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The Super Mario franchise is almost as old as gaming itself, so naturally, there are so many different games from throughout the decades that are fairly difficult to even compare. With Super Mario Bros. Wonder finally arriving and ushering in a new era of 2D Mario experiences, it’s a good time to look back at every building block that led up to this point to re-examine what the best 2D Mario games are.
10. Super Mario Bros. 2
It’s a well-known story in the Mario fandom at this point that the Super Mario Bros. 2 that came to the West isn’t actually the real Super Mario Bros. 2. This is a reskin of another game with virtually none of the elements of the original title present. The result is a black sheep title that has it’s own dedicated fan base.
9. New Super Mario Bros. (Wii, Wii U, etc.)
The 2D Super Mario games that came around during the Wii and Wii U eras were colorful and creative, but ultimately surface-level additions to the series that don’t quite stack up against the majority of their competition. The haphazard co-op addition and fairly uniform level design across all titles make these feel far less cared for than most of the remainder of this list, even if these games do still provide a casually entertaining experience upon revisit.
8. Super Mario Land
Just as the original Super Mario Bros. launched the NES into the spotlight, Super Mario Land is one of the launch titles that propelled the Game Boy into massive success. Also, in a similar fashion to Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Land somewhat suffers from being one of the oldest games on this list. However, that by no means makes it a bad experience in the current day. It may feel the most dated of anything on this ranking due to being so limited by early Game Boy technology, but it goes the distance with what it has.
7. Super Mario Bros. Lost Levels
Super Mario Bros. Lost Levels was the Super Mario Bros. 2 that the West never received. Fears of this game being too difficult for the North American audience resulted in it being scrapped until the Super Mario All-Stars compilation in 1993. There certainly is a significant difficulty spike over the first game in the series here, and it can feel downright peak-NES unfair at times. Still, it builds a lot of interesting content on top of its predecessor, as well, and is a very rewarding playthrough at the end of the day.
6. Super Mario Bros.
The entire gaming industry owes a lot to the original Super Mario Bros. It’s a title that definitively changed things, and its effects are very much still felt today, even outside of the 2D platforming series. Ultimately, it is the prototype that was built on top of in various meaningful ways by subsequent games. However, there’s still a raw, addictive nature to booting up the original game that makes this a timeless classic.
5. Super Mario Maker 1 & 2
There are very few other level-creator games with as much potential and replay value as the Super Mario Maker games. There are enough tools and various designs in here for players to toy around with that Nintendo could keep porting these same games onto each new system for the next decade, and there would never stop being new inventive content to go explore whenever the game is booted up. If there’s ever a Super Mario Maker 3, all it needs is a better system for exploring its greatest user-created levels, and it will be perfect.
4. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
While the follow-up to Super Mario World isn’t quite as iconic or groundbreaking, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still one of the greatest 2D Mario games ever made. Technically speaking, this is more of a Yoshi game than a Mario game, but all of the innovation, addictive platforming, and thoughtful level design remain abundantly present.
3. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
The follow-up to Super Mario Land looks and feels almost like it’s from an entirely separate series. Not only does Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins fix and massively improve upon all of the visual and technical shortcomings of the original game, but it pushes what’s possible for a Mario game on the Game Boy to a level that, to this day is nothing short of astonishing. It lands on its feet as one of the best 2D Mario platformers to this day.
2. Super Mario World
The transition of the Super Mario Bros. series from the NES to the SNES went above and beyond to create an experience that is considered by many to be the peak of the franchise, 2D and 3D, to this day. Many staples of the franchise were introduced here, including the ever-iconic Yoshi, and the visuals and level design are not only sophisticated for the era, but they’re so good that they have remained timeless for decades since Super Mario World‘s release.
1. Super Mario Bros. 3
Many games on the NES are nostalgic but don’t exactly hold up to modern scrutiny. Super Mario Bros. 3 somehow manages to perfectly balance on the tightrope where falling off to one side means the brutal and often unfair difficulty spikes common in games from its era, and the other side means appealing a bit too much to the widest audience possible to create a meaningfully challenging experience. It adds a number of iconic features, aces its art style, and is as fun to run and jump through today as it was in the early ’90s.
