Mario Boutique · The item catalogue
All of Mario's power-ups and items
Forty years of items grabbed on the run, and one rule Nintendo has never broken: a power-up doesn't raise numbers, it changes a verb.
49items profiled
1983the oldest
7families
11in mushrooms alone
Updated 3 September 2026
A Mario power-up doesn't read like a role-playing item. It adds neither attack points nor percentages: it adds a move. The Fire Flower doesn't make you stronger, it lets you strike at a distance. The Cape Feather doesn't double your speed, it grants flight. The Drill Mushroom improves nothing at all — it lets you burrow into the ground. Forty years on, that rule explains why we remember every single one of them.
This page profiles all 49 items that the shop has covered one by one, sorted into seven families: mushrooms, flowers, suits, stars and coins, the tools Mario carries, the scenery that acts, and the Mario Kart arsenal. Each card gives the year of first appearance and the game that introduced it — two pieces of information the web often gets wrong, and that we took from our own articles.
A word on what you will find counter-intuitive here. The Mini and Mega Mushrooms were not born in a platformer but on a board in Mario Party 4, in 2002. The Ice Flower comes from a role-playing game from 2005, not from Super Mario Galaxy. And the two oldest items on this page are neither mushrooms nor flowers: the POW Block and the Warp Pipe, both born in the Mario Bros. arcade cabinet in 1983, two years before the first mushroom.
📋 Contents
The founding family🍄Mushrooms: eleven ways to change size
from the 1985 icon to Galaxy's strangest transformations
The mushroom is the item that gives the kingdom its name, and yet its original purpose has nothing magical about it: it was a design patch. Players had to be kept from dying on the very first contact, and growing was the clearest way to announce “you have a spare life” without displaying a single counter. Everything else follows from that.
The family then used size as a complete language. Growing absurdly large with the Mega Mushroom, shrinking until you can run on water with the Mini, or changing material altogether — bee, ghost, spring, rock, drill. Those last four come almost entirely from the Galaxy branch, which used the mushroom as a universal medium for metamorphosis rather than as a power bonus.
One dating trap to flag here, because the web gets it wrong regularly: the Mini and Mega Mushrooms are not born in a platform game. Both appear first on the Mario Party 4 board, in 2002, and only find their definitive design in 2006 in New Super Mario Bros. The badges on this page give the first appearance, not the breakthrough.
The absolute iconSuper Mushroom
1985 · Super Mario Bros.
Round and red with white spots, a single touch is enough to double Mario's size. The Super Mushroom is probably the most recognisable item in all of video games : on its own it embodies the very idea of the bonus, to the point of giving its name to the kingdom Mario protects.
Its great idea, though, is not to be a power. It wasn't invented to make Mario grow, but to keep the game from killing the player too quickly. In 1985, touching an enemy cost a life; the mushroom offers an in-between state — Super Mario takes a hit, shrinks, and carries on. It is the most economical way ever found to explain a hit-point system without showing a single number on screen. Along the way, it opens breakable bricks, and therefore exploration.
Its exact opposite exists and plays on the resemblance: the Poison Mushroom, which appeared in The Lost Levels in 1986, imitates the power-up the better to hurt you. And its descendants cover this whole section — the Mini, the Mega, and Galaxy's metamorphoses.
What it invents
The in-between state between alive and dead. Without it, no implicit health bar, and a far more punishing game.
Its other effect
It makes bricks breakable: the scenery becomes searchable, and exploration becomes a reward in itself.
Beyond platforming
You find it everywhere, from Mario Kart to the Mario Party mini-games, and it is the most widely adapted shape in Nintendo merchandising.
19851-Up MushroomSix notes, and one more lifeUnlike its red cousin, it does not make Mario bigger: it grants an extra life, announced by a crystalline six-note jingle that has become universal. Its appearance changed quietly: an orange cap flecked with green to begin with, it later turned green, and almost nobody noticed. The term “1-Up” itself owes nothing to Nintendo: it is inherited from 1960s pinball machines. The article also dismantles a stubborn morbid myth, born in a 1996 manga and copied everywhere since.
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1986Poison MushroomThe fake bonus that punishesIn a universe where a mushroom almost always announces good news, this one is the exception. Introduced in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels in 1986, it imitates the power-up the better to hurt you : on contact, Mario shrinks, takes damage, or loses a life outright. Its appearance followed that rise in nastiness, from a discreet brown mushroom to an unambiguous purple skull. It has become the star of Super Mario Maker's troll levels, where it serves to trap the player who runs without thinking.
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2002Mini MushroomShrinking is a powerMame Kinoko in Japan, it was born on the Mario Party 4 board in 2002 before establishing itself in platforming in New Super Mario Bros. Its appeal rests on three abilities that normal size forbids: running on water, jumping weightlessly, and slipping into tiny passages that open up entire areas. The trade-off is brutal and deliberate: Mini Mario is utterly fragile, and the slightest contact is fatal. A power-up that weakens you in order to open up the scenery — the exact opposite of its giant counterpart.
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2002Mega MushroomGrowing until you fill the screenAlso born on the Mario Party 4 board in 2002, it finds its iconic design in New Super Mario Bros. in 2006. It grants neither fire, nor ice, nor flight: it makes Mario grow until he fills the screen, and everything he touches — enemies, pipes, blocks, scenery — is smashed to pieces. A gauge measures the damage dealt and converts into a shower of 1-Up Mushrooms at the end of the transformation, which also makes it a farming tool. It then carved out a cross-series career in Kart, Party and Tennis.
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2007Bee MushroomFly, but above all stay dryThis yellow mushroom striped with brown turns the plumber into Bee Mario, able to fly for a few moments, climb along honey walls and land on flowers. Unlike the offensive transformations, it grants no projectile: everything rests on managing a short flight gauge, refilled by collecting coins. Its weakness is absolute and creates all its tension: the slightest contact with water and the transformation vanishes. It embodies the vertical exploration that defines Super Mario Galaxy.
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2007Boo MushroomPass through grates, flee the lightKnown as the Boo Mushroom, it turns Mario into a translucent creature with three powers: floating, turning invisible and passing through grates. The reversal is a neat one — where Boos usually terrify the plumber, here they become his disguise for exploring the haunted galaxies. Its Achilles heel is light: the slightest source dispels the transformation, which turns some levels into a journey from shadow to shadow. It descends in a straight line from the Vanish Cap in Super Mario 64.
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2007Spring MushroomThe most hated, and the highestIt does not offer a comfortable power: it locks Mario inside a spring that bounces on its own, with no way to stop bouncing. Loved for its timed super-jump — the one that climbs higher than anything else in the game when you press at the right moment — and hated for its unpredictable handling, it has divided players since 2007. Its fragility completes the picture: water, a star ring or the slightest damage cancels the transformation. Few power-ups own up so frankly to being difficult.
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2010Rock MushroomA living boulder, at a shakeKnown as the Rock Mushroom, this Super Mario Galaxy 2 power-up is activated by shaking the Wii Remote : Mario encloses himself in a boulder and barrels straight ahead, crushing enemies and shattering the purple crystals in his path. Nicknamed Champi pierre in French on Wii, it is one of the least known of the episode — and one of the most brutal, in a gallery of transformations that usually bet on finesse. A whole cosmic bowling galaxy, Boulder Bowl, was built around it.
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2009Propeller MushroomTaking off vertically with a flickThe big novelty of New Super Mario Bros. Wii in 2009, it fits Mario with a propeller helmet and turns every shake of the Wii Remote into an express take-off. The power isn't limited to climbing: the dive that follows serves as an offensive weapon, which makes it a complete tool in single-player as well as in four-player co-op. It also exists in a fixed version, the Propeller Box, worn on the head. It returned in New Super Mario Bros. U — but not in the second episode on 3DS.
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2023Drill MushroomBurrowing into the floor and the ceilingIntroduced in Super Mario Bros. Wonder in 2023, it fits the hero with a rotating drill and lets him sink into the ground and into the ceiling alike. The power serves three purposes: exploring passages invisible from the surface, taking cover when the screen turns hostile, and above all striking from below armoured enemies that would otherwise be untouchable. Together with the Elephant Fruit and the Bubble Flower, it forms the trio of novelties the game built its communication on.
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Eleven items for a single starting idea: changing the hero's size. It is the largest family on the page, and the most revealing of the method — when a find works, Nintendo doesn't replace it, it explores every one of its variants for forty years.
The offensive branch🌸Flowers: seven ways to strike at a distance
the family that gave Mario something other than the jump
Before 1985, Mario had only one weapon: jumping on his opponents' heads. The Fire Flower changes that at a stroke by giving him a projectile, and it is probably the most structuring change in the whole saga: it opens a distance between hero and enemy, and therefore a tactic.
The family then served as a laboratory. Freezing instead of burning, walking on your own clouds, throwing a projectile that comes back, turning the scenery into coins, spitting bubbles you can jump on. Each flower redefines the relationship to space as much as the relationship to combat — which explains why they return less often than the mushrooms, but why we remember them better.
Two points of dating. The Ice Flower does not come from Super Mario Galaxy : it is born in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time in 2005, a role-playing game, before being crowned in 2007. And the Wonder Flower is not a flower like the others — it gives the character no power at all, it transforms the entire level, which makes it the most atypical item on this page.
The first offensive powerFire Flower
1985 · Super Mario Bros.
Present from Super Mario Bros. in 1985, the Fire Flower is arguably the most emblematic power-up of the whole saga after the Super Mushroom — and the most important in terms of gameplay. It gives a plumber who only knew how to jump the ability to strike at a distance, and at the same time turns every enemy into a target rather than an obstacle to be avoided.
The detail behind its success lies in the behaviour of the projectile: the fireball bounces instead of flying straight ahead. It hugs the terrain, drops into hollows, climbs slopes — which makes it useful in a corridor as much as in broken scenery, and rewards the player who anticipates the trajectory instead of firing blind.
Forty years on, it is still there, from the NES to Super Mario Bros. Wonder by way of the three-dimensional worlds of Super Mario Galaxy. Its appearance has changed a great deal — the article retraces that evolution game by game — but its mission has never changed.
What it invents
Distance. Before it, the whole game is settled by contact; after it, positioning becomes a tactical question.
Its descendants
This whole section, and in particular the Ice Flower which is its exact mirror, and the Bubble Flower whose design quotes it openly.
Beyond platforming
It is one of the rare items present in almost every spin-off, from Mario Kart to Super Smash Bros.
2005Ice FlowerThe frosted cousin, arriving twenty years laterAppearing late, in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time in 2005, then crowned by Super Mario Galaxy in 2007, it turns the plumber into Ice Mario. Its peculiarity is to have had two radically different faces depending on the episode: sometimes an exploration tool — skating on water, freezing a surface to cross it — and sometimes a pure weapon that freezes enemies into blocks you can then shatter or climb. Not to be confused with the Penguin Suit from the same icy universe, which is more complete.
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2010Cloud FlowerMaking your own platformOne of the most poetic items in the saga: introduced in Super Mario Galaxy 2, it lets you create up to three cloud platforms by spinning on the spot, where there is nothing but empty air. Add to that a slowed fall and noticeably longer jumps, which change the way you read a chasm. It has a rare privilege: it is the only power allowed aboard Starship Mario. Like many Galaxy transformations, it survives neither water nor the slightest damage.
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2011Boomerang FlowerA projectile that strikes twiceIts mechanic fits in one sentence: the projectile comes back, which makes it hit enemies on the way out and on the way back, and pick up the coins and items it crosses along the way. Serving to collect as much as to strike is rare in the saga, and it changes the way you approach a distant platform or a row of coins suspended over the void. The guide compares its strengths and its limits against the other offensive power-ups, and shows its influence on level design.
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2012Gold FlowerTurning the scenery into a shower of coinsIntroduced in New Super Mario Bros. 2 on 3DS in 2012, it transforms the plumber into Gold Mario — and Luigi into Silver Mario in multiplayer. Its golden fireballs do not merely defeat: they convert enemies and scenery into a torrent of coins. It is the acknowledged engine of the episode's theme, a gold rush whose stated goal is to amass a million coins. The guide also explains where to find it and why it should not be confused with the Gold Ring.
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2023Wonder FlowerIt doesn't transform the heroKnown as the Wonder Flower, it is the signature item of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Where the Super Mushroom or the Fire Flower grant a personal power, it transforms the entire level : pipes coming to life, gravity turned upside down, Mario changed into a Goomba. Hidden in every main level, it triggers an unpredictable “Wonder Effect” that lasts for the length of a sequence. The Wonder Seeds it yields then structure progression on the map. No other item on this page works like that.
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2023Bubble FlowerBubbles to strike with and to jump onThe star power-up of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, it has the hero spit shimmering bubbles with a double use : offensive, since a bubble that touches an enemy traps it and converts it into coins; defensive, since the bubble stays in the air long enough to serve as an improvised platform and reach the unreachable. Its design is openly traced from that of the Fire Flower, which helps you read it at a glance. It is the quiet star of multiplayer mode.
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Seven flowers, seven different relationships to distance: burning, freezing, coming back, converting, carrying, trapping — and, with the Wonder Flower, doing nothing to the hero at all. This is the family where Nintendo takes the most risks.
Changing body🦝Suits: nine complete metamorphoses
when Mario doesn't gain a power but another body
The difference between a mushroom and a suit is not cosmetic. A mushroom modifies a variable — size, resistance. A suit replaces the vocabulary of movement : Frog Mario swims differently and walks badly, Cat Mario climbs walls, Flying Squirrel Mario glides and clings. You are no longer playing the same character.
It is Super Mario Bros. 3, in 1988, that invents the family and lays down its three pillars at once — Tanooki, Frog, Hammer. No episode has introduced as many suits at once since. The branch then advanced in waves: the Cape Feather in 1990, the Penguin-Acorn-Propeller trio on Wii and Wii U, then the Super Bell and the Double Cherry on Wii U, before the Elephant Fruit in 2023.
Two of them break ranks for opposite reasons. The Double Cherry was never meant to exist : it is a development accident, spotted by chance then promoted to the rank of stroke of genius. And the Elephant Fruit is not a suit but a fruit that triggers a genuine bodily metamorphosis — the distinction is made explicitly by the game.
Free flightCape Feather
1990 · Super Mario World
A simple yellow feather, introduced with Super Mario World on 21 November 1990, and the dream of every platform player: flying freely, for as long as your mastery allows. Where theP-Wing offers flight as a gift, the Cape Feather makes you earn it.
That is what explains its special status. Flight is not a button you hold down: you have to build up speed, beat the cape at the right rhythm, dive to regain momentum, pull up before you stall. The power is therefore an instrument, not a button — and a transformation that lets you, in expert hands, cross an entire level without ever touching the ground.
Thirty-five years later, it has lost none of its aura: it reigns over Super Mario World speedruns, it came back in Mario Kart World in 2025, and it even gives Mario the very last shot of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie in 2026.
What it invents
A power whose effectiveness depends on the player, not on the game. Two people with the same feather do not get remotely the same result.
Among speedrunners
It is the secret weapon of runs of Super Mario World : flight lets you skip whole portions of a level.
Its lineage
It descends from the Super Leaf of Super Mario Bros. 3, but replaces timed flight with endurance flight.
1988Tanooki MarioThe raccoon dog of Japanese folkloreObtained through the Tanooki Suit, it draws on the raccoon dog of Japanese folklore, famed for its shape-shifting. The transformation offers three things: the tail attack, a flight whose rules change from episode to episode, and in certain games the transformation into a stone statue that makes Mario untouchable. The important point for anyone comparing versions: in Super Mario Bros. 3, the P-Meter allows full flight; in the three-dimensional episodes, only a hover remains.
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1988Frog SuitKing underwater, ridiculous on landKaeru Sūtsu in Japan, it turns Mario into a frog and upends his movement in both environments at once. Underwater, swimming becomes fast and perfectly controlled, which finally makes the merciless water levels of Super Mario Bros. 3 playable. On dry land, the price is immediate: a hopping, awkward gait that turns the slightest corridor into an ordeal. It is the first power-up in the saga to accept a real trade-off rather than a net gain.
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1988Hammer SuitThe black outfit of the Hammer BrosRare, spectacular and formidable, it fits the plumber with the black outfit of the Hammer Bros and turns their weapon against Bowser's army. The hammers fly in an arc, which lets you strike over an obstacle, and the crouching position turns the shell into a fireproof shield. It is that combination that earns its reputation: it lets you beat Bowser head-on, something almost no other power allows. Its extreme rarity in the game is part of the legend.
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2009Penguin SuitThree powers in a single suitIntroduced in New Super Mario Bros. Wii in 2009, this cartoonish penguin outfit is one of the rare ones in the series to stack several abilities : ice balls to freeze enemies, precise swimming where Mario usually flounders, and a belly slide that serves as much to move as to mow down. It should be distinguished from the Ice Flower, which only grants the projectile, and from the Frog Suit, which only grants the swimming. Here, you get all three.
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2013Super BellClaw, climb, diveOne golden bell, and Mario slips into a cat suit that gives him three new verbs: clawing, climbing walls vertically, diving headlong. Rarely has a power-up won the public over so quickly, to the point of becoming a mascot for Nintendo. It exists in variants — maneki-neko bell, invincibility bell — and above all in an outsized version with the Giga Bell of Bowser's Fury, which turns Mario into a tower-sized cat to answer a giant Bowser.
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2013Double CherryBorn from a development errorIt doesn't transform Mario: it duplicates him. A second hero appears and copies your every move identically, and you can stack several of them until you are directing a synchronised squad. Its story is worth the detour: the cloning was born from a simple development error, spotted by chance, which the team judged amusing enough to make into an item in its own right — to the point of devoting a whole level to it, Double Cherry Pass. It came back with the Switch port.
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2012Super AcornThe most graceful power in the sagaBy biting into this small striped acorn, the plumber swaps his dungarees for a flying squirrel suit. It bets not on strength but on control: gliding over chasms, an upward bound to regain height, and a grip on walls that lets you pause mid-climb. Star of New Super Mario Bros. U, it also exists in a P-Acorn version with near-unlimited flight. In multiplayer, it literally serves as an aerial platform for the other players.
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2023Elephant FruitA fruit, not a suitZō Furūtsu in Japan, revealed at the close of the Nintendo Direct of 21 June 2023, it broke the internet before the game had even come out. Unlike the usual suits, this red and white fruit triggers a genuine metamorphosis : Mario physically becomes a two-legged elephant. The trunk serves both as a weapon that sweeps enemies aside and as a skeleton key, and it carries water to revive the wilted flowers in the scenery. Even the music changes and takes on the air of a trumpeting brass band.
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Nine suits, and a rule that goes well beyond this one family: the best items in the saga take something away at the same time as they give. The frog loses solid ground, Bee Mario loses the right to touch water, Spring Mario loses control of his bounces. A power that took nothing away would be nothing but a stat bonus — which is exactly what Mario has never wanted to be.
The confusion to clear up⭐Stars: the power on one side, the treasure on the other
seven items all called “star” that do nothing like the same thing
It is the most widespread confusion in the whole Mario universe, and it deserves to be cleared up in one sentence. The Super Star is a power; the Power Star is an objective. The first is picked up on the run, makes you invincible for a few seconds and changes the music. The second gives nothing at all: it is what you collect to unlock the rest of the game.
Once the distinction is made, the whole family becomes clear. The Shine Sprite of Sunshine, the Power Moon of Odyssey and the Grand Star of Galaxy are three names for the same function: the fuel of progression, reshaped in each episode to suit the setting. The article on the Moon says so explicitly — it is the heir of the Stars and the Shines.
That leaves the items of pure challenge, the ones that unlock nothing but measure stubbornness: the Green Star, which is not earned by finishing a level but by combing through it; the Red Coin, born in Yoshi's Island in 1995 and taken up again in almost every episode since; and Galaxy's Purple Coins, reserved for those who come back after the credits.
The power, not the treasureSuper Star
1985 · Super Mario Bros.
A multicoloured shimmer, music that races away, enemies falling like dominoes: present from World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros., the Super Star — long called Starman in English — is arguably the most euphoric power-up in the history of video games. It makes you invincible and faster for a few seconds, and that is all: no subtlety, no learning curve.
Its real singularity lies elsewhere, and it is unique on this page: it is the only item that changes the music at the same time as the rules. The invincibility theme by Koji Kondo replaces the level soundtrack for the whole duration of the effect, which gives the player an audible stopwatch — you know you have to hurry because you can hear the time passing.
It is also what feeds the confusion dealt with at the head of this section. It has nothing to do with the Power Star or the Grand Star, which are collection objectives. Same shape, same everyday name, opposite functions.
What it invents
The temporary state outside the rules. A window in which the game is inverted: it is the enemies who have to avoid Mario.
Beyond platforming
A star of Mario Kart, Mario Party and Super Smash Bros., where it keeps exactly the same function: a few seconds of impunity.
2007Grand StarThe fuel of an entire observatoryA giant version of the Power Star, introduced in Super Mario Galaxy on Wii in 2007. It is not an end-of-level reward: it is what sets the Comet Observatory in motion, and therefore what literally opens up new areas of the game. It is also the narrative stake, since Bowser covets them to build his cosmic empire. The guide explains how Mario recovers each of them, at the end of the most heavily staged confrontations of the episode, and their extended role in Galaxy 2.
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2007Green StarIt is combed for, not earnedIntroduced in Super Mario Galaxy, popularised by Galaxy 2 then by Super Mario 3D World, the Green Star grants no active power at all. It keeps the classic five-pointed shape but changes hue, and it rewards one thing only: methodical exploration. You don't get it by finishing a level, you get it by turning the level inside out. It is the collectible that has done the most for the replayability of the three-dimensional Marios, and the guide details the strategies for flushing them out.
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2002Shine Sprite120 small golden, smiling beingsShine Sprite in English, the Shine is the equivalent of the Power Star on Isle Delfino — and it is far more woven into the plot than its cousins. These small golden beings provide the light of the whole archipelago : their disappearance plunges the island into a strange gloom and drives the accusation hanging over Mario. There are 120 to gather, 24 of which are obtained by collecting the blue coins scattered through the scenery, which makes it the trickiest completion challenge of the episode.
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2017Power MoonAround 880, and a counter that goes to 999A small golden crescent floating above the rooftops or sleeping under a pile of blocks, the Power Moon literally serves as fuel for the Odyssey : without it, the ship stays nailed to the ground. Its generosity is a design choice — there are some everywhere, which rewards curiosity constantly rather than at the end of a trial. Multi Moons mark the great milestones of the story. For completionists, there are around 880 to gather, and the counter climbs to 999.
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1995Red CoinEight to gather, everywhere, since 1995Born in Yoshi's Island in 1995, the Red Coin is worth two yellow coins in Super Mario 64 and launches there the challenge that made it famous: flushing out eight of them in the same course to earn a star. The formula spread — a timed version in Super Mario Sunshine, Red Rings that make all eight coins appear at once in the New Super Mario Bros. games. It is one of the most frequently revived collectibles in the saga, and the direct ancestor of the Purple Coins.
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2007Purple CoinsA hundred to pick up, often against the clockThey make up one of the most demanding challenges in Super Mario Galaxy, and the game only offers them to players who come back after the main adventure. The principle is simple and merciless: pick up a hundred purple coins scattered across a galaxy, often with a stopwatch in your way. They unlock Stars that are essential to anyone aiming for 100%. The guide details where to find them and how to optimise a route rather than running at random.
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Seven items, two radically different functions under one word. Keeping the distinction in mind avoids half the misunderstandings you read about the saga: if it makes you invincible, it's a Super Star; if it can be counted, it's an objective.
What Mario carries🎒Tools: five items you keep on you
a backpack, a living hat, and three treasures from Super Mario Bros. 3
A tool is not a power-up: you don't grab it on the run for a few seconds, you take it with you. The difference has enormous consequences for the design of a game — when the item is acquired for the whole adventure, every level can be drawn on the assumption that you have it. That is exactly what happened twice in the saga, and each time it produced an episode apart.
The F.L.U.D.D. of Super Mario Sunshine and Cappy of Super Mario Odyssey are the two cases. The first replaces part of the jumping vocabulary with a water-jet vocabulary; the second replaces personal power with borrowing bodies. Neither could exist as a temporary bonus: the entire game is built around it.
The other three all come from Super Mario Bros. 3, which is no accident: it is the episode that invented the idea of keeping an item in reserve on the world map. The P-Wing, the Warp Whistle and Goomba's Shoe are treasures in the literal sense — you look for them, you keep them, and you choose your moment.
2002F.L.U.D.D.A talking water pump, four nozzlesJerrycan Expérimental Transformable — F.L.U.D.D. in English — invented by Professor E. Gadd, it is a device endowed with consciousness that Mario carries on his back throughout Super Mario Sunshine. It turns classic platforming into a ballet of water jets : four nozzles, each with its own use — cleaning, hovering, propelling yourself vertically, charging. The entire game is built around it, which explains why it still divides opinion: you aren't playing a usual Mario with an accessory, you are playing something else.
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2017CappyA hat that lends you bodiesA Bonneter originally from Bonneton in the Cap Kingdom, Cappy is not an item but a character — with his own quest, saving his sister Tiara , carried off as a bridal tiara. His mechanic is one of Nintendo's most brilliant: the capture lets you take control of 52 enemies and objects, from the Goomba to the tyrannosaur by way of a Bullet Bill. Each capture brings its own way of moving, which multiplies the verbs without changing the controller.
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1988P-WingThe only truly unlimited flightP-Wing in English, it is the absolute treasure of Super Mario Bros. 3. Where the P-Meter runs out in a few seconds and forces you to build up speed again, it grants Raccoon Mario free flight for an entire level. The imbalance is deliberate: with it, a whole level can be flown over. The guide explains how to get hold of it in the game, the origin of the “P” inherited from the P-Meter, and its surprising mutation in Super Mario 3D Land, where it becomes a get-out ticket.
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1988Warp WhistleThree hidden whistles, whole worlds skippedWarp Whistle in the original version, it is the most cult secret item of Super Mario Bros. 3: a single breath summons a tornado that sucks the hero off the map and sends him to a forbidden area. Unobtainable in shops, you have to know its three hiding places to recover them. The destination is the Warp Zone of World 9, which lets you skip entire worlds at a stroke. Decades later, it remains the favourite shortcut of the episode's speedrunners.
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1988Goomba's ShoeOne item, one single level, a legendKuribo's Shoe originally, renamed Chaussure de Goomba in French with Super Mario Advance 4, this big green wind-up boot appears in one single level in the whole saga — the “one-level wonder” status that made it a cult object. Mario recovers it by dislodging its occupant, then bounces on it without fear of spikes. It was long the ghost item of Nintendo manuals, before being reborn from the e-Reader all the way to LEGO bricks.
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Five tools, two eras, two philosophies. In 1988, the item you keep is a rare treasure you hoard. In 2002 and 2017, it is the opposite: you have it from the first minute, and it is the whole game that bends to it.
The furniture that acts🧱Active scenery: five items you don't pick up
the oldest on the page, and the only ones you don't put in your pocket
This family gathers the items that are part of the level instead of being carried by the hero: you hit them, you go through them, you walk on them. They are also the oldest on the page — the POW Block and the Warp Pipe both date from the Mario Bros. arcade cabinet in 1983, two years before the first mushroom.
Their importance is structural. The “?” block is what turns scenery into a promise: a suspended cube that may hold a reward or a trap, and that teaches the player, without a word, that hitting things pays. TheP Switch invents temporary inversion — ten seconds during which coins become blocks and vice versa. The Warp Pipe invents instant travel, and the Warp Zone turns it into a mythical shortcut.
The detail that betrays their age is as much aural as visual. The P Switch signals itself not with a gauge but with a musical countdown that speeds up ; the “?” block first flashed in amber tones before Super Mario Bros. 3 had the question mark scroll across it. At the time, the interface went through the ear and the animation, not through a number on screen.
1985The “?” blockThe cube that promises — or that trapsPresent from Super Mario Bros. in 1985, the “?” block embodies on its own surprise, reward and sometimes trap. Its graphic and sound evolution tells the story of the series: it originally flashed in amber tones, and you have to wait for Super Mario Bros. 3 to see the question mark scroll across its surface. The move into three dimensions raised a real legibility problem, solved by letting it float. Its possible contents and its variants are detailed in the guide, right up to its use in Mario Maker.
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1983POW BlockBorn in the Mario Bros. arcade cabinet, in 1983Born in the Mario Bros. arcade cabinet in 1983, this metallic blue block triggers, once struck, an earthquake that sweeps away every enemy on screen at once. It is one of the very first items in the universe, and it has crossed forty years of games without changing function, from platformer to kart racer. It exists in blue, red and Wonder variants, and it ended up becoming a playable item in its own right in Super Smash Bros. Few items in the saga can boast such longevity.
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1988P SwitchTen seconds that turn the scenery upside downThis big blue button marked with a white “P” — P Switch in English, “Switch Block” in its early days — turns the level upside down for a handful of seconds: the bricks become coins and the coins become bricks. You also come across it under the French names Bloc P, Bloc d'échanges and Bloc rotatif. Its real signature is not visual but aural: a musical countdown that speeds up as the time runs out. It has become one of the favourite tools of Mario Maker builders.
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1983The Warp PipeAn obstacle turned teleporterApple green, planted flush with the ground, swallowing Mario with a “plop” recognisable among thousands: the Warp Pipe — Dokan in Japan — is arguably the most emblematic object in the whole universe. It first appears as a simple obstacle in the 1983 Mario Bros. cabinet, before Super Mario Bros. turned it into a means of teleportation two years later. The idea comes from real building sites in Kyoto. It has its inhabitants — the Piranha Plants — and its transparent or golden variants.
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1985The Warp Zone“WELCOME TO WARP ZONE!”Born in Super Mario Bros. in 1985, it is a hidden room where simple pipes let you skip whole worlds in a single bound. The game has three of them, and their message stayed engraved in a generation's memory. It also spawned the most famous glitch on the NES, Minus World, then became a world in its own right — World 9 — in Super Mario Bros. 3, where the Warp Whistle leads. It is the founding piece of the whole speedrun culture around the saga.
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Five items you don't put in your pocket, and that nonetheless structure every level for forty years. It is the most discreet family on the page and the most indispensable: without the “?” block, there is nothing to pick up in any of the other sections.
The arsenal of the track🏁Mario Kart items: five weapons, one philosophy
the only family where the item depends on your position, not on your find
On a track, an item doesn't reward curiosity but corrects the standings. That is the rule governing this whole family since 1992: what you receive depends on your place in the race. The last gets the means to climb back, the first the means to defend — and that deliberate asymmetry is what allows four players of very different levels to stay in the same game right to the finish line.
Both ends of that philosophy are represented here. The Lightning Bolt strikes the entire opposing pack simultaneously and shrinks it, with practically no way to dodge: it is the weapon of those in last place. The blue shell charges straight at the leader: it is the punishment of the first. Between the two, the banana and the Golden Mushroom play defence and comeback respectively.
The fifth item arrived to rebalance the other four. The Super Horn, introduced in Mario Kart 8 in 2014, is Nintendo's answer to twenty years of frustration: a shock wave capable of pulverising the blue shell, provided you trigger it in the right window. The detail of the tracks and the characters is over on the Mario Kart.
1996blue spiked shellThe missile that punishes whoever is winningIntroduced in Mario Kart 64 on 14 December 1996 in Japan, it is the most feared, the most hated and yet the most emblematic item in the series. It charges towards the leader, often a few metres from the finish, and its precise workings change from episode to episode — ground or airborne trajectory, area damage or not. It descends from the Koopa Paratroopa's item. Countermeasures exist but remain rare, the Super Horn foremost among them.
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1992BananaThe simplest trap, and the most unkillablePresent from Super Mario Kart in 1992, the banana peel causes a spin-out on contact. Its richness lies in its double use : laid on the tarmac, it is a trap; dragged behind the kart, it is a walking shield that absorbs a green shell. The driver's whole judgement call lies there — keep it or drop it. It comes in banana bunches, in a giant version and in triple bananas depending on the episode, and it has never missed a single instalment in the series.
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1992Lightning BoltThe weapon of the last, near-impossible to dodgeWith a single discharge from the sky, the Lightning Bolt strikes the entire opposing pack and miniaturises every driver at once, letting you then flatten them as you pass. Present from Super Mario Kart in 1992, it is almost impossible to dodge, which explains its rarity: the game hands it out virtually only to drivers relegated to the back of the field. Understanding its mechanic is grasping the whole catch-up philosophy of the series, of which it is the most brutal expression.
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1996Golden MushroomThe only reusable mushroomIntroduced in Mario Kart 64 in 1996, the Golden Mushroom is the only one in the saga to offer not a boost but a whole series of accelerations in quick succession for a short time. It is the comeback tool par excellence, and it changes the way you read a track: with it, the off-road shortcuts usually too slow become worthwhile. Some French profiles call it “champignon turbo doré”, echoing the classic turbo mushroom of which it is the souped-up version.
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2014Super HornThe counter to the blue shellIntroduced in Mario Kart 8, it is Nintendo's answer to the most hated weapon in the series: a shock wave that pulverises projectiles and shoves nearby opponents aside. Its value lies entirely in the firing window — triggered too early, it is useless; triggered at the right moment, it cancels a blue shell and saves a victory. Its appearance rate remains low, which makes it an item you hold on to rather than spend, and it changed the game's meta.
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Five items, and a design lesson that goes beyond racing games: an item handed out at random creates luck, an item handed out according to the standings creates suspense. That is the difference between a race and an evening everybody remembers.
The two tables📅Forty years of items, and who invented them
the order of appearance, then the ranking of the most generous games
The two tables below come out of the same data as the profiles: a date corrected in a card is corrected in the table too. The first sorts the 49 items by year of first appearance. The second groups them by game of origin, which reveals something that reading section by section does not show.
What the second table makes visible is the place of Super Mario Bros. 3. Seven items on this page are born in that single 1988 episode: three suits, two map treasures, a button and a boot. It is the record, but a contested one — Super Mario Bros. in 1985 and Super Mario Galaxy in 2007 have six each. Three games, nineteen items between them: that is why a handful of episodes is enough to know almost the entire vocabulary of the saga.
Second lesson: the first appearance is almost never the one you think. The Mini and Mega Mushrooms come from Mario Party 4, a board game. The Ice Flower comes from a role-playing game. The Red Coin comes from Yoshi's Island, not from Super Mario 64. An item is often born in a spin-off, tested there, and only enters the main series afterwards.
One last reading of the first table: the troughs count as much as the peaks. Between 1990 and 2002, it holds only five entries, four of which come from Mario Kart — which is exactly the period when the saga switches to three dimensions and replaces items to pick up with stars to collect. Platforming power-ups only come back in force with the Wii, at the precise moment when 2D comes back too.
What forty years teach🎓The five rules of a good power-up
what the 49 items on this page have in common, and why it works
Placed end to end, the profiles on this page sketch a remarkably stable method. Nintendo does not design its items as improvements but as temporary rules of play — and five principles keep coming back, episode after episode, from the Super Mushroom of 1985 to the Wonder Flower of 2023.
1. It adds a verb, never a number
This is the mother rule, and it explains almost all the rest. No item on this page raises a statistic: they hand out actions. Throwing with the Fire Flower, flying with the Cape Feather, climbing with the Super Bell, burrowing with the Drill Mushroom, borrowing a body with Cappy. A player doesn't remember “+15% damage”; they remember that they can do something new.
The corollary is that level design follows immediately. As soon as a verb exists, the levels start setting problems that have no solution without it — and that is what distinguishes a power-up from a merely decorative bonus.
2. It takes something away at the same time
The best items in the saga are trades, not gifts. The Frog Suit makes Mario king underwater and frankly ridiculous on dry land. The Bee Mushroom lets you fly but absolutely forbids touching water. The Spring Mushroom jumps higher than anything else in the game at the price of unpredictable control. The
The Mini Mushroom pushes the logic to its extreme: it weakens the hero to the point of making every contact fatal, and that is precisely what makes the power interesting. An item with no downside is an item with no decision.
3. It reads at a single glance
A platforming power-up has to be identified in a fraction of a second, mid-run, often in the middle of busy scenery. Hence the discipline of shape and colour: red with white spots to grow, green for the extra life, a flower for a projectile. The Bubble Flower of 2023 is openly traced from the Fire Flower of 1985 — because a player who sees a flower must know they are going to shoot something. The
The Poison Mushroom is the exception that proves the rule: it exploits that reading reflex in order to trap, and its appearance had to become more and more threatening — from the discreet brown mushroom to the purple skull — as players learned to be wary of it.
4. It signals itself to the ear
The sound interface does, in this saga, as much work as the visual interface. The Super Star shows no gauge: it replaces the level music, and the return of the normal theme announces the end of invincibility. TheP Switch works in exactly the same way, with a musical countdown that speeds up.
Even the items with no duration have their signature: the six crystalline notes of the 1-Up Mushroom are recognisable to people who have never held a controller, and the Elephant Fruit goes as far as making the soundtrack trumpet. Sound says what a number on screen would have said less well.
5. It ends up leaving the game that saw it born
An item that works doesn't stay in its own episode. It moves into the spin-offs — the Mega Mushroom and the Super Star have become items in Mario Kart and Mario Party; the POW Block is a playable item in Super Smash Bros. Then it leaves the screen altogether: plush toy, lamp, LEGO brick, sticker.
The reverse journey exists too, and it is rarer: the Mini and Mega Mushrooms were born in a board game before entering the main series. A spin-off sometimes serves as a laboratory, and that is one of the reasons the first-appearance dates on this page are surprising.
What you are looking for, and the item that does it
| The need |
The item |
Where to find it first |
| Take one more hit |
Super Mushroom |
Super Mario Bros., 1985 — and just about every episode since |
| Strike at a distance |
Fire Flower |
Super Mario Bros., 1985. The Ice Flower does the thermal opposite |
| Fly freely, with mastery |
Cape Feather |
Super Mario World, 1990 |
| Fly with no mastery at all |
P-Wing |
Super Mario Bros. 3, 1988 — unlimited flight, a whole level |
| Cross a water level without suffering |
Frog Suit |
Super Mario Bros. 3, 1988. The Penguin Suit does better, and more |
| Beat Bowser head-on |
Hammer Suit |
Super Mario Bros. 3, 1988 |
| Reach a platform out of range |
Cloud Flower |
Super Mario Galaxy 2, 2010 — or the Bubble Flower in 2023 |
| Climb a vertical wall |
Super Bell |
Super Mario 3D World, 2013 |
| Get through where nobody gets through |
Mini Mushroom |
Mario Party 4 in 2002, then New Super Mario Bros. |
| Skip whole worlds |
Warp Whistle |
Super Mario Bros. 3, 1988 — via the Warp Zone
|
| Clear the screen at a stroke |
POW Block |
Mario Bros., 1983 — the oldest on the page |
| Climb back through a whole pack |
Golden Mushroom |
Mario Kart 64, 1996 |
| Survive a blue shell |
Super Horn |
Mario Kart 8, 2014 — the most reliable counter |
A sixth rule can be read between the lines, and it is perhaps the hardest: knowing when to stop. Over forty years, the saga has introduced only a few dozen items, where other series pile up hundreds. That is what lets a player in 2026 recognise a mushroom from 1985 without anyone explaining a thing.
Frequently asked questions❓We answer your questions
what players look for most often before choosing a Mario game
What is Mario's very first power-up?
It depends on what you call a power-up. The first item that acts on the game is the POW Block, born in the Mario Bros. arcade cabinet in 1983: it triggers an earthquake that sweeps away every enemy on screen. The first item that transforms the hero, on the other hand, is the Super Mushroom of Super Mario Bros., in 1985 — followed the same year by the Fire Flower and the Super Star.
What is the Super Mushroom really for?
For taking one more hit, and for breaking bricks. But its origin is a design problem, not an idea for a power: players had to be kept from dying on the very first contact. Growing was the clearest way to say “you have a spare life” without displaying a single counter. All the rest — the icon, the Mushroom Kingdom, the word “bonus” in popular culture — followed from that constraint.
Why are the Super Star and the Power Star so often confused?
Because they share the same everyday name and the same five-pointed shape, while having no relationship of function at all. The Super Star is a power-up : you touch it, you become invincible for a few seconds, the music races away. The Power Star — of which the Grand Star is the giant version — is an objective : it is what you collect in order to progress, like the Shine Sprites of Sunshine or the Moons of Odyssey.
What is the most powerful power-up in the saga?
On combat effectiveness alone, the Hammer Suit of Super Mario Bros. 3 is hard to beat: it sweeps away almost every enemy with one throw, and its crouching position acts as a fireproof shield, which lets you beat Bowser head-on — something almost no other power allows. On freedom of movement, it is theP-Wing, which offers unlimited flight for an entire level where the P-Meter runs out in a few seconds.
Why do some mushrooms make you shrink?
Because smallness is a power, not a punishment. The Mini Mushroom lets you run on water, jump weightlessly and slip into passages inaccessible any other way — at the price of total fragility, where the slightest contact is fatal. Not to be confused with the Poison Mushroom, which is frankly hostile: it imitates the power-up in order to hurt, shrink or cost you a life.
Which Mario game introduced the most items?
Super Mario Bros. 3, in 1988, with seven items from this page: the Tanooki Suit, the Frog Suit, the Hammer Suit, theP-Wing, the Warp Whistle, theP Switch and the Goomba's Shoe. Two games follow close behind with six items each: Super Mario Bros. in 1985 and Super Mario Galaxy in 2007. The second table on this page gives the full ranking.
Can a power-up make the game harder?
Yes, and two cases prove it. The Spring Mushroom of Super Mario Galaxy locks Mario inside a spring that bounces on its own: he jumps higher than anything else, but control becomes unpredictable. And the Frog Suit makes Mario an exceptional swimmer at the price of a hopping, awkward gait the moment he sets foot on dry land.
What makes the Wonder Flower different from the other flowers?
It gives the character no power at all. Where the Fire Flower arms the hero, the Wonder Flower of Super Mario Bros. Wonder transforms the entire level : pipes coming to life, gravity turned upside down, the hero changed into a Goomba. It is the first item in the saga whose effect bears on the scenery rather than on the character, and that is what redefined the modern 2D Mario.
How many Moons does it take to finish Super Mario Odyssey?
Far fewer than the counter suggests. The Power Moons serve as fuel for the Odyssey, and a few dozen are enough to advance through the story, with the Multi Moons marking the great milestones. For completionists, on the other hand, there are around 880 to gather, and the counter climbs to 999 once the credits have rolled.
Which Mario Kart item is the most hated, and can it be avoided?
The blue spiked shell, introduced in Mario Kart 64 in December 1996: it charges straight at the leader, often a few metres from the finish. It has one counter, and only one, which arrived much later: the Super Horn of Mario Kart 8, a shock wave that pulverises it — provided you trigger it in the right window.
Are there power-ups that appear in only one level?
Yes, and the most famous case is Goomba's Shoe : this green wind-up boot exists in only one level of Super Mario Bros. 3, before disappearing almost entirely from the saga. Its original name, Kuribo's Shoe, travelled the world, and it only received its French name with Super Mario Advance 4.
Which power-up was born from a mistake?
The Double Cherry of Super Mario 3D World. Cloning the character was not planned: it is a development accident, spotted by chance, which the team judged amusing enough to make into an item in its own right — to the point of devoting a whole level to it, Double Cherry Pass.
