Super Mario, being the epitome of the Video Game Long Runner and spanning a constant stream of games and other media across multiple platforms, has evolved drastically in characterization, gameplay, and designs over the course of its decades-long history.
Examples, let's a go!
- Mario's career before Mario Bros. has rarely been addressed, having served in the military in Mario's Bombs Away, and being a construction worker in Wrecking Crew and Mario's Cement Factory.
- Every game prior to Super Mario Bros. seems to take place in a slightly more cartoony version of the real world rather than the more familiar fantasy setting, has no supernatural elements at all, and portrays the heroes abilities as significantly more grounded.
- The original Donkey Kong is very different compared to the mainstream Mario and Donkey Kong games:
- Mario's jumping skills are less impressive than in later games, as Mario has to climb ladders if he wants to go up a level.
- Unusually for a 2D Mario game, Mario can suffer from Falling Damage (which in practice, as Mario is also a One-Hit-Point Wonder, is more like Falling Death).
- The game seems to take place in the real world rather than a fictional one, like the Mushroom Kingdomnote .
- Mario has to rescue not Princess Peach, but his regular girlfriend Pauline.
- DK completely lacks his trademarked tie, though this is explainable if you believe that the DK in this game is Cranky Kong.
- Mario is identified as a carpenter instead of a plumber in this game.
- Mario Bros.:
- In the original arcade game, the Goomba Stomp didn't work — you had to knock the enemies on their backs by hitting them through the floor from below before you could take them out. For players coming from later Mario games, this could become a problem as early enemies include turtles that closely resemble the Koopas in the later gamesnote ; they can't be stomped in Mario Bros. This is why some Nostalgia Levels based on Mario Bros. and the Remake found in various Game Boy Advance Mario games replace the enemies with The Spiny, to signal to players that they are non-stompable enemies.
- In most versions of the game, Mario's hat was blue!
- The manual for the Atari 2600 and 5200 versions states the pipes in Mario the carpenter and his brother Luigi's house are blocked by crawling creatures, meaning this game is a depiction of their version of Earth. The story is absent from the manual in the NES version.
- The obscure Punch Ball Mario Bros. (one of the first "third-party" games in the franchise, being released in 1984 by Hudson Soft) features an odd story blurb
framing Mario & Luigi as primitive people living outside of modern society. Needless to say, no subsequent media would run with the idea. - Super Mario Bros. (and by extension, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, unless otherwise noted):
- Story: The manual offers some lore, most of which is never brought up at all in later games. The Koopa are a tribe of turtles, or Turtle Tribe, known for their black magic, which they use to turn the Mushroom People into stones, bricks, and horse-hair plants. The daughter of the Mushroom King, the Princess, can undo this spell, which is why you must rescue her from the Koopa turtle king and save the Mushroom People from the Koopa's black magic (in contrast to future games, where Bowser kidnaps Peach either to lure Mario into traps or because he wants her romantically). The seven Mushroom Retainers (Toads), originally in the Princess' court, have been put under the spell of the Koopa King. Magic Mushrooms, Fire Flowers, and the Starman are Mario's friends, and have been turned into bricks or have been turned invisible, referring to invisible blocks; hitting those blocks has the power-ups rewarding you with their power. To make it clear what you'll be facing, the manual explains, "Along the way are mountains, pits, seas, turtle soldiers, and a host of traps and riddles." You are outright told to kill, not just defeat, the Turtle Tribe, including Little Goomba, a mushroom who betrayed the Mushroom Kingdom; Koopa Troopa, a soldier of the Turtle Empire; Spiny, a "wild fighter"; Bloobers (later "Bloopers"); man-eating Piranha Plants, and Podoboos who emerge from a lake of fire and protect Bowser the sorcerer king.
- Character designs:
- What we'd call "Small Mario" in later titles appears to be his normal height in the first game. Indeed, in the game's manual, Mario's mushroom-less form is called simply "Mario" and is treated as Mario's canonical size, with big Mario referred to as "Super Mario". Later games would reverse this, calling big Mario just "Mario" and Mario's mushroom-less form "Small Mario". In addition, Mario has red overalls and a brown (blue in most merchandise of that era) shirt in the first game, while Luigi has white overalls and a green shirt, instead of their trademark blue overalls with a red/green shirt and White Gloves. Due to palette limitations, Luigi's hair also appears green. With fire power, the brothers look identical, with both having a red-white color scheme (Luigi's original green/white look would eventually be codified as his Fire form with Super Mario World). In Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario and Luigi wear black instead of blue, although Super Mario Bros. 2 managed to avert this. Super Mario World gives Mario and Luigi's clothes more definition, including back pockets on their overalls, which wouldn't be shown in detail again until Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
- Luigi in this game solely existed as a Palette Swap of Mario for the second player that otherwise played identically to his brother (the same being true in Mario Bros. as well). Later games would have him undergo Divergent Character Evolution to have multiple gameplay differences, such as a higher jump height, slower running speed, and lower traction (all codified in The Lost Levels).
- The characters that would later be called "Toads" are known here as "Mushroom Retainers", a title justifying the mushroom-hat (or occasionally part of their head) costume that would later become standard for all Toads at all times; here, they wear their distinctive outfit because they are members of the royal court, a detail gradually forgotten in later games. Accordingly, it's not clear at all that the Mushroom Retainers are their own species, as the Toads appear to be in future entries; there's nothing indicating the Mushroom Retainers aren't human like the Princess, and indeed, their being human would resolve the oddity of a human princess ruling over an entirely non-human kingdom.
- Level designs:
- The first game, The Lost Levels, and Super Mario Land use Ratchet Scrolling, which prevented players from going back. The way the levels were compressed required this. Most Mario games afterwards abandoned this type of scrolling for Auto Scrolling Levels in a few places while allowing backtracking everywhere else. The only other time Ratchet Scrolling is used in the series is in New Super Mario Bros., which includes it for "Challenge Mode" in a homage to the first game. Lastly, these early games didn't have any vertical areas either (they weren't seen until Super Mario Bros. 2).
- The lava originally worked very differently: It was originally depicted as essentially red-tinted water drawn over a Bottomless Pit, and Mario/Luigi would die by simply falling into it rather than either dying and being flung off the screen or jumping back out and only suffering a little damage.
- The game is considerably less generous about coins and 1-Ups than later games in the series are (unless, of course, you make use of the famous Koopa shell glitch). Getting more than 99 lives makes the lives counter display glitchy symbols, and it's quite difficult to witness this without cheating. There are also fewer power-ups available, to the point that you may have to play most of the game as Small Mario. Power-ups tend to be much more plentiful in later games, and even mandatory in some cases.
- The Mario series is known for every possible thing having eyes, even hills, but this wouldn't happen until The Lost Levels; before that, the only thing that had eyes was Lakitu's cloud and Invincibility Stars, which are also called Starmen for that purpose. Later games, such as New Super Mario Bros., feature inanimate objects with eyes much less if at all.
- The Lost Levels was the first game where ? blocks could be found underwater (specifically, in World 9-1), but Mario just bumps into them as if they were plain.
- World designs: The first game, as well as The Lost Levels and the obscure sequel Super Mario Bros. Special, all lacked the distinct biomes that would appear in later games. It's pretty weird to enter World 2 and find it to be another grassy field-esque area after seeing desert after desert occurring in the series, for one example. Later worlds in the All-Stars remake add an icy palette, though it doesn't affect gameplaynote . They're also the only main 2D Mario games where the boss in each world is always the same (Bowser, even if only one of the iterations of him is real), and until the All-Stars remake no boss music was implemented. Lastly, until Super Mario Bros. 3, world maps are absent, which Super Mario Bros. Deluxe made a point to add.
- Enemy designs: The early designs were very different from the ones used today. For example, Bowser was originally drawn without any hair on his head (although he did have hair in the game's official artwork and in the SNES remake), Koopa Troopas were depicted as quadrupeds instead of bipeds (they inexplicably revert back into quadrupeds in Galaxy and Galaxy 2), Goombas were originally drawn without mouths, and whenever a Lakitu is killed, he will actually take his cloud with him instead of leaving it behind. Last, but not least, the game featured enemies in locations in which they're normally not found in, such as Buzzy Beetles in full daylight, and Goombas and (live) Koopa Troopas in castles.
- Game mechanics:
- When you get attacked as Fire Mario, you go straight to Small Mario. This was made more generous in later games, where getting attacked as Fire Mario or with any other special power-up would cause Mario to revert to Super Mario first, then to Small Mario if you were attacked again, giving the player an extra hit point. The Japanese NES version of Super Mario Bros. 3 retained the aspect of going straight from Fire Mario/suit powerup to Small Mario, but in the international release and all remakes, the damage system was changed to match with later games. Interestingly, both All-Stars and Deluxe use the same damage system as the original game, but Super Mario Bros. 35 uses the modern system.
- The powerups also worked differently. If, for example, you hit a block as Super or Fire Mario, causing a Fire Flower to appear, and were hit and turned back to Small Mario before picking up the powerup, the Fire Flower will only upgrade you to Super Mario, not Fire Mario. In later games, picking up a Fire Flower or other second stage powerup as Small Mario will upgrade you to that powerup stage, and while power up blocks usually give mushrooms when you're small, there are possibilities to get second-tier powerups.
- Other oddities: Bouncing on enemies gives you barely any height at all — massive Goomba Springboard boosts wouldn't appear in the Mario series until The Lost Levels, which may lead to some Damn You, Muscle Memory! in the first game (though one gap in World 6-3 of the arcade version requires Mario to bounce off a flying Koopa). The timer also ticks away at a much faster rate than in later games, making it almost necessary to speedrun the few lengthy levels and almost spelling certain death if you kept taking the wrong path in some of the more labyrinthe castles. Shells also cannot be grabbed by holding the B button (a feature that was introduced with Super Mario Bros. 3).
- While the Jump Physics were very advanced for the time and mostly hold up well, Mario slides to the right whenever he lands a jump, which can be extremely aggravating as you may fall into pits you otherwise would have been safe from if it wasn't for Mario's landing slide. Most future Mario games just have Mario stay in the spot he lands on.
- Minigames are completely absent. The first game to introduce a minigame of any sort was Super Mario Bros. 2 (namely the gambling minigame to earn lives with the coins gathered in each level), and subsequent games would follow suit.
- Fire Flowers are the only second stage powerup. Later games would have a variety of available powerups, usually including one that allows flight or at least fall reduction.
- In later games (such as Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World), if an enemy is on-screen when Mario or Luigi reaches the end of a level, that enemy would turn into coins, or a power-up. In this game, however, if an enemy is on-camera when Mario & Luigi reach the flagpole (typically a stray Bullet Bill), they'll simply disappear into thin air.
- Cloud Blocks are known to be semi-solid, but in this game (and in other earlier games) they're treated as solid blocks. Super Mario Bros. 3 is when it's established that players can go through them underneath.
- Endings and Unlockable Content: The first game didn't have much for an ending. Once you finally rescued the princess, she'd simply say "Thank you Mario! Your quest is over. We present you a new quest. Push button B to select a world." From there, not only you could choose what level you want to start in, but there other differences that made the new quest essentially a hard mode, such as all the Goombas being replaced by the fire proof Buzzy Beetles and many of the floating platforms becoming smaller. You could basically keep playing the game over and over and boosting your score until you either lost all your lives or stopped playing. Later games would have more elaborate endings and unlockable content would be regulated to finding most or all of the game's collectables.
- Super Mario Bros. 2:
- Originally conceived as Doki Doki Panic, the game marked the debut of several enemies that would become regulars in the Mario series, but some of them are portrayed here differently. For example, the two red dots on the Ninji sprites are depicted in both the game's official artwork and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! as red fangs, but later Ninji portrayals reinterpret those dots as big buttons or Blush Stickers. Bob-Ombs have arms and lack the familiar windup keys from their backs (from Super Mario Bros. 3 onwards, it's the other way around, with some exceptions). Pokeys are colored green instead of yellow or orange, and can be mounted safely (in Super Mario World, the only way to ride them safely is with the Spin Jump). Lastly, Shy Guys (Snifits included) have a slightly shorter height, looking more like Waddling Heads; later games made their torsos look more visible.
- This game is the first in the series to have worlds themed around different biomes, including a more visually specific Green Hill Zone (though Nintendo's original plan was to hold over this novelty until Super Mario Bros. 3, given the relatively homogeneous design of the worlds in the original game and Lost Levels). However, one of these worlds, the one set in the sky, stands out for being the last (most later games opt to end with a Mordor or Lethal Lava Land world, though the sky setting would be kept as the seventh in almost all New Super Mario Bros. games, in a nod to this one).
- Though Birdo's artwork already depicts her with a red ribbon on top of her head, the ribbon is absent in her in-game sprite, likely due to technical limitations (this was later rectified in Super Mario All-Stars, which was released on the more powerful SNES). Also, as shown in the Japanese commercial of All-Stars itself, Birdo was originally paired with Wart, while in later Mario games she's paired with Yoshi instead (making more sense since both are dinosaurs).
- This is also the only game where Birdo is explicitly stated to have a confused gender identity, something which has since become one of the most notorious pieces of Mario lore. Though some subsequent games allude to the idea of Birdo being less than entirely feminine, the whole “thinks he’s a girl” premise that is mentioned in both the English and Japanese manual has not been mentioned since, with Birdo simply being treated as canonically female in the vast majority of subsequent games. Certainly the premise that Birdo “would rather be called Birdetta,” implying “Birdo” is a masculine name, has never been raised again.
- Super Mario Bros. 3:
- This (and its rereleases) is the only game in the entire series to give Luigi the raccoon tail and Tanooki Suit forms instead of his unique fox tail and Kitsune Suit forms found in later appearances.
- This is the first game to have the "athletic" levels have a separate theme from the game's normal level theme. But it's also the only game in which the athletic theme is not a remix of the game's main theme.
- In the Japanese version, the Koopa Kids (Koopalings) are nameless; their musician-themed monikers were introduced for the English manual, and later imported back into the Japanese games.
- This is the only Mario game to refer to Bowser as "Koopa" in the English version, both in his letter at the end of World 7 and in the end creditsnote . While the manual still uses "Bowser", that name wouldn't appear in-game until Super Mario World.
- Thwomps, which made their debut here, can move up and down, side to side, and even diagonally in some cases. In most later games, they can only move up and down. They wouldn't be able to move in other directions again until Super Mario Maker 2. Not just that, but they never change the expression on their face when moving down.
- Super Mario Land:
- Mario's Jump Physics are noticeably different from the sequel and the Wario Land games: For instance, when Mario jumps diagonally, you can't control how it moves (although you can when it jumps straight up) and he maintains no momentum.
- This game saw the debut of Princess Daisy (ruler of Sarasaland), but none of the traits seen in later games (such as having a shorter hair than Peach's, or her Tomboy Princess personality) are portrayed here. In fact, she's the Damsel in Distress, and it's Mario instead of future Implied Love Interest Luigi who rescues her. There's essentially no difference between her and Peach here aside from the name.
- Super Mario World:
- When Spike Tops were introduced in this game, the in-game sprite made it look like it had six legs and different-shaped shells from Buzzy Beetles. In all later appearances (when they were more clearly established as a sub-species of Buzzy Beetle), they have only four legs and look identical to Buzzy Beetles except for their spikes (and sometimes their color). Note however that the official art in the manual depicted it with four legs.
- Additionally, many spiky enemies (like Grinders) could be spin jumped on here. In later games with the ability (like Super Mario Maker), this isn't the case.
- Another interesting example comes in the form of the Skewers (giant spiked columns) found in the castles in the game. In their original appearance, they're treated as part of the level's geometry, so being caught underneath one is an instant kill, since Mario is continuously damaged while in contact with them. In later games on the other hand, they're treated like enemies/sprites, so Mario and co will only ever take normal damage from being caught underneath/in the path of one.
- Yoshi's body is longer and thinner than in later games, and the English version can't decide if he's a dragon or a dinosaur (later media would settle on "dinosaur", unless they split the difference, such as in Super Smash Bros.). Also, the Japanese version refers to him as "Yossy".
- Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins:
- Wario's design is somewhat more grotesque and deranged than in later games, and is depicted here as being about three times Mario's size. Additionally, his small form looks more goblin-like than in subsequent appearances.
- This game is one of the few where Wario is a straight-up villain rather than an Anti-Hero or The Rival, the only other instances being Mario & Wario and Wario's Woods. These three games are also the only ones to feature Wario's hypnotic powers, which he uses to control his minions. It's also implied that he's a Sorcerous Overlord of sorts whose very presence curses the land, Fisher King-style, an aspect of his character that was completely dropped from later games.
- This is the only game where Wario is depicted using a Fire Flower, like Mario. Later games either gave him a hat that spits firenote or set his whole body on fire.
- This game introduced the Space Zone setting into the Mario series. But unlike in future games with levels of this type (such as Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D World), here Mario has to use a space suit, though Super Paper Mario would later have him requiring the use of a literal Fishbowl Helmet to survive in space.
- The game depicts Mario as living in his own castle with a surrounding kingdom, something that has never been shown again. Whenever a residence of his appears in later games, it's shown to just be an ordinary-looking house, sometimes shared with Luigi. Though Luigi would famously acquire a mansion later on.
- Super Mario 64:
- The game is, to date, the only 3D game where both the oxygen meter (for swimming) and the health meter were one and same (they get separate meters in Sunshine, the two Galaxy games, and Odyssey). This created a loophole that allowed Mario to regain health simply by jumping into water and coming up for air.
- The game was more non-linear. While a certain amount of stars are needed to access the game’s later levels, and while you could select a particular star to pursue within the levels, the game would generally not actively prevent you from going after other stars. Selecting certain stars would sometimes make changes to the world that makes a star accessible or inaccessible, but you could otherwise get most of the stars in a level in any order. Starting with Super Mario Sunshine, whatever mission was picked had to be done, and could not be bypassed (save for the occasional levels with secret stars in them). It would take until Super Mario Odyssey, 21 years after Super Mario 64, for a 3D Mario game to do this again. Also, the star missions in Mario 64 lack introductory cutscenes, which renders their locations less obvious (bar, at times, the missions' titles).
- The 100-coin star could be collected without having to leave the level, meaning you could get the 100-coin star and another star in the same run. In Super Mario Sunshine you had to leave after collecting the 100-coin shine, as it would end the level the same way a regular star/shine mission would. The Galaxy games don't have 100-coin stars at all, though you do occasionally have missions to collect 100 purple coins.
- Mario does not have a companion join him in this game, unlike Sunshine (F.L.U.D.D.), Galaxy (Luma), Odyssey (Cappy), or Bowser's Fury (Bowser Jr.). Because of this, his main attack methods are simply punching or diving. Likewise, some of Mario's moves from this game are missing in later ones, most notably the ability to punch and other physical attacks on command.
- The game has a much lonelier and somewhat more oppressive atmosphere than later 3D platformers in the series, much of it owing to 64's status as a Tech-Demo Game released early in the N64's life. Friendly NPCs are few and far between, and many stages have none at all—most other characters you'll run into are enemies, of which only a handful have any dialogue. Luigi also has absolutely no appearance whatsoever in the original Mario 64; where in later 3D games (and RPGs) he would at least have a token appearance as an NPC if he wasn't playablenote . The level designs are smaller and less open (Peach's castle is rather cramped, and a stage claimed to be a "bay" is fully enclosed by rock walls), and they tend to be more serious and down-to-earth in design compared to the wacky cartoon lands of later games; Big Boo's Haunt is notable for playing its horror elements dead straight, as opposed to later games which usually rely on Defanged Horrors.
- 64 is one of only two 3D Mario games that contains fall damage, the other being the followup game, Super Mario Sunshine. This would be dropped in every succeeding game.
- The remake for the DS has four playable characters: Mario, Luigi, Yoshi... and Wario, being playable in a mainstream Mario game for the first time. And to date, the last time: this game came out just a year after WarioWare completely changed the character's paradigm and resulted in the "classic" Wario relegated to spinoffs only. Seeing Wario playable in a headliner game like Super Mario 64 is somewhat odd to a player nowadays; if the game were made now, a character like Toad or Toadette would be the likely choice for a fourth character.
- New Super Mario Bros. (the first game):
- This game reuses the engine and a number of assets from Super Mario 64 DS two years prior, making it feel more closely connected to that game than to any of its successors. Among other things, the models for Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Bowser are all directly taken from 64 DS, the minigame mode returns with nearly every minigame from 64 DS intact, and the game reuses the "buh bye!" and "it's-a me, Mario!" voice clips when closing and opening the DS while the game is running. Furthering the connection is that pre-release footage of this game sees Mario and Luigi utilizing elements of their 64 DS movesets that were ultimately cut out.
- This is the only game in the New subseries to not have the Koopalings as the main bosses, but unique opponents like Giant Goomba and Petey Piranha. Bowser also appears as early as the end of World 1. In the other games, he doesn't appear until the final boss battle (though Super Mario Bros. Wonder again has him appearing in the opening cutscene), and in this game he doesn't have a second phase where he turns into a giant. Bowser Jr. appears as every tower boss, and also lacks his Koopa Clown Car, acting more as an expy of Boom Boom from Super Mario Bros. 3.
- Unlike later NSMB games, Bowser was voiced via audio taken from sound libraries; the earliest use of it was from the 1957 film The Land Unknown. Using sound library audio was actually the standard for Bowser since Super Mario 64 ten years prior. Following this game, Bowser's voice would instead be provided by a variety of in-house voice actors, each of whom would give Bowser a more human-like voice a-la his portrayal in Super Mario Sunshine, rather than the more overtly animal-like roars. Additionally, the "power-up loss" and "coin" sounds are reused from Super Mario Bros. rather than Super Mario World.
- The first game also uses a different soundtrack from the one that debuted in the Wii game and was reused to varying degrees in the 3DS and Wii U entries. Despite the Koopalings’ absence in the first game, a remix of their boss fight from SMB3 is used for the end bosses, whereas the Wii and Wii U games use another remix of the SMB3 fight for the mid-bosses instead. The 3DS game, meanwhile, features a remix of the Koopaling fight from Super Mario World for its mid-bosses.
- The game lacks a post-finale Special World, instead opting for bonus lettered levels within the existing worlds that can be unlocked pre-finale (although NSMB2 has both the lettered levels and bonus worlds). In fact, Worlds 4 and 7 are completely optional, only being accessible through secrets; the former by beating the World 2 boss as Mini Mario, and the latter by either beating the World 5 boss as Mini Mario or using the Warp Cannon in World 4.
- Unlike the later three games, there is no multiplayer for the main campaign. Instead, the only multiplayer is for the 'Mario vs. Luigi' mode, which uses exclusive courses. There are also minigames instead of alternate game modes.
- On a related note, Blue and Yellow Toad are not playable in this game, only Mario and Luigi (and even then the latter brother is locked behind a Cheat Code).
- There is no quicksave feature, so you'll have to replay a tower/castle level or take advantage of Sleep Mode if you want to save before you beat the game (upon which you unlock the ability to save anytime).
- Checkpoints worked differently than in the sequels. They were automatically given when reaching the designated checkpoint spot of the level, instead of appearing in the stage and needing to be touched. The Checkpoint Flag also appeared white with a mushroom symbol, as opposed to black with Bowser's face and changing to the player character's color and emblem when touched.
- The Mario RPGs:
- Super Mario RPG:
- It is the only Mario RPG to be a standalone title, but it is still very much the black sheep out of all of them. This is because the game was designed by Square and borrowed heavily from the Final Fantasy series to the point where it has an article on the Final Fantasy Wiki. Paper Mario was originally envisioned as a sequel, and while it is still considered to be its spiritual successor, they still have very little in common. And while the Mario & Luigi games developed into their own series, they are similar in tone to the Paper Mario games and are clearly influenced by them.
- The humor is more self-referential and with a looser fourth wall than future RPG titles, poking fun at tropes in both the Mario series and the RPG genre. The original version of the game even includes a mention of Bruce Lee by namenote , which feels out of place when future Mario titles, RPG or otherwise, for all intents and purposes appear to be in their own world with no mention of any people from Real Life existing in it.
- The first Paper Mario is your standard Mario plot with RPG elements, and the "Paper" aspect is merely an art choice with no effect on the gameplay, whereas the sequels each had their own paper-related gimmick (The shapeshifting curses in Thousand Year Door, the 2D-3D switching in Super Paper Mario, the stickers in Sticker Star, the coloring/paint mechanics in Color Splash, and the origami in Origami King). The first two of these games also have another layer of weirdness in that they present their paper-based mechanics as being strange and unnatural. Starting with Sticker Star, everyone talks about how they're made of paper as if it's a completely normal thing.
- The Mario & Luigi series was very different back in Superstar Saga:
- The graphical style is nearly completely different from how it is in the later games. It's not so much noticeable with Mario, Luigi, Bowser, or Fawful, but for the normal enemies the differences are easy to spot. For example, early Dry Bones designs had them as quadrupeds like the Koopas from Super Mario Bros., while the Boos looked outright cartoony and the Boomerang Bros were actually tall, birdlike creatures rather than using their standard designs from the main series, and even mushrooms were white with red spots like Toad's head instead of the other way around. Dry Bones were the only enemies that weren't changed in some way in the Bowser's Minions remake; the Boomerang Bros. kept their designs but were reclassified as a separate type of enemy called Beanerang Bros., while most other classic Mario enemies, such as Hammer Bros., were changed to more standard designs, particularly as they appeared in other 3DS Mario & Luigi games (although, Dry Bones keep their appearances in the main game and Spinies have their overall modern-day design but retain their green shell with yellow spikes). Compare that to Bowser's Inside Story where the enemies generally look like they do in other Mario spinoffs. In another choice not seen in any other game before or since, Toadsworth is wearing a blue vest, similar to that of a regular Toad.
- Compared to the sequels, the Bros. attacks are fairly mundane and physical compared to the more creative, item-based specials of later games, though they do return with minor alterations in the remake. They were instead based on the field moves that the brothers had. Partners in Time shifted the attacks into something much closer to their modern forms, although they became consumable items rather than relying on the BP system that all other titles would use.
- The first game is the only one where Mario and Luigi can switch their positions, with different special abilities based on who's in the lead; for example, Luigi hammering Mario causes him to shrink down, while Mario hammering Luigi causes him to burrow under the earth. In every following installment, Mario always takes the lead, and Luigi always sticks behind him. In the remake of the first game, the Mario Bros. cannot switch positions at will, and only do so depending on which field move is selected, with the default (normal jumps) having Mario in front.
- Superstar Saga has fire- and lightning-based field moves, the Firebrand and Thunderhand, which never reappeared until the game's 2017 3DS remake.
- Beans also worked very differently back then. In the first game, the bros needed to trade them for a coffee in the Starbeans Café in order to get a drink that'd give them the stat boost; they couldn't be eaten raw from the item menu. Partners in Time reduced beans to currency for Fawful's shop, which was odd in itself. But in later games, the beans were simply eaten raw like a mushroom or nut, and the whole drinks part of the game was gone.
- Super Mario RPG:
- Super Mario Kart, the first Mario Kart game, is different in many ways from its sequels:
- The game has five races per cup instead of four like in the later games. Also, all tracks have five laps per race while the rest of the games play with only three laps, except in certain cases (such as if a track is very long or very short, as seen with Double Dash!!'s Wario Colosseum having two laps and Baby Park from the same game having more than three laps in all of its appearances) and in Mario Kart Tour, where most courses have two laps or segments. This is due to the tracks in Super Mario Kart being quite short, while the tracks and their retro counterparts in later games are lengthened a bit to accommodate the new racing mechanics. Time Trials in Super Mario Kart have no item use at all compared to the later games, where they allow the use of Triple Mushrooms in Time Trials.
- There are only a handful of racing environments and instead a single setting can host several track configurations. Later games set each course in its own unique environment (the only exceptions being Super Circuit which have four Bowser Castle courses, and Mario Kart Tour which features multiple variants for the city tracks as well as most RMX courses). Additionally, all of the tracks except for Mario Circuit, Koopa Beach, and Rainbow Road were explicitly based off settings from Super Mario World, while later games were a bit more creative on where tracks were set up.
- The game features Donkey Kong Jr. as one of the playable characters; Donkey Kong himself wouldn't appear in the series until Mario Kart 64 (as Rare wouldn't create the iconic new Donkey Kong in Donkey Kong Country until 2 years after Super Mario Kart's release). DK Jr. would appear once later in the first Mario Tennis game, then vanished until The Bus Came Back in Mario Kart Tour with his sprites taken directly from this game.
- Super Mario Kart features the Feather item, which allows players to jump super high and over walls. The item didn't reappear until Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and even then it's only used in Battle Mode, most likely because in 64 it would have caused problems with the already-sketchy collision detection system and allowed massive shortcuts, and from 7 and up the hang-glider portions of the tracks served mostly the same purpose as the Feather, but in a more controlled way.
- The game has a coin system, which is linked to your speed; the more coins you have, the faster you go (with the speed boost capping at 10 coins). This wasn't used again until Super Circuit, and didn't become permanent until 7.
- In the first game, the item boxes (called Question Boxes...despite being panels) don't regenerate after someone touches them, respawning only after every other item box on the course has been taken (which is especially annoying if one of the boxes is hard to get to, such as in Battle Course 2, which has a few behind walls that you need a Feather to get to).
- 150cc difficulty is locked (whereas it is freely open to players in the later games), and Mirror Mode doesn't exist at all (it is also absent in Super Circuit and technically Tour, though the latter has a replacement with the Reverse variants of its courses). Relatedly, this is the only game where an entire cup is barred from an engine class (Special Cup on 50cc), due to Easy-Mode Mockery.
- The Spiny Shell is so infamous in the Mario Kart community that it feels just weird that it doesn't appear in the first Mario Kart game at all. It would make its debut in the second game, where it still has some functional differences compared to Double Dash!! onward, such as not flying, the impact not being too powerful, and the ability to hold it indefinitely on the back of your kart. While it did become wingless again starting with 7, it still flies up and explodes when it reaches whoever's in first place. 8 has the explosion be way less powerful, the opponent stops in place and just flips once. In addition, in 7 and 8, the Spiny Shell has a set distance and if it exceeds that distance, it disappears.
- Super Mario Kart is the only game in the series where the AI has their own items (some of the characters use the normal items you would get, like a Green Shell) and has infinite uses of them. The items unique to Yoshi (an unmovable egg), Bowser (a roaming fireball), and Toad and Princess Toadstool (a mushroom that shrinks whoever touches it), have not appeared in any other game. It wasn't until Mario Kart 64 that the AI was regulated to only using items the player could use, though they can still use items without actually having to grab an item box. Yoshi got an egg as his special weapon in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, but it's functionally a Red Shell that drops random items when it hits an enemy.
- The first game doesn't allow the player to trail an item behind them like a shield — the only way to block an item coming at you is to drop it behind you with the right timing. Also, items sent behind you are always dropped — no firing shells backwards like in later games. The second game allows fake item boxes to act as a shield when trailed behind, which was dropped in subsequent games. Double Dash!! returned to the first title's idea of no item shielding, but added an alert for when an item is going to hit you from behind so the second player can shoot it backwards.
- In the first game, the computers follow each other in a straight line and clip through hazards. In addition, they won't attack each other directly, instead focusing all their attacks on you if you're close enough to them, and even stick to a predetermined rank order based on what character you're playing as. If you spin out a character so they fall out of their "assigned" position, the Rubber-Band A.I. will kick in and they will race at a higher speed until they get back to their assigned position. The only way you can disrupt this is to spin out someone late enough in the race that they won't have time to catch up before they reach the finish line.
- Super Mario Kart and Super Circuit don't allow you to advance any further in a GP if you get fifth place or lower. If you retry the course you lose one of your three lives, which means four losses is a game over. Mario Kart 64 doesn't let you continue from a low position either, but it does away with the life system and you can retry as much as you wanted, though this leads to an odd situation where it's better to get fifth place or lower and retry than to take fourth or higher (in which case the GP will go on with your less-than-perfect score). All games from Double Dash!! onward dropped the restrictions altogether, allowing you to continue in a cup even if you fared poorly in a race.
- The Japanese version has Princess Peach and Bowser both drinking champagne in their victory poses, complete with drunken blushes, and even the English versions of the game still had the bottles present, even if they weren't drunk from. Future Mario games are devoid of alcohol.
- Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 are the only games where Bowser's Castle (or a Bowser's Castle course) is not the final track before that game's Rainbow Road. The tradition started with Mario Kart: Super Circuit.
- In Super Mario Kart, 64 and Super Circuit, the current course's music speeds up when the first-place driver begins the final lap. In Double Dash!! and onward, the music not only speeds up but increases its pitch for a dramatic effect.
- Retro circuits as we know them today didn't exist until DS. Super Mario Kart and 64 understandably don't have any, and while the first retro circuits came in Super Circuit it takes the form of every Super Mario Kart track being included as an Embedded Precursor. After that, retro circuits were completely absent from Double Dash!!, indicating a possibility that it could've remained a one-off feature. DS properly introduces the now-familiar format: Four Cups of new circuits, and four Cups of remakes of circuits from past games.
- Mario Kart Wii, the first Mario Kart game to feature bikes, locked 50cc to karts only, 100cc to bikes only, and 150cc to either kind of vehicle. When bikes returned to the series in Mario Kart 8, this was done away with and the player can use karts and bikes (or ATVs) in any engine class.
- Mario Party:
- The earliest games, the very first one in particular, lack many features that would become standard to the series, such as collectible items, segregated story and party modes (which was reused in 2, Super and Superstars), and key board-level concepts like banking and dueling.
- The first game is the only one to reward you for completing a loop and passing by the start of the board again (with 10 coins given by Koopa Troopa), though the concept briefly returned in the Duel Mode boards of 3, where the Millennium Star provides a coin reward when you return to your specific starting area.
- The first game was significantly more aggressive, where the winner of many mini-games was rewarded from the pockets of the losers. Some mini-games had the entire team working together, with no villain other than the stage itself. The first game was also the only one to have mini-games involving rotating the control stick, which would cause blisters; the second game excised these as well as coin-losing mini-games, but it also recycled many other mini-games from the first, which the third game (and all those subsequent) would make a point of avoiding. Finally, it wasn't until the Nintendo GameCube era that a wide variety of side games were available, probably for memory reasons.
- Each board in the first two games has its own "story mode" with an ending cutscene showing the winner of the board saving the day and, in the first game's case, the character in fourth place being humiliated, usually by Bowser, in some way except on Bowser's Magma Mountain and Eternal Star where the character in fourth place joins in the celebrations. Superstars would bring this back.
- Hidden Blocks are able to summon Koopa Troopa, Boo, or Bowser. In the sequels, they give items, coins or stars, but never summon a character.
- The first game has Mushroom spaces. If you land on one, you can either be lucky enough to move a second time, or be unlucky enough to miss the next turn. These effects have not been seen ever since.
- 1 vs 3 minigames have a small but significant variety of coin outcomes in the games where the lone player has to steal coins from the other players or vice-versa, unlike in any game afterwards, where they always give 10 coins to each person on the winning team. Additionally, if the lone player lost the minigame, it would result in a "Miss!" declaration from the announcer alongside a defeat jingle instead of announcing the winners like it does in the sequels.
- The first four games have Donkey Kong as a Player Character, but in subsequent games he's made into a supporting character instead. It wouldn't be until Mario Party 10 when Donkey Kong would become playable once again.
- In addition to Bowser Spaces in the first game, Bowser himself also appeared somewhere on each board, and any player who passed him would surely end up losing coins or sometimes stars if they had any. What's worse is that sometimes you had to pass (or risk passing) him in order to get to the star, or just might not even have a choice in the matter. In Mario Party 2, Koopa Kid replaces him, who may even give out coins if you're lucky (and then throws a tantrum over his Epic Fail), but if a player obtains a Bowser Bomb item or lands on a Bowser Space and gets Bowser's Appearing Act, then at the end of the turn, it causes Koopa Kid to turn into Bowser, who then moves around the board and takes every coin from any player he encounters, before turning back into Koopa Kid. In Mario Party 3, neither Bowser nor Koopa Kid appeared on any boards to take coins or stars (with the exception of Superstars on Yoshi's Tropical Island and Peach's Birthday Cake, though Bowser may instead forcibly give you a Cursed Dice Block marked up for more than its shop price), but the Bowser Spaces have remained for all the future installments (until Super Mario Party, in which they have been replaced by Bad Luck Spaces as a result of Bowser becoming a playable character).
- In the first three games, landing on a Bowser Space wasn't always necessarily a bad thing for that player, especially in the first game. Sometimes, all the players would play a Bowser-themed 1 vs 3 minigame (where the player who landed on the Bowser Space is the lone player), and only the losing team would lose coins. You might even play Bowser's Chance Time in the first two games, where the player gets an attempt to choose who will give coins to Bowser. In Mario Party 3, you may even win a free Bowser Phone or Bowser Suit item from him. Starting with Mario Party 4, landing on a Bowser space equals to bad luck one way or another 99% of the time (there is a very rare chance that a player in fourth place may end up getting a Bowser suit though).
- Mario Party 4 is the only GameCube Mario Party game to not use the Orb system, instead opting for a traditional item store in the vein of Mario Party 2 and 3. In addition, an item will always be available for purchase no matter what, so a Warp Pipe will always be available, even if you have only one coin. Mario Party DS was the only other game to bring this back.
- Mario Party 5: The Orb system used in the game has Orbs (which are called Capsules here) given at random by a machine with no way to buy them. All capsules can be thrown or used on yourself at a cost and any capsule space will activate when landed on, including those the player put down themselves. It was not until Mario Party 6 that the Orbs were divided into those used on yourself, those activated by passing, and those activated by landing on them, and you could not be affected by your own thrown orb.
- Mario Party DS is the first game in the series to have boss battles other than a Final Boss (usually Bowser). Unlike the future games in the series, however, the bosses have a certain amount of hit points instead of a health gauge and don't turn red when their health drops to half or below, instead becoming harder with every hit. The boss minigames are also single-player games instead of four-player games.
- Koopa Kid was Bowser's assistant in causing mischief ever since his debut in the first Mario Party game until he vanished without an explanation in Mario Party 8. He seemed to have been replaced by Bowser Jr. in Mario Party DS and eventually took up his old role in subsequent entries in the series. On a related note, in the Nintendo 64 installments, Koopa Kid was known as "Baby Bowser". The name was changed to "Koopa Kid" (Or "Mini Bowser" in the European localizations) starting with Mario Party 4, probably to avoid confusion with Bowser's baby self from the Yoshi's Island games, with the European name change probably being to avoid confusion with the Koopalings.
- Not counting a few exceptions, the minigames in the first game took place in rather generic areas (for example there are a handful of minigames that seem to all take place in the middle of the same ocean). Starting from the second game, the areas the minigames take place in are much more varied and lively.
- In the first three games, all the boards were sprite backgrounds and only the character models and (most) minigames used 3D models. Starting with Mario Party 4, all the boards are fully modeled in 3D. In the first three games, the 3D character models would shrink if it was not their turn. Relatedly, while Mario Party 4 was the first Mario Party to feature fully modeled boards, all the paths the players could run on were the exact same four-direction metal walkway. Starting with Mario Party 5, the paths are incorporated into the boards themselves and now allow players to move diagonally; the boards have also gained a more vertical design, requiring certain paths and junctions to use ladders.
- In the N64 entries, characters walked on the boards. From Mario Party 4 onwards characters now run on the boards, but the speed they ran at would not be consistent with the running animation until a few games later.
- Regular Dice Blocks used to roll a number from 1-to-10 and either break or disappear completely after hitting them. Starting with Mario Party 9, regular Dice Blocks now only roll numbers from 1-to-6 and roll like a real life dice upon being hit.
- Daisy and Waluigi have appeared in so many Mario Party games that one wouldn't be to blame if they forgot that they are not present in the first two games. Same with Toadette, who was introduced to the series in Mario Party 6 and has been present in every game in some fashion ever since minus the odd exceptions of Mario Party 9 and Mario Party: Island Tour.
- The earliest games, the very first one in particular, lack many features that would become standard to the series, such as collectible items, segregated story and party modes (which was reused in 2, Super and Superstars), and key board-level concepts like banking and dueling.
- The first Mario vs. Donkey Kong game plays quite differently from its sequels. You control Mario, instead of an army of windup Mini-Marios, in what is essentially a Spiritual Successor to the Game Boy version of Donkey Kong (and in fact started life as an Updated Re-release of that game) instead of an indirectly controlled Puzzle Game in the vein of Lemmings.
- Wario Land:
- The first two games, Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 and Virtual Boy Wario Land, played much more like Mario games, with coin blocks, powerups, a time limit, and a lesser emphasis on puzzles/exploration. The first game even retains the Super Mario Land name of its predecessors in a Backdoor Pilot bid.
- Starting with Wario Land II, the series began to focus on exploration. It is radically different from the prior games, to the point where Wario can't even die, which could be considered Early-Installment Weirdness on its own, since most games after Wario Land 3 have a health meter. Wario Land II also removes the time limit; the closest the series has ever come to a time limit since then is in Wario Land 4 and Wario Land: Shake It! during the escape sequences.
- The Japanese version of Wario Land II has an enemy that carries beer in a glass. Should Wario come in contact with the beer, he will get drunk. While versions outside of Japan censor such references (specifically in iron ball), later games have never featured alcohol.
- WarioWare
- In the first game, some sprites show 9-Volt with a Childish Tooth Gap. This hasn't appeared anywhere since. He also had yellow pants instead of green.
- Despite being in high school, Mona originally looked (and sounded) older. Later games make her look younger.
- The early Game & Watch games starring Mario portrayed him very differently. In most of Mario's Game & Watch games he's portrayed more as an Everyman with fairly ordinary jobs, much like Mr Game & Watch, as opposed to being a plumber that never does any actual plumbing work. Or a doctor. Mario Bros shows Mario & Luigi working at a bottling plant (changed to a cake factory in Gallery remakes) and Mario's Cement Factory is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Perhaps the most unusual one however was Mario's Bombs Away◊, portraying Mario as a soldier, complete with a uniform and green helmet, passing bombs over to his troops which would be used to blow up the trees the enemies are hiding in. Also noteworthy is that one of the fellow soldiers is even shown smoking, and will toss lit cigars onto some spilled oil on the ground which catches fire and can light your bomb's fuse prematurely. While the game is still cartoony enough that it's safe for kids, it's certainly a setting that you'd never see Nintendo touch with the Mario franchise today. The game was however unlockable in Game & Watch Gallery Advance.
- The first Game & Watch Gallery game was much different compared to later releases:
- The Gallery Corner only had the unplayable demos, which would become the Museum from 2 onward.
- There was no star counter, as titles in the Gallery Corner required 400 or 800 points to open.
- The heart in Modern versions was much smaller and harder to see.
- Different sound effects played for pausing in Modern and Classic versions.
- Getting a Game Over sent you back to the Mode Select screen, with no option to retry.
- The general lore and characterizations of the series has changed a lot since the 8-bit days:
- The Japanese manual of the first game stated Toads were transformed into blocks. All other games ignore this concept, for good reason.
- Mario was originally written as a middle-aged man in his 40s or maybe even 50s in the arcade titles. In the earliest arcade titles, this was true in Japan as well, though around 1986, Mario started being depicted as a younger man with large youthful eyes and the suave Tōru Furuya acting as his voice in animated productions. Outside of Japan, Mario continued to have gruff middle aged voice actors. By the mid-'90s, in the USA as well, he had been aged down significantly to be Peach's age. Word of God is that he is between 24 and 25 years old.
- Early media tended to depict Luigi as several years Mario's junior instead of them being fraternal twins, which was first shown in Yoshi's Island.
- Mario and Luigi were originally depicted as being from Brooklyn and getting transported to the Mushroom Kingdom (which seemed to be an alternate universe). As the series went on they started ignoring real-world countries and Yoshi's Island shows that the brothers were born in the Mushroom Kingdom. Occasional references to Brooklyn existed (though whether it's a country in-universe or in a separate is not mentioned), until Odyssey finally did away this piece of lore by introducing Metro Kingdom and New Donk City. While The Super Mario Bros. Movie is otherwise based on later installments of the franchise, it does revisit this original backstory, even working in a few Mythology Gags referencing The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!.
- Peach having a father is referenced in early (English) material, but later games present her as the monarch of the kingdom. Her father, the Mushroom King, only appears in person in the Valiant comics.
- In earlier games, Bowser, Peach, and Luigi were clean-slates. It wasn't until the late 1990s and early 2000s, with games like Paper Mario and Super Mario Sunshine, that their personalities began being fleshed out. Peach was originally a standard Princess Classic even in Super Mario 64 but she eventually turned into a parody of the trope. Her lighter tone of personality was reflected in her voice becoming more high pitched from the late N64-era onwards. Bowser was originally a generic Big Bad before the RPGs gave him a hammy personality and showed that he has a Villainous Crush on Peach. Luigi was originally a simple palette-swap of Mario until games like Luigi's Mansion and Superstar Saga established him as a Cowardly Lion and a second banana to Marionote .
- In addition to their personalities, their voices were also differently-established:
- Licensed media depicted Mario and Luigi with Brooklyn accents to reflect their original backstories. As early as 1992note (And officially starting with Super Mario 64), Mario was given an Italian accent to reflect his Italian heritage, with Luigi following suit a few years later.
- Even Luigi's most prominent voice took some time to develop. In the Japanese version of Mario Kart 64note , Luigi had a voice that was higher-pitched than Mario's, while the first two Super Smash Bros. games simply gave him a higher-pitched version of Mario's voice; he was given a deeper voice in other countries' versions of Mario Kart 64, finally being voiced by Charles Martinet, like Mario, but his voice wouldn't be the familiar, timid voice until Mario Party 3.
- Peach's voice was somewhat deeper than what would be established Sunshine-onwards.
- The Toads' voices, specifically Toad himself, were a bit more childish (especially so in the Japanese version of Mario Kart 64) instead of the ear-splitting raspy vocals they are known for today.
- Game-wise, Wario lacked an Italian accent in the Japanese version of Mario Kart 64, and all versions of Mario Kart: Super Circuit and the first two Mario Party games and instead was presented as German; like Luigi, he wasn't voiced by Martinet during this timenote .
- Daisy had a much girlier and higher-pitched voice provided by Kate Fleming and Jen Taylor for her first few appearances in Mario spin-offs, and it wouldn't be until Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour when her signature energetic and tomboyish voice, courtesy of Deanna Mustard, and later on Giselle Fernandez, would settle in.
- Daisy being the loud Tomboy Princess she is known as today didn't become a thing until the late GameCube era. She was a generic princess in her debut game before being introduced as a klutz in Mario Tennis. She was more polite in the first three Mario Party games she appeared in, but she was still shown be trouble when angered.
- Luigi's Mansion has several unique traits not seen in its sequels, likely because the game was developed internally in Japan by Nintendo themselves instead of outsourced to Next Level Games in Canada:
- Aesthetically and tonally, the game is a lot dustier, moodier, and darker, and while still stylized, has a palette and level of detail and unease through stripped-down ghost-hunt gameplay that gives it a sense of uncharacteristic realism and suspense for the Mario world. The latter games are perfectly spooky and get some good scares in, but they're more colorful, cartoony, and better-lit while being built more on fancy mechanics, action, puzzles, and comedy than minimalist tension.
- The character designs in this game served the basis of subsequent 3D Mario games (unlike Super Smash Bros. Melee, which used designs from the Nintendo 64 era). Even then, certain details were different here — Luigi's pant legs are rolled up (a trait that carried over to Super Smash Bros. Brawl), Toad's vest lacks the yellow trim, and the Boos' middle two fangs are missing. Additionally, though not as much as Melee, there’s some N64/-like renders such as this Mario image◊ taken from the first Mario Golf. All of these have been updated with the more familiar elements in the 3DS remake.
- The treasure acquired counts towards a total score that determines the state of the ending. Later games in the series would have those various gems and diamonds classed as a separate collectible type that marked a completion goal for a level (each has a set of gems to find) without contributing to your cash and end-game money total at all.
- While this game is broken into chapters, these chapters don't feel especially thematic beyond the region you're exploring in the house offering changes of scenery. The later games go for more distinctive theming and variety and clearer level structure, with the second game featuring five themed mansions with multiple sub-missions to complete them and the third game featuring one massive hotel with 17 themed floors that play out like contained stages or chapters.
- The style of the ghosts differs from the sequels, with their designs being more transparent and featuring multiple colors for their eyes, mouths, and bodies, and the boss ghosts being more detailed. Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon has much simpler enemy ghosts, which have simple vivid one-color palettes with glowing white eyes and mouths and are less transparent. The most humanoid boss ghosts in Dark Moon are also much simpler and closer to the enemies' level of detail. Luigi's Mansion 3 would continue from the second game's direction but use the Switch's capabilities to advance the visual style, adding more modeling detail for the enemies and using bosses more like the Portrait Ghosts, just with more heavily caricatured features and animation.
- Boos don't look the way they do here in the LM sequels. For one, they're uncharacteristically translucent, while they switch between invisible or fully opaque in their standard appearance established by other games. They are also depicted with only their two outer fangs and are missing the smaller two teeth between them. The sequels adopt the standardized appearance of the Boos with opaque bodies and four teeth, though King Boo's unique visual aspects besides these traits were retained as his established Luigi's Mansion look, rather than the games adopting the standard King Boo design featured in other titles. The Boo-teeth discrepancy also gets referenced in 3 when King Boo pulls a Doppelgänger Attack, as his fake copies are marked by having only two teeth like in this game. Lastly, the chuckle the Boos use in the first Luigi's Mansion game is recycled from Super Mario 64; subsequent games would use the chuckle sample used in more modern games such as New Super Mario Bros..
- Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the series had many adaptations, with many playing loose with their game accuracy. After the failure of Super Mario Bros. (1993) movie, they put a stop to the adaptations with few exceptions (such as Super Mario Bros. Manga Mania continuing to run). This slowly began changing in the 2010s with Bowser's cameo in Wreck-It Ralph and later The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but Nintendo is much more strict over their Mario adaptations than they once were - notably, they were heavily involved in production of the Illumination film, though, as mentioned above, it does bring in stuff from the 90's like the Mario Bros being from Brooklyn who were warped to the Mushroom Kingdom while working on a drain and even a reference to The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!.
- In the early 2000s, the series toyed around with full voice-acting. This could be seen in games like Super Mario Sunshine and Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour. Since the late 2000s, the series has predominantly stuck to Voice Grunting and short, two- or three-word phrases.
- The original English translation of Yoshi's Island cites "Yoshies" as the plural form of "Yoshi". It's since varied between just "Yoshi" (whether plural or singular) and "Yoshis".
- Paper Mario 64 (2001) was the first game to use the term "Toads" for the species previously translated as "Mushroom People" or "Mushrooms". The name "Toad" in prior games was used only for the individual by that name, not as a generic name for the whole species.
- Peach's Castle looked very different when it first appeared in Super Mario RPG, having pinkish bricks and multiple raised trapezoid-shaped areas on the roof of equal size. The world map and credits sequence also depict it with a blue or sea-green roof, though in-game it's colored red. Half a year later it would receive its now-iconic design in Super Mario 64, with gray stone walls and a tall central spire. The red tiled roof remained consistent, however. The Nintendo Switch remake of Super Mario RPG meets both designs halfway, with gray walls and an overall design reminiscent of its modern appearance, but a blue roof.
