Peach, this results in a minimal reduction to her healing abilities in exchange for making her almost impossible to kill, turning her into a WhiteMagicianGirl who can heal the entire party at once -- status effects and all -- for 4 MP, revive party members to (almost) full health (if you get a Timed Hit) for only TWO, and is herself immune to pretty much everything except HPToOne and OneHitKill moves. Then give her the Quartz Charm you receive for beating Culex to significantly raise her stats, as well as making her immune to pretty much every status condition in the book for true Game Breaking ability.

** Any player who could master timed hits became a murder machine with Geno. His Geno Whirl attack timed hit does [[OverNineThousand 9999 damage]] each time for a small amount of flower points. No, seriously it does ''that'' much damage when timed correctly, making any enemy not immune to it (including one of the endgame bosses) a joke.

* Collectable items in ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland''. Not really any particular ones, just any you can store in the inventory. Sure they're blocked from being used in boss battles, but being able to breathe fire/freeze enemies/shoot bullet-like seeds at any point in the game? Broken to the point you can often just blast the spike pits to pieces and stroll through. Getting 20+ stars is basically an instant max health refill, and the items to change enemies to clouds or stars make tough areas a breeze, as does the ability to turn all red coins red and be able to tell them apart from the normal ones. Naturally, they were completely removed in ''Yoshi's Island DS'', forcing those seeking HundredPercentCompletion to earn their 30 stars the hard way (especially in 1-Secret, which has exactly 20 stars in the entire level).

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty 3'' had the Reverse Mushroom, an item that, when used, forces the target to move backwards on their next roll. The brokenness comes from the fact that going backwards is actually [[CursedWithAwesome quite handy more often than not]]: it can be used on yourself, it can send people off into undesired areas, it allows the "afflicted" person to go in any direction at most junctions -- and could thus "backtrack" to the ''Star Space'' you might have missed or have been unlucky enough to be at another area or path when it respawned, it can also let you go to areas that are normally impossible to enter without a ''Skeleton Key'' -- which tend to have ''Chance Spaces'' and ''Item Spaces'' littered there. Oh, and a random Bowser event can inflict ''everyone'' with this status. Simply put, it was not a coincidence that it was one of the ''very'' few items did not ever reappear in any future titles (that wasn't tied to the gameplay that is), even in other forms.

*** Another game breaker in ''VideoGame/NewSuperLuigiU'' is [[PromotedToPlayable Nabbit.]] He has the same jumping ability has Luigi, can't use powerups, and is invulnerable to any thing that isn't a OneHitKill, plus a few other large enemies that knock him back. You may not be able to fly with squirrel and propellor suits, shoot fire or ice flowers, or slide with penguin suits, but when you're practically invincible, who needs them? And in order to play as him in single-player, all you need to do is hold down a certain button[[note]]B on Wii Remote, ZL otherwise[[/note]] and then you can breeze through the game, ignoring almost every obstacle.

* Princess Peach in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2''. Thanks to her iconic ability to float for a couple of seconds, she completely trivializes all platforming and the entire game could be easily beaten with just her. Funnily enough, the Manual declared ''Toad'' to be this, due to his higher speed and power. But his poor jumping actually made him one of the more difficult characters in the game to use, and not very well suited for beginners.
** Then when you learn you have invincibility frames during your plucking animation, Peach's slow pull time, instead of being a detriment, is actually an advantage, especially in hectic boss fights. Peach has the most invincibility frames since her plucking animation takes the longest.
* Luigi in ''VideoGame/SuperMario64 DS''. The game was made for Mario's abilities, and most definitely not with the exaggerated jumping skill of Luigi in mind. Since his backflip allows for infinite gliding, and the Vanish ability is usable from all ? blocks, you can use it to literally get all the stars in Hazy Maze Cave without going through the poisonous maze, get most of the stars in Rainbow Ride without tricky platforming and completely skip having to ground pound the pillars in Shifting Sand Land.

** The Blue Yoshi (which lets you fly when he eats a Koopa shell of any color). You can find this variant in two ways: A) Hatch one in 'Star World 2' (the water stage) and feed him 5 enemies or 1 powerup to make him mature; or B) Use any breed of Yoshi and catch the pair of Magic Wings on the Cheese Bridge stage, which turns him into the blue variant. Once you have one, you can then bypass entire stages easily: Simply slurp up a Koopa, hold up and right, and wait. It's the easiest way to pass the hardest level in the game, the Special World's [[ScrappyLevel "Tubular"]] level. It's ''that'' broken.

*** The Advance version made this even ''more'' broken, by making Yoshis of a certain color available from ''any'' Eggs spawned from ?-Blocks (once fully grown in the Star World, of course), and also dependent on what powerup you currently have. Basically, having the cape guarantees that any eggs spawned from ?-Blocks will always hatch a Blue Yoshi.

*** The Top Secret Area is a secret level accessed through the Donut Ghost House (right at the beginning of the level, fly up). The accessible level included full item pickups (mushroom/flower/cape), a Yoshi, and a single 1-up every time the level is accessed. This led to the player being able to grab extra lives whenever they wanted; however, if you aren't using the Star World and you are far away from the Top Secret Area, [[spoiler:you'll have no choice but to plod all the way back -- slowly, tediously, painfully.]]

* Unlike the overpowered cape, the Super Leaf in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'', which turns Mario into Raccoon Mario, only allowed him to fly for a few seconds, and its spin attack is much slower and much shorter in range. However, the Tanooki Suit, which is basically a suped-up version of the Super Leaf, simply dominates over that and the other flying powerups for one simple reason: its statue mode. Sure, it renders you immobile and it only lasts a few seconds, but you can slide under gaps that are too narrow for even small Mario if you're on a conveyor belt, and you can kill nearly ''any'' enemy by [[DeathFromAbove statue-stomping them from above]], ''including the otherwise-invulnerable Rotodisk''.
** The Hammer Suit from the same game has [[DemonicSpiders Hammer Bros]]-style hammers that go through structures and enemies and have hilariously high damage output; one hit will defeat [[MiniBoss Boom-Boom]] and any of the seven [[BossBattle Koopalings]], and six hammers will take down Bowser himself. Hammers are also capable of killing [[InvincibleMinorMinion otherwise invincible enemies]] such as Fire Lotuses, Boos and even ''Thwomps''. The only enemies they can't kill are the Munchers (tiny, black Piranha Plants) and Jelectro AKA [[FanNickname Immortal Jellyfish]]. And that's only because, on a technical level, Munchers and Jelectro are actually ''blocks''.

*** There's a card which gives you ONE HUNDRED extra lives every time you use it. Just one use will completely break the game's difficulty to zero.
* ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' has the 'Mini Mushroom'. It shrinks Mario down to half his weakest form's size, and while it makes him a OneHitPointWonder who can't even kill enemies without a ground pound, it makes you more floaty, gives you greater control over your movements in the air, lets you jump higher, further, faster, and makes you far harder to hit, in addition to being able to run across water. In short, it essentially trivializes all the platforming in the game; even most bosses are far easier once you get the timing of the ground pound down.[[note]](Which is good, considering you ''need'' to beat two bosses in mini form to unlock two of the worlds.)[[/note]]

** The 'Mega Mushroom' can be had as a secondary item in the bonus stage houses. Use it against Bowser in the final battle, and you just have to walk over him in the easiest final boss battle ever!
** In fact with the 'Mega Mushroom', you can beat all but one boss in one hit. Also you can easily beat some levels with the 'Mega Mushroom'. However because you're so big, there are lots of areas you cannot access and most times you have to get by those areas to beat the level. The game seems to realize this as it only gives you a 'Mega Mushroom' in a level a few times (such as the first level). The rest of the time, you get them in the world map which means you can save them for those bosses.
* ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'' gives us the 'Propeller Mushroom'. It acts like a mega jump, it allows you to glide, and then you can fall on enemies at high speed to kill them. Basically, it's the power of flight all over again! In addition, having it guarantees getting a 1Up at the flag, unless you seriously botch it.
** A similar item, called the Propeller Box, appears in ''[[VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand Super Mario 3D Land]]''. In addition to guaranteeing you the golden flag (and extra life) at the end of the level, finishing the level with it will give you ''another'' extra life. There are also several areas (particularly [[NostalgiaLevel 2-3]]) where you can chain jumps together off of flying Goombas to get even more lives.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand'' has the Statue Leaf. The normal Tanooki Suit is already rather useful because of how you can glide, but the statue form lets you kill/stop ANYTHING you fall on/in the path of. Thwomps get smashed to pieces, flames do nothing, enemies ignore you or die in one hit and even giant Pillars just stop dead on contact.
** Not to mention that if you have either of the leaves, you can literally skip some of the boss fights by simply gliding to the button that defeats the boss.

* The original ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' game (''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga Superstar Saga]]'') had a series of badges called Shroom Badges (Shroom Badge, Shroom Badge A, Shroom Badge AA) that increased your attack proportional to the number of mushrooms you were carrying. Ostensibly, this was supposed to have the penalty where healing yourself costs you attack, but it is both cheap and easy to carry almost 99 of all FOUR kinds of mushrooms and to heal only using Nuts. Since carrying around 30 of each kind of mushroom was enough of a game breaker, just imagine what 396 of them must be like.

**** Actually, the Thwomp Volcano mini-game comes with its own mini-game-breaking exploit. Asking the thwomp to explain the game initiates a practice mode that makes the slot machine portion easier, but it still gets you beans, and it can be repeated any number of times for free!

** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousand YearDoor'' has a good number too, generally centered around turning Mario into a GlassCannon. The craziest is the "Danger Mario" setup focused around the Power Rush badge. It adds two attack when Mario has 5 HP or less, it stacks, and you can buy as many as you want. Add in the stackable badges that make attacks sometimes miss, drop Mario's max HP to 5, and you're permanently superpowered AND nigh-untouchable. Works even better if you add in the Spike Shield and Ice Power badges which make Mario able to jump on enemies safely, as unlike his hammer attacks, Mario's jump attacks usually hit multiple times; Power Bounce with the Danger Mario setup equals a brutal and crushing defeat for all of your enemies. Finally, add a few Life Shrooms in case Mario does get hit and die, and the rest of the game becomes a breeze. This is alleviated somewhat by the fact that you can only drop Mario's max HP to 5 by visiting Chet Rippo, whose shop becomes accessible late in the game, but it's nonetheless useful as hell for the rest of the game, as well as the Pit of 100 Trials.

* Princess Peach in Super Mario Bros. 2. Thanks to her iconic ability to float for a couple of seconds, she completely trivializes all platforming and the entire game could be easily beaten with just her. Funnily enough, the Manual declared ''Toad'' to be this, due to his higher speed and power. But his poor jumping actually made him one of the more difficult characters in the game to use, and not very well suited for beginners.

* Bunny Mario from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand2SixGoldenCoins''. Bunny Mario is essentially taking Princess Peach's already game breaking float ability from Mario 2, and grant players the ability to pretty much stay airborne as long as they please, provided they tap (not hold) the jump button. You are also granted a much higher jump and much easier air control. The advantages of the bunny power more than make up for the slight disadvantage of not being able to spin jump. You'll never worry about platforming in the game ever again.

* The Jet Hat from ''VideoGame/WarioLand'' breaks the game wide open and then breaks it even wider out of spite. It allows for a smooth 8 second sustained flight and then glides downward until it touches land. Due to a [[GoodBadBugs quirk]] in the programming, though, you could at anytime during flight press B to stop flying, and ''then'' press B to start flying once more. With practice it's possible to essentially fly forever, and clear entire levels ''without even touching the ground''. For icing on the cake, the jet hat is also a fairly common item, boosts your jumping height, ''and'' makes you run faster.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', Bowser seems very powerful at first, given the fact that he is twice as powerful as any other character and is capable of killing enemies at range with his fire breath...until you realize he is slow, a big target, and only capable of firing his BreathWeapon from the ground. Reasonably balanced enough, but by combining Bowser with the Pixl Carrie, who increases movement speed (and note well that Carrie's speed is the same for all characters), we have a LightningBruiser on our hands who gives us little reason to use anyone else unless the platforming requires it, and this is before we even factor in the thing that ''really'' makes Carrie Bowser broken: Carrie is a platform under the character's feet, which means whoever uses Carrie is treated as on the ground even while jumping. To reiterate, Bowser is capable of firing his BreathWeapon only while he is ''on the ground''. The game was very clearly not designed around the possibility of Bowser jumping and killing enemies at range, and it allows Bowser to kill nearly any enemy before they can even get close. The fact that Carrie allows Bowser to jump on most examples of TheSpiny and not take damage is just the icing on the cake.
** Luigi as well, despite his late entrance to being playable. He has the speed of Mario, even greater agility than the other characters, and his spring jump does double damage from below, while none of the other characters can attack from below at all. Note that charging the spring jump only increases its height, it will do double damage no matter how little you charge it.
** Similar to Bowser, Peach becomes much more powerful when using Carrie. She has a move that grants her complete invulnerability, but as with Bowser's flame breath, she is immobile using it and must be grounded. Again, factor in that Carrie makes Peach grounded all the time and faster means you can easily move around and attack enemies while remaining completely impenetrable. Many a challenge becomes very easy abusing this.
** While the Pixl Dottie is fairly mediocre in the main game, in the [[BonusDungeon Pit of 100 Trials]], she doesn't so much break the game as destroy it. In a MultiMookMelee, the ability to keep enemies from noticing you're there at all is more than a little overpowered.
* ''VideoGame/MarioParty 3'' had the Reverse Mushroom, an item that, when used, forces the target to move backwards on their next roll. The brokenness comes from the fact that going backwards is actually [[CursedWithAwesome quite handy more often than not]]: it can be used on yourself, it can send people off into undesired areas, it allows the "afflicted" person to go in any direction at most junctions -- and could thus "backtrack" to the ''Star Space'' you might have missed or have been unlucky enough to be at another area or path when it respawned, it can also let you go to areas that are normally impossible to enter without a ''Skeleton Key'' -- which tend to have ''Chance Spaces'' and ''Item Spaces'' littered there. Oh, and a random Bowser event can inflict ''everyone'' with this status. Simply put, it was not a coincidence that it was one of the ''very'' few items did not ever reappear in any future titles (that wasn't tied to the gameplay that is), even in other forms.

* Collectable items in ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland''. Not really any particular ones, just any you can store in the inventory. Sure they're blocked from being used in boss battles, but being able to breathe fire/freeze enemies/shoot bullet-like seeds at any point in the game? Broken to the point you can often just blast the spike pits to pieces and stroll through. Getting 20+ stars is basically an instant max health refill, and the items to change enemies to clouds or stars make tough areas a breeze, as does the ability to turn all red coins red and be able to tell them apart from the normal ones. Naturally, they were completely removed in ''Yoshi's Island DS'', forcing those seeking HundredPercentCompletion to earn their 30 stars the hard way (especially in 1-Secret, which has exactly 20 stars in the entire level).

*** To add to this... badge effects don't use up a turn. You can use infinite amounts in one turn. And what happens if you use this effect? The badge slots you used come back! So just set the Gold/Miracle Badge, a Guard Shield Badge and the POW Up effect up before you start a battle. Then use them all. Once this is done... use the rewind effect and voila! All three used badge slots are full again, giving you another round of time freezing/POW boosting/impenetrable shields! Did I mention the Miracle/Silver badge combo charges super quickly in battle, so you can theoretically do this up to five or even ten times in one fight if you're lucky?

** "The Thousand Year Door" takes this up a notch: Mario can do the same thing as the first game, and has a Yoshi partner who can also charge and pull off a multi-hit attack - but said partner has another multi-hit attack that hits ALL enemies on or near the ground. With enough Charge P badges, even most of the more dangerous enemies in the game can be reduced to a two-turn victory.

** ''The Thousand Year Door'' has a good number too, generally centered around turning Mario into a GlassCannon. The craziest is the "Danger Mario" setup focused around the Power Rush badge. It adds two attack when Mario has 5 HP or less, it stacks, and you can buy as many as you want. Add in the stackable badges that make attacks sometimes miss, drop Mario's max HP to 5, and you're permanently superpowered AND nigh-untouchable. Works even better if you add in the Spike Shield and Ice Power badges which make Mario able to jump on enemies safely, as unlike his hammer attacks, Mario's jump attacks usually hit multiple times; Power Bounce with the Danger Mario setup equals a brutal and crushing defeat for all of your enemies. Finally, add a few Life Shrooms in case Mario does get hit and die, and the rest of the game becomes a breeze. This is alleviated somewhat by the fact that you can only drop Mario's max HP to 5 by visiting Chet Rippo, whose shop becomes accessible late in the game, but it's nonetheless useful as hell for the rest of the game, as well as the Pit of 100 Trials.

** The Cape earned its GameBreaker status with flying colors. It not only allowed Mario to perform sustained flight (which, given a few minutes practice, allows you to bypass most levels by taking a running jump and hitting the left directional button every few seconds), but it also gives him a spin attack powerful enough to kill most enemies. Even more broken is when he is flying, it is the only instance where Mario does not lose his power if he gets hit by an enemy. It also allows you to fall much more slowly than you normally would, so you can control where you'll land. To top it all off, it also comes with a screen hitting ground shaking landing.

* The original ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' game (''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga Superstar Saga]]'') had a series of badges called Shroom Badges (Shroom Badge, Shroom Badge A, Shroom Badge AA) that increased your attack proportional to the number of mushrooms you were carrying. Ostensibly, this was supposed to have the penalty where healing yourself costs you attack, but it is both cheap and easy to carry almost 99 of all FOUR kinds of mushrooms and to heal only using Nuts. Since carrying around 30 of each kind of mushroom was enough of a GameBreaker, just imagine what 396 of them must be like.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'', Peach is practically a GameBreaker by herself, and that's just the start of it. She's the only character possessing full party heal and resurrection spells, making any party with her extremely hard to kill as long as she's alive. This becomes doubly broken once you get the Lazy Shell armor, which in turn for nerfing the wearer's attack powers highly buffs their defense. On Peach, this results in a minimal reduction to her healing abilities in exchange for making her almost impossible to kill, turning her into a WhiteMagicianGirl who can heal the entire party at once -- status effects and all -- for 4 MP, revive party members to (almost) full health (if you get a Timed Hit) for only TWO, and is herself immune to pretty much everything except HPToOne and OneHitKill moves. Then give her the Quartz Charm you receive for beating Culex to significantly raise her stats, as well as making her immune to pretty much every status condition in the book for true Game Breaking ability.

** The Safety Ring makes an individual into a GameBreaker in and of itself. It protects against all magic damage (though some abilities are considered physical), all status effects, and instant death. And it's relatively easy to find.

** Get a lot of Super Appeal badges (I think about 10 should do it) from the Pianta Arcade, equip them, then Appeal as Mario. Your star meter is completely filled.

* ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'' has the Birthday equips, which have unimpressive stats under normal circumstances, but if you play on whatever day you registered as your birthday on the 3DS, their stats ''quadruple'', making them as strong as the endgame equipment, only they're obtainable much earlier and lack the drawbacks some of said equipment possesses (Such as having a chance to break upon being used or damaging you along with your enemies). There's nothing keeping you from simply changing the clock to keep them at full power all the time.

** The Hammer Suit from the same game has [[DemonicSpiders Hammer Bros]]-style hammers that go through structures and enemies and have hilariously high damage output; one hit will defeat [[MiniBoss Boom-Boom]] and any of the seven [[BossBattle Koopalings]], and six hammers will take down Bowser himself. Hammers are also capable of killing [[InvincibleMinorMinion otherwise invincible enemies]] such as Fire Lotuses, Boos and even ''Thwomps''. The only enemies they can't kill are the Munchers (tiny, black Piranha Plants) and Jelectro AKA [[FanNickname Immortal Jellyfish]].
*** Munchers and Jelectros are actually considered to be level objects, which groups them in with things like coins and ? blocks, rather than sprites such as Goombas and Koopa Troopas. In short, you can't destroy Munchers or Jelectros for the same reason you can't use the hammers to destroy blocks.

** ''The Thousand Year Door'' has a good number too, generally centered around turning Mario into a GlassCannon. The craziest is the "Danger Mario" setup focused around the Power Rush badge. It adds two attack when Mario has 5 HP or less, it stacks, and you can buy as many as you want. Add in the stackable badges that make attacks sometimes miss, drop Mario's max HP to 5, and you're permanently superpowered AND nigh-untouchable.

* Collectable items in ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland''. Not really any particular ones, just any you can store in the inventory. Sure they're blocked from being used in boss battles, but being able to breathe fire/freeze enemies/shoot bullet-like seeds at any point in the game? Broken to the point you can often just blast the spike pits to pieces and stroll through. Getting 20+ stars is basically an instant max health refill, and the items to change enemies to clouds or stars make tough areas a breeze, as does the ability to turn all red coins red and be able to tell them apart from the normal ones.

* Luigi in VideoGame/SuperMario64 DS. The game was made for Mario's abilities, and most definitely not with the exaggerated jumping skill of Luigi in mind. Since his backflip allows for infinite gliding, and the Vanish ability is usable from all ? blocks, you can use it to literally get all the stars in Hazy Maze Cave without going through the poisonous maze, get most of the stars in Rainbow Ride without tricky platforming and completely skip having to ground pound the pillars in Shifting Sand Land.

* The Jet Hat from ''VideoGame/WarioLand'' breaks the game wide open and then breaks it even wider out of spite. It allows for a smooth 8 second sustained flight and then glides downward until it touches land. Due to a [[GoodBadBug quirk]] in the programming, though, you could at anytime during flight press B to stop flying, and ''then'' press B to start flying once more. With practice it's possible to essentially fly forever, and clear entire levels ''without even touching the ground''. For icing on the cake, the jet hat is also a fairly common item, boosts your jumping height, ''and'' makes you run faster.

* {{Mario Party}} 3 had the Reverse Mushroom, an item that, when used, forces the target to move backwards on their next roll. The brokenness comes from the fact that going backwards is actually [[CursedWithAwesome quite handy more often than not]]: it can be used on yourself, it can send people off into undesired areas, it allows the "afflicted" person to go in any direction at most junctions -- and could thus "backtrack" to the ''Star Space'' you might have missed or have been unlucky enough to be at another area or path when it respawned, it can also let you go to areas that are normally impossible to enter without a ''Skeleton Key'' -- which tend to have ''Chance Spaces'' and ''Item Spaces'' littered there. Oh, and a random Bowser event can inflict ''everyone'' with this status. Simply put, it was not a coincidence that it was one of the ''very'' few items did not ever reappear in any future titles (that wasn't tied to the gameplay that is), even in other forms.
* SuperMario3DLand has the Statue Leaf. The normal Tanooki Suit is already rather useful because of how you can glide, but the statue form lets you kill/stop ANYTHING you fall on/in the path of. Thwomps get smashed to pieces, flames do nothing, enemies ignore you or die in one hit and even giant Pillars just stop dead on contact.

** The most powerful leaf in the game however, has to be the Invincibility Leaf and subsequent [[GoldenSuperMode White Tanooki Mario]]. It's basically the game's regular Tanooki form but ''NighInvulnerable to anything that's not a OneHitKill and able to kill roughly any regular enemy on contact with no time limit'' (though it will revert to regular Tanooki suit once the stage is cleared). This is justified though, since [[MercyMode you only receive the leaf if you lose five lives on a given level]], making it the game's easy mode. It appeared in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros2'' (as White Raccoon Mario) and ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'', with its brokenness in the former being taken UpToEleven for five reasons: 1) it has the same flight abilities as VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros2's basic Raccoon Suit but the p-meter fills faster while running, 2) it can WalkOnWater, 3) it works just as well on bosses; though it still needs to hit Koopalings three times, it one-shots Bowser's first form, 4) it can be used in Coin Rush mode without having to die at all and 5) the block that gives you the power-up won't disappear once the level is finished or the game is beaten.
* The Super Bell in [[VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld Super Mario 3D World]] is already being called this. The ability to climb up walls is immensely useful and can easily save players who accidentally fell down a bottomless pit, and a close-range attack is always a good thing to have. This is somewhat balanced by it having a bit of a learning curve, as it's rather easy to kill yourself by accidentally dive bombing off the stage.
** However, it is topped later by the Lucky Bell. Similar to the Statue Leaf from 3D Land, this power up has the same function has the Super Bell, cat powers and all. However, it ups the ante considerably because when you ground pound, you become ''invincible''. Enemies can run into you and they will die upon contact. Bullies giving you trouble because you have to knock them off? Let them run into you. Oh, was it mentioned that you get free coins for simply ground pounding? It depends on the height that you ground pound at, so the higher up you are before you ground pound, the more coins you get. And you first receive it in one of the tallest, most vertically oriented levels in the game... the Lucky Bell is one of the strongest power ups in the game, perhaps one of the strongest in the whole series.
* Collectable items in YoshisIsland. Not really any particular ones, just any you can store in the inventory. Sure they're blocked from being used in boss battles, but being able to breathe fire/freeze enemies/shoot bullet-like seeds at any point in the game? Broken to the point you can often just blast the spike pits to pieces and stroll through. Getting 20+ stars is basically an instant max health refill, and the items to change enemies to clouds or stars make tough areas a breeze, as does the ability to turn all red coins red and be able to tell them apart from the normal ones.
* In NewSuperMarioBros2, the Gold Flower is this. Turns Mario into gold, doubles his coin haul from pretty much everything that gives out coins and can kill nearly all enemies in one hit (and hit a whole screen full at once). Bowser's first form? Down in one hit. [[spoiler: Dry Bowser?]] Down in one hit. Multiple Reznors? Down in one hit. Sure it goes away once you beat a level with it, but you can bring them into any level in the game...
* The original ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi Mario & Luigi]]'' game (''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga Superstar Saga]]'') had a series of badges called Shroom Badges (Shroom Badge, Shroom Badge A, Shroom Badge AA) that increased your attack proportional to the number of mushrooms you were carrying. Ostensibly, this was supposed to have the penalty where healing yourself costs you attack, but it is both cheap and easy to carry almost 99 of all FOUR kinds of mushrooms and to heal only using Nuts. Since carrying around 30 of each kind of mushroom was enough of a GameBreaker, just imagine what 396 of them must be like.