Nintendo has given us a ton of Mario Subgenres, with the enormity and gaming icon Mario has become it really isn’t a big surprise. With so many subgenres and games it has become quite easy to get lost in the endless catalog of some pure gems and some games we’d rather forget. So without further ado what Mario Subgenres are our favorite? Let’s find out!
5. Sports
From Golf, Tennis, and Baseball to one of the biggest crossover events in gaming with Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games! Nintendo hit a gold mine with Wii Sports and made an effort to bring Mario into that same world. There’s a good variety of sports games and all feel pretty fluid to play. Whether with friends or by yourself Mario Sports games are always fun. With Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 being the latest game in the subgenre we can assume this Mario subgenre won’t be stopping anytime soon.
4. Party
Next up we have the Mario Party games! Some of my fondest childhood moments are from playing Mario Party on the Nintendo 64 with my cousins. The fun minigames and competition to win can make it fun for groups of any age and work as a good game night idea. Mario Party Superstars was the latest to come out back in 2021 and continued to add new interesting minigames and brought back some of the old ones we’ve always loved. Grab a group and get playing!
3. RPG
The RPG Mario Subgenre may be one many of you aren’t fully aware of. The Paper Mario games are far and away the most popular of the RPGs and really do deliver. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is our favorite. With a colorful dive into the world of Mario with adventure afoot what’s not to like? Dive deeper into the Mario world and fall in love with the series and character even more! The Mario RPGs may not be for everybody but we love them!
2. Racing
Now we really start to get to the good stuff! While we love the previous entries on this list, for us there really are only 2 main Mario subgenres. One of those being Mario Kart Racing. While technically the subgenre is just racing as there are older titles that didn’t take the Mario Kart name we all know what it really is. The Mario Kart games like Mario Party are great to play with friends and family of all ages but really turns it up a notch for us. While we haven’t gotten a new game in a while you can be sure we will see it again with the next Nintendo Console.
1. Platformers (Super Mario Games)
Finally, at number 1 on our list of the Top 5 Best Mario Subgenres, we have platformers or more commonly known as the Super Mario Games! With 49 games to choose from (21 main, 6 related, 14 ports, 9 remakes, and 2 compilations) there is seemingly an endless amount of fantastic games to choose from within the subgenre. We could go on and on about how great these games are but to make it easy we also made a list of the Top 5 Best Super Mario Games Of All Time!
We absolutely love Mario and everything the character has to offer. Be sure to check out all the subgenres we missed as well as there are some good ones for sure. We also left out the Super Smash Bros games, as while it does always feature Mario, the games are much more than just a Mario game and therefor we felt best to leave it off our list of Mario Subgenres.