Super Mario Galaxy and Odyssey: The Two Great 3D Adventures

1996 · Super Mario 64Peach's CastleThe first menu you inhabit

A central tower, four turrets, a moat and a stained-glass window: the castle's silhouette is fixed in 1996 and has not moved since. The game calls it Mushroom Castle, and makes it far more than a welcome backdrop. You come in through a door, you climb staircases locked behind a number of stars, you look for paintings hidden in corners. Some rooms only open once the moat has been drained; others conceal slides. That playable hub is the direct ancestor of Delfino Plaza and of the Comet Observatory.

1996 · Super Mario 64King Bob-ombThe first boss in all of 3D

He waits at the summit of the very first course, Bob-omb Battlefield, crown on his head and white moustache in the wind. His lesson is decisive for 1996: you do not beat him by jumping on him. You have to get behind him, lift him — a new verb, impossible in two dimensions — and throw him to the ground, three times over. Throwing him out of the arena does not count: the monarch cries foul and the fight starts again. In three minutes, the player has understood that 3D is not there to redo the same moves more prettily.

1996 · Super Mario 64WhompA wall that grew arms

A grey rectangular slab, two short arms, a furious face: the Whomp — Battan in Japan, Ba-Boum in Quebec — lets itself drop with all its weight the moment Mario comes near. Its silhouette comes from the nurikabe, that yōkai of Japanese folklore which takes the form of a living wall barring travellers' way. Countering it requires understanding the geometry of volume: you have to let it slam down, then strike the crack on its back, invisible from the front. A broader Whomp King serves as a boss in the same level, in 1996.

1996 · Super Mario 64MipsNamed after the processor

In the flooded basement of the castle scurries a small yellow rabbit that has to be caught bare-handed, with no weapon and no power. The reward is a Star, and he lets himself be cornered twice: at fifteen stars, then at fifty. His name is the game's most technical nod — MIPS is the architecture of the Nintendo 64's processor. The rabbit was one of the very first models with volume created for the project, used to test the machine. Speedrunners have since made a tool of him: the “MIPS Clip” is used to get through locked doors.

1996 · Super Mario 64Metal MarioAn effect turned into a character

The metal cap covers Mario in a reflective surface and gives him three properties at once: he becomes invulnerable, he sinks instead of floating, and he resists wind as well as gas. It is not a power bonus but a problem-solving tool — walking on the bottom of a lake, crossing a poisoned corridor. The transformation made such an impression that it eventually left the game: fifteen years after that first appearance in 1996, Mario Kart 7 lists him on the menu as a driver in his own right, with his own weight and his heavyweight statistics.

1996 · Super Mario 64Lakitu the cameramanThe cameraman who used to bombard Mario

Here is an enemy promoted to technician. Since 1985, this round-spectacled Koopa perched on a cloud has bombarded Mario with eggs that hatch into Spinies. In 1996, Super Mario 64 gives him a radically different role: he is the one holding the camera, boom in hand, and the player orients it with the C buttons. The credits list him as a reporter, in fact. He would follow up with a third job, starter and referee in Mario Kart. Few extras have changed function so often without ever changing cloud.

1998 · Super Mario 64Mario 64 versus Banjo-KazooieThe pioneer against the perfectionist

Two years after the shock of 1996, Rare released Banjo-Kazooie in 1998 on the same machine, and took up the model while thickening it: a hundred musical notes per level, Jiggies to gather, a duo with complementary abilities — flying, shooting, swimming better. The debate between the two games is still going, and it turns on a real design question: is it better to have a very pared-down, perfectly tuned vocabulary of moves, or an accumulation of tools that multiplies the uses? The Mario series has answered both ways depending on the era.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineF.L.U.D.D.Four nozzles, a whole game built around them

F.L.U.D.D. stands for Jerrycan Expérimental Transformable in French — F.L.U.D.D. in English. It is a water pump endowed with speech, out of the workshop of Professor E. Gadd, the same scientist who would later equip Luigi with his vacuums. The device talks, advises, comments. Its four nozzles define four ways of playing: the front jet for cleaning, the hover nozzle to float for a few seconds, the turbo to charge and cross water, the rocket for a vertical leap. None is optional: the game builds its puzzles assuming you know how to switch from one to another.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineShine SpriteThe star, but in a solar version

A small golden body with a smiling face, the Shine — *Shine Sprite* in English — occupies exactly the place the Power Star held in Mario 64. Same total, 120 of them, same role as a key. The difference is narrative: these Shines are not trophies, they are the luminous guardians of the island, and their disappearance plunges Delfino into an unusual gloom. Finding them again is therefore not a completionist's collection, it is literally giving light back to a place. Twenty-four of them are obtained by exchanging blue coins, at a rate of ten for one.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineBowser Jr.The impostor behind the mask

It is here, in 2002, that Bowser's son makes his debut — and he arrives in disguise. Under the name Shadow Mario, he dirties the island with a magic paintbrush, an invention of Professor E. Gadd, and lets the real plumber carry the can. The twist revealed at Pinna Park is sadder than it looks: the boy is convinced that Peach is his mother, a belief planted by his father to motivate him. Bowser Jr. thus inaugurates a register new to the saga, that of the villain you pity. His gadget-laden vehicle, the Junior Clown Car, would never leave him again.

2002 · Super Mario SunshinePetey PiranhaThe carnivorous plant turned star

Bipedal, covered in spotted petals, Petey Piranha has little left of the little plant that comes out of the pipes. Born in 2002 in Bianco Hills, it is fought there twice, and its mud spawns secondary plants along the way that complicate the arena. Its career then goes far beyond that frame: recurring boss, then playable character in the sports and racing spin-offs. Few creatures designed for a single platform episode have ended up on the character select menu of so many games.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineIsle DelfinoA dolphin-shaped island

*Delfino* means dolphin in Italian, and the archipelago does indeed trace one seen from the sky, with little Pinna Island as the fin. The nod is a double one: “Dolphin” was the GameCube's code name during its development, the machine on which the game came out in 2002. The island is volcanic, tropical, and above all inhabited by two distinct peoples who do not occupy the same ground. That is what sets it apart from a simple holiday backdrop: it has a geography, an economy and neighbourly tensions.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineDelfino PlazaA hub you clean and you flood

The plaza is the base camp: you come back to it after every mission, successful or failed. But it is not a menu in disguise — it is a real level, with its rooftops to climb, its secret sewers, its monumental Shine Gate and fifteen Shines to flush out on the spot. It also changes state as the story goes on: a flood transforms it, the mood darkens, the inhabitants comment. It is also where the opening trial is settled. For a platform game hub, in 2002, that was an unusual ambition.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineBianco HillsThe training ground for F.L.U.D.D.

The first real world in the game, unlocked from a statue on the plaza, Bianco Hills swaps the cobblestones for rolling countryside with windmills, dominated in the distance by Corona Mountain. In the middle of the lake, the Big Windmill serves as a visual landmark and a goal to reach. This is where F.L.U.D.D. stops being a tutorial: the sludge takes shapes that force you to change nozzle, the slopes call for sliding, the heights call for hovering. The local boss, Petey Piranha, is fought here twice over the course of the eight episodes.

2002 · Super Mario SunshinePort RiccoA working commercial harbour

The second stop, Ricco Harbour stacks up working settings: fish market, crates to spray, fruit machine, wooden jetties and a vast scaffolding site that serves as vertical ground. It is a working harbour, and the setting moves accordingly. Its name plays on *ricco*, “rich” in Italian, and on Puerto Rico. There are two set pieces here: the fight against Méga Bloups clinging beneath a jetty, and a surfing race on the back of a Blooper, which has stayed a cult favourite. Eleven Shines in all.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineGelato BeachThe beach the sludge spares

The third stage, this white sand cove marries the Italian *gelato* to a nod to French seaside resorts. Its peculiarity is one of design: along with Pinna Park, it is one of only two levels the sludge never covers. The sand stays immaculate there, and the game can therefore offer something else — the legend of theSand Bird, a bird brooded by three giant mirrors at the top of a tower, which you end up riding in mid-flight. Add to that a Wiggler driven into a rage, Sand Flowers and a coral reef to explore.

2002 · Super Mario SunshinePinna ParkThe funfair where everything is explained

The fourth major world, built on an islet linked to the rest of the archipelago by a tunnel: *pinna* means “fin” in Italian, and the park occupies precisely the tail fin of the dolphin traced by Delfino. Big wheel, roller coaster, pirate ships: every ride carries its mission. The opening episode is a duel against a giant Mecha-Bowser , fired at from a carriage launched on the rails. And this is where the plot turns: Shadow Mario takes off his mask, and the accused finally understands who framed him.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineSirena BeachThe only level played at night

Every other region of the island is crushed by sunlight; this one is visited under a permanent dusk, between orange and midnight blue. On the edge of a fine sand cove stands theHotel Delfino, a four-star resort that quickly turns into a haunted house: prankster Boos in the corridors, doors that lead somewhere else, and a casino hidden in the basement where King Boowaits. The opening episode pits Mario against a giant ghost ray, which splits into smaller and smaller pieces with every blow it takes. A rare shiver of horror in a holiday game.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineNoki BayCliffs, diving and water that eats away

Right at the north of the archipelago, hidden behind the island's dorsal fin, Noki Bay is a narrow cove ringed by dizzying cliffs. You climb it via three pillars topped with shells, linked by ropes strung above the void; murals fade under the water and reveal passages. Beneath the surface sleep sunken ruins and a poisoned water that wounds on contact. The level lines up more bosses than any other, and culminates in a fight against the giant eel Eely-Mouth, who has to be cured by having his teeth brushed.

2002 · Super Mario SunshinePiantasColossi with a palm tree on their skulls

A massive yellow, pink or blue body, a leaf skirt and a genuine palm tree planted on top of the skull: the Piantas have occupied the land and the beaches of Delfino since 2002, and their Village perched in the trees constitutes one of the game's seven worlds. They also serve as a mechanic: well placed, they catapult Mario up to the heights. Their posterity is delicious — a Don Pianta in a suit runs the Rogueport underworld in The Thousand-Year Door, turning the most easy-going people on the island into a mafia family.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineNokisA people built around a shell

Small, reserved, their bodies housed in a shell: the Nokis form the island's second population, the one on the water's edge, while the Piantas occupy the land. The opposition is gentle but structuring — big against small, arboreal against maritime, jovial against discreet — and it is what gives Delfino a depth rare for a platforming setting. Their territory, the bay that bears their name, is the most vertical zone in the game, extended by undersea depths where the light fades as you descend. The design tells the function.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineCataquackHalf bird, half spring, all beak

A rotund body on two short legs, topped with an oversized beak: the Cataquack slides its beak under Mario's feet and sends him ten metres into the air. Its French name is a portmanteau of “catapulte” and a duck's quack; in Japan, it is called Poihana, from *poi* (throw) and *hana* (nose). Its colour changes everything : the blue one is harmless and serves as a useful springboard for reaching a ledge, the red one genuinely means to hurt. The creature eventually landed, much later, a job as a kart driver.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineIl PiantissimoNobody knows who is under the mask

An athletic silhouette, blue costume skin, leaf skirt, palm tree on the head and a rigid mask with a fixed smile: Il Piantissimo disguises himself as a Pianta without convincing anyone — his build is too slim, the skin around the eyes too pale. His name is a fanciful Italian superlative, “the very Pianta”; in Japan he answers to Monteman. He challenges Mario to a race on three grounds, with a Shine at stake. More than twenty years after 2002, Nintendo has never revealed his identity, and the character has never reappeared anywhere else.

2002 · Super Mario SunshineMéga BloupsA cork in the mouth, under a jetty

People take it for an octopus: it is a giant Blooper, bristling with long tentacles, that spits ink to dirty the scenery. Beating it follows a two-stage ritual — tearing off the tentacles one by one, then pulling on the cork blocking its mouth. The game has you face it three times: at Ricco Harbour in the first episode, then again in the fifth, and at Noki Bay in the second, where it guards the entrance to a tomb. It swears allegiance to nobody, not even Bowser, and has since made a career in the spin-offs and the Paper Mario games.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyDino PiranhaIt bursts out of an egg in the very first galaxy

The first boss of 2007 arrives by breaking his shell: a carnivorous plant head grafted onto a dinosaur body, stocky legs and a long tail ending in a club. The fight teaches the game's central move — impossible to jump on that head, you have to grab the club on the tail and spin in order to smash it against its owner. Its Japanese name, Dino Pakkun, links the dinosaur to the term used for Piranha Plants. It would come back in Galaxy 2, in an incandescent version that leaves a trail of fire behind it.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyMajor BurrowsA helmeted mole chasing a rabbit

Major Burrows guards the game's best-loved galaxy. The staging of his arrival has stuck in the memory: when Mario lands, the giant mole is in the middle of chasing a little star bunny across the planet, thoroughly intent on making a meal of it. His blue helmet bristling with spikes rules out any attack from above and serves him for diving back underground. Beating him therefore means making him come out of his hole with a ground pound, then catching him with a spin. He would pass through again in Galaxy 2.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyGusty GardenThe waltz fans put at the top

*Gusty Garden Galaxy* is an archipelago of planetoids in improbable shapes — a giant apple, a question mark, a puzzle cube — that you cross while clinging to flying dandelion seeds. But it is its music that made it famous: a waltz in three-four time carried by the strings, composed by Mahito Yokota and recorded with an orchestra. The piece comes back in several arrangements across the rest of the game, and it tops most fan rankings. Its birth was nonetheless difficult: Koji Kondo had rejected Yokota's first proposals.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyBee MushroomFly, yes — but never touch water

Yellow cap striped with brown, antenna helmet, translucent wings: the Bee Mushroom turns Mario into an insect able to fly for a few seconds, climb along honey walls and land on flowers without crushing them. Flight is managed by a gauge, and picking up coins recharges it — which turns some passages into a route to be calculated. Its weakness is absolute: the slightest contact with water cancels the transformation, which puts entire zones out of bounds and gives the power its personality. Introduced in 2007, it comes back in Galaxy 2.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyBoo MushroomPass through grates, flee the light

*Boo Mushroom* in English. Mario becomes a translucent Boo wearing his red cap: he floats, turns invisible and passes through grates, which inverts the very principle of the haunted galaxies — the creature that usually frightens becomes the disguise. Its Achilles heel is light: the slightest beam dispels the transformation, and several puzzles consist in progressing while avoiding the lit areas. The power descends in a straight line from the Vanish Cap of Mario 64, and it came back in Galaxy 2 and then in the 2025 Switch port.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxySpring MushroomThe power you love to hate

A metal spring wraps itself around Mario at a stroke, and he never sets his foot flat again: he bounces continuously, and direction can barely be corrected in the air. It is one of the rare transformations in the series to impose a constraint rather than offer a bonus. Its value lies in the timed super-jump: pressing at the precise instant of the bounce propels you far higher than any other power in the game. It is also the most fragile — water, one hit, a star ring, and the spring vanishes. Since 2007, it has divided players more than any other transformation in the game.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyComet ObservatoryA hub that passes every hundred years

Half fairy-tale castle, half starship: glass domes, Victorian-looking towers and metal walkways. The Comet Observatory replaces Peach's castle as the starting point, and works as a circular hub level in which each dome gives access to a group of galaxies. Its fiction gives it a rare rhythm: the station only crosses the sky of the Mushroom Kingdom once every hundred years, during the Star Festival — and it is precisely that passage Bowser chooses to strike in 2007. Its propulsion comes from the energy of the Grand Stars he steals.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyRosalinaThe guardian, and her picture book

Rosalina appears in 2007 and resembles nothing the series had produced before: a grave, distant figure who watches over the galaxies and raises the Lumas as her children. Her powers are on the scale of the setting — levitation, teleportation, manipulation of gravity — and she plays a decisive role in the rebirth of the universe at the end of the game. Her past is discovered in an illustrated book available on board: the story of a little girl who left the Earth to look for her mother among the stars.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyLumaStars that become planets

Small creatures shaped like a starry droplet, multicoloured, with big round eyes: the Lumas populate the Comet Observatory and guide Mario from galaxy to galaxy. The game gives them a status unusual for supporting characters — they are embryonic stars, a life in the making, and some of them literally metamorphose into planets or galaxies to open the way. One Luma accompanies Mario permanently and lends him the spin. Their silhouette has become one of the most widely reused motifs in the saga, right down to the night lights sitting on bedside tables.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyPolariThe black Luma who is never amazed

In a population of talkative, enthusiastic living stars, he stands out: dark silhouette, motionless, the measured voice of a steward who has already seen it all. Polari serves as intermediary between Rosalina and the rest of the crew — he is the one who comments on the state of the Observatory, points out newly accessible galaxies and explains what the guardian, more distant, will not say. The division of labour is clever: she keeps her mystery, he provides the dashboard. His black colour, in a game built on the bright hues of 2007, is enough to mark him as the elder.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyGrand StarThe fuel, not the reward

An oversized version of the Power Star, the Grand Star does not fit in Mario's hand: it is bigger than he is. That difference in scale reflects a difference in function. It is not a trophy but a source of energy — it is what sets the Comet Observatory in motion, opens new domes and bends space to create passages. It is also what Bowser covets in order to build his cosmic empire, which makes it the stake of the plot rather than its currency. It keeps the same double status in Galaxy 2, released in 2010.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyGreen StarIt rewards the search, not the finish

The same five-pointed silhouette, but in a sparkling emerald green. The Green Star appears in Galaxy in 2007 and grants no power: it rewards pure exploration, hidden in corners nothing points to. Galaxy 2 makes a complete post-credits game of it, and Super Mario 3D World places three per level, needed to unlock the last stages. It is the most honest collectible in the series: it is not earned by finishing a level, only by combing through it — and it doubles the playing time without costing a single extra setting.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyPurple CoinsA hundred coins, often against the clock

They bring neither lives nor health, and exist only during special missions that open only once Bowser has been beaten. The principle does not vary: a hundred purple coins to gather in a galaxy you already know, often with a stopwatch, sometimes on a geometry turned upside down for the occasion. Every mission completed yields a Power Star, essential for one hundred per cent. It is the part of the 2007 game reserved for those who come back after the credits — and the one where mastering gravity stops being a pleasure and becomes a requirement.

Cross-seriesThe power starsOne family, four names

Power Star, Grand Star, Shine, Green Star: the saga has given four names to objects that fill the same function — a golden key that opens what comes next. This dossier traces the thread, from the first hunt for a hundred and twenty stars in Peach's castle to their frankly cosmic dimension with Rosalina, where they stop being rewards and become sources of energy that stabilise the universe. Along the way it distinguishes the Power Star from the flashing Super Star, which makes you invincible for a few seconds and has never had the same role.

2010 · Super Mario Galaxy 2LubbaThe Luma who turned a wreck into a ship

Massive, purple, cheeky: Lubba looks nothing like the pastel Lumas orbiting Rosalina. Mario meets him in a bad way, his ship having just been attacked by Bowser, and watches him patch it up with his crew — to the point of giving it the shape of a plumber's head. His role is that of a good-natured foreman: he comments on progress, hands out directions, punctuates his sentences with the turns of phrase of an old space hand. Against Rosalina's silence, he alone embodies the more direct tone this 2010 sequel takes on.

2010 · Super Mario Galaxy 2Rock MushroomMario locks himself inside a boulder

*Rock Mushroom* in English, this grey, bristling mushroom encloses Mario in a block of rock that barrels straight ahead. The transformation is activated by shaking the controller, and the movement can only be steered at the margins: once launched, the boulder crushes what it touches and shatters the purple crystals that resisted everything else. A whole galaxy, Boulder Bowl, is built around it like a cosmic bowling alley. On the Wii in 2010, the power was called Champi pierre in French; the recent re-release has given it back its full name.

2010 · Super Mario Galaxy 2Cloud FlowerMaking the missing ground yourself

A small white flower topped with a cottony heart, and Mario is dressed in white: by spinning, he materialises a cloud platform right in front of him, up to three in a row. Where the other powers change the way you cross a gap, this one removes the gap. It also allows a gentler fall and lengthened jumps. Its fragility is the usual trade-off — water and the slightest hit cancel it. Introduced in 2010, the Cloud Flower made its return on screen in the 2026 film, in Luigi's hands.

2011Super Mario 3D LandThe first 3D Mario designed for the pocket

Released on 3DS on 18 November 2011 in Europe, the episode takes on a wager that seemed lost in advance: a real Mario with volume on a portable console. Its answer is the mixture — free movement, but short levels that end at the flagpole. Above all it brings back a power that had been gone since 1988, the Super Leaf and its Tanooki tail, which slows the fall and strikes with a swipe of the tail. Add to that a Boomerang Flower and a genuine use of stereoscopic 3D to judge distances. Around 12.9 million copies sold, and formidable Special worlds after the ending.

2013 · Super Mario 3D WorldSuper BellClaws, and walls become climbable

A golden bell, a chime, and Mario slips into a cat suit. The power, introduced in 2013, brings three verbs at once: clawing enemies, climbing any wall vertically, and swooping down from the air. The climbing changes all the level design — a wall stops being a limit. Success was immediate, to the point where the transformation became a mascot in its own right, right up to the amiibo, Mario Kart and the cinema. Its oversized variant, the Giga Bell, is used to answer the colossal Bowser of Bowser's Fury.

2013 · Super Mario 3D WorldDouble CherryA power born from a development bug

Two pink cherries joined by their stalk, and a second Mario appears, copying every move identically. Picking up several gives a small synchronised squad, which lets you press three switches at once or cover an entire corridor. The item, which arrived in 2013, has a delicious origin: it was not supposed to exist. It is a development error, spotted by chance, which the team turned into a design idea, to the point of devoting a whole level to it, Double Cherry Pass. Every playable character can take hold of it, not just Mario.

2013 · Super Mario 3D WorldPlessieA plesiosaur that carries four heroes

Yellow and red body, long neck, fixed smile and a back broad enough to carry the whole team: Plessie reigns in 2013 over levels of their own, long descents of rapids down which four of you slide. Its name tells its double parentage, between the plesiosaur and Nessie. Its real promotion comes with Bowser's Fury, where it becomes the main mount of an open world: it is on its back that you link the islands of Lake Lapcat. A detail players pass on to one another: stroking it makes coins appear.

2007 · Super Mario GalaxyCaptain ToadHis pack is too heavy for him to jump

He appears in 2007 in Super Mario Galaxy, where he introduces himself as the self-proclaimed head of the Toad Brigade and crosses the cosmos to help Mario. What made him famous came later: an acknowledged inability to jump, on account of an overly heavy backpack. In a universe whose founding verb is the jump, that handicap is a design manifesto — removing the main movement forces the level to be rethought from top to bottom. His courses in 3D World, which you rotate to spot the right path, have since given rise to his own game.

2014Captain Toad: Treasure TrackerDioramas you turn around

The spin-off was born from a handful of bonus levels, so well liked that Nintendo EAD Tokyo, backed by 1-UP Studio, made a complete game of them under the direction of Shinya Hiratake. Released on Wii U on 13 November 2014 in Japan, it keeps the golden rule: the Captain never jumps. Each course is a miniature diorama you rotate with the controller to discover the hidden face of the setting and the practicable path. Toadette doubles the hero, and Wingo, a large thieving bird, serves as antagonist. The formula was taken up again on Switch and 3DS.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyCappyFifty-two bodies to borrow

Cappy is a cap-shaped spirit, a member of a people of spectral hat-shaped beings from the Cap Kingdom. He does not accompany Mario out of altruism: Bowser has abducted his little sister to make a bridal tiara of her, and he fully intends to get her back. His power, the capture, allows him to take control of fifty-two enemies and objects — the English word simply says *Capture*. Controller in hand, he is not a power-up but a second character: you throw him, you hold him in the air, you bounce on him, you use him to pick things up at a distance.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyTiaraThe hostage who triggers the whole alliance

A living tiara, a white and graceful silhouette, large peaceful eyes: Tiara is Cappy's younger sister, and Bowser's plan makes a wedding accessory of her. She therefore spends the 2017 adventure sitting on Peach's head, a prisoner just as much as she is, all the way to the Moon Kingdom. Without her, Cappy would have no reason to lend his powers to a plumber met by chance: it is she, and not the princess, who motivates the duo. The epilogue does her justice — she sets off round the world again with Peach, this time by choice.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyPower Moon880 to find, 124 to see the ending

A small golden crescent, the Power Moon replaces the star and the shine of the previous episodes, but changes role: it is fuel. The Odyssey only takes off for the next kingdom with a certain number of Moons on board, and you need at least 124 to land on the Moon and face Bowser. The game hides around 880, and the counter climbs to 999 by buying the last ones at Crazy Cap. The Multi Moons, larger, mark the milestones of the story. Finishing the plot therefore represents only a fraction of the content.

Cross-seriesMario's capsThirty years of power headgear

The red cap marked with an M is a mark of identity; in the world of the game, it is also an artefact. This dossier lists the power models and what they do: the Wing Cap for flying, the Vanish Cap for passing through obstacles, the Metal Cap to become invulnerable and walk on the bottom of the water. All are born in Super Mario 64, which invents the principle of the power lodged in the hat. Cappy is its logical culmination: the cap is no longer an object to pick up, it is a character with something to say.

Cross-seriesLives and Game OverForty years of counter, erased

The pair is born with the 1981 arcade cabinet: a few small Marios lined up at the top of the screen, a life lost on the slightest contact, a black screen crossed with GAME OVER when the counter reaches zero. Super Mario Bros. formalises it, and the 1-Up Mushroom makes a ritual of it. In 2017, Odyssey removes both at a stroke. Director Kenta Motokura justified it plainly: it was not an absolutely necessary element. Failing now costs ten coins. The consequence is concrete: you attempt things you would never have attempted with three lives in reserve.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyThe BroodalsA wedding agency in suits

Topper, Hariet, Spewart and Rango are four immaculately turned-out bipedal rabbits, from the Dark Side of the Moon where their lair stands — a carrot-shaped tower. They are contractors, not minions: Bowser hired them to organise his wedding, and they roam the kingdoms to gather the supplies. Each fights with a gadget from their trade: Topper's spiked top hats, Hariet's concealed bombs, Spewart's poison, Rango's double hat. They all come back together at the controls of the RoboBrood, a giant mech, for the final stand. Their name blends *brood* and *bridal*.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyMadame BroodeThe boss, and her Chomp on a leash

Beware of a common misreading: Madame Broode is not one of the four Broodals, she is their boss — the giant rabbit draped in red who raised the Broodals and rules over their lunar lair. She fights alongside Chain Chomplet, a golden Chomp the size of a wrecking ball that she holds on a leash. The principle of both confrontations is the same, and it sums up the 2017 game: you do not strike the opponent, you turn her own pet against her. The adventure's first substantial boss, she sets the tone straight away.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyKnucklotecA fallen deity reduced to two fists

Knucklotec is an ancient deity venerated by the inhabitants of Tostarena, reduced by time to the essentials: a colossal head and two floating hands. His massive face openly quotes the Olmec heads of Central America, consistent with the kingdom's Mexican inspiration. Imprisoned in ice at the bottom of the ruins, he wakes up furious, convinced that Mario has stolen his sacred ring. The method for beating him in 2017 is the game's signature: capturing his own fists and sending them back into his face.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyPaulineFrom the first captive to the mayor

She comes four years before Peach. In the 1981 arcade cabinet, she does not even have a name: she is called “the Lady”, and she waits at the top of a building site for a carpenter named Jumpman to come and get her. She is the first damsel-in-distress archetype in video games. In 2017, Odyssey gives her the most complete reinvention in the saga: mayor of New Donk City, in a red suit, she runs a metropolis of humans, organises its festival and gets up on stage to sing. The captive has become the authority.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyJump Up, Super Star!The first sung song in the saga

Since 1985, a Mario theme has been instrumental. In 2017, “Jump Up, Super Star!” breaks the rule: it is the first song with lyrics to serve as the main theme of an episode in the series. The piece is a jazz big band number — brass, off-beats, a rising chorus — credited to the Super Mario Players, performed by Kate Davis in English and Aimi Mukohara in Japanese. It does not merely accompany the New Donk City festival: it is its narrative heart, and Nintendo built part of its marketing around the video. Since then, it has turned up in Smash Bros. and Mario Kart.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyCap KingdomA first country in black and white

*Cap Kingdom*. An island shaped like a top hat, bristling with black vegetation and drowned in a thick fog: the first kingdom of 2017 makes the unexpected choice of monochrome, with Victorian accents that evoke London. At its centre, Bonneton, the town of the Bonneters, dominated by Top-Hat Tower. This is where Mario meets Cappy, learns of Tiara's abduction and discovers the capture on a frog — the most effective tutorial in the series, since it consists in becoming somebody else. The Broodal Topper serves as the first boss.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyCascade KingdomThe first real playground

*Cascade Kingdom*. After the narrow alleys of the previous kingdom, the space finally opens up: a prehistoric canyon crushed by a giant waterfall, vertical, which you climb in whatever order you like. It is the second stage of 2017, and the first where exploration becomes the reward. Here you repair the Odyssey to set sail, you come across the T-Rex whose capture has remained the game's trademark image, and you face Madame Broode and her golden Chomp — the adventure's first substantial boss.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseySand KingdomThe largest, and a pyramid that floats

*Sand Kingdom*. The third stage, and the largest territory in the 2017 game. Around the oasis village ofTostarena, the setting borrows from Mexico: festive skeletons, cacti, calaveras and a Day of the Dead atmosphere. Above the desert floats an inverted pyramid, an acknowledged echo of Chichén Itzá. Two guardians follow one another there, the Broodal Hariet then Knucklotec. It is also the biggest reserve of collectibles: 89 Moons and a hundred pyramid coins. Here you ride Jaxi, you meet a Sphynx, and Crazy Cap sells sombrero and poncho.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyLake KingdomA city of dressmakers under a dome

*Lake Kingdom*. Beneath the calm waters of a lake lives an entire civilisation devoted to clothing: the Lochladies, celebrated stylists, live in La Robelle, a city protected by a glass dome. The French name plays on “robe” and “belle”; the English version, *Lake Lamode*, has fun with the French expression “à la mode”. The local plot is a theft: the Nice Dress, a national treasure, is carried off for Bowser's wedding in the first seconds of the visit. A Scottish nod completes the picture with Dorrie, a cousin of the Loch Ness monster. The Broodal Rango guards the terrace.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyWooded KingdomBotanist robots in a steel greenhouse

*Wooded Kingdom*. The strangest kingdom of the 2017 journey has two registers coexist that do not go together: lush vegetation and imposing iron structures leaking steam. At its centre, Steam Gardens, an open-air industrial greenhouse cultivated by the Steam Gardeners, a people of botanist robots. The setting draws, according to the art book, on Redwood National Park and its sequoias. A T-Rex roams free in the neighbouring Deep Woods. The Broodals steal an exceptional bouquet there, and the boss Torkdrift is a floral flying saucer to be turned against itself.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyLost KingdomNo boss, no mission: pure terrain

*Lost Kingdom*. A single island emerges from the purple vapours of a sea of poison: Toxîle, a transparent portmanteau in French between “toxique” and “île”. The jungle you explore there draws on the forests of South-East Asia, and the slightest contact with the surrounding liquid is fatal. Its singularity is structural: it is the only stage of the main adventure with no boss and no scripted mission. Mario simply explores it, between two big confrontations. The local star is the tropical Wiggler, whose capture lets you stretch like a concertina to cross the chasms. Thirty-five Moons to gather.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyNew Donk CityA city of humans in ties

Capital of the *Metro Kingdom*, New Donk City is a setting unique in the whole series: a real metropolis populated by adult humans, inspired by New York, with its taxis, its manhole covers and its office workers. The contrast with the mushrooms and the bricks is head-on, and the name of the place is a double pun — “Donk” comes from Donkey Kong, the rest from New York City. The city is run by Pauline, and its music festival constitutes the most memorable moment of the 2017 game.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseySnow KingdomA blizzard on the surface, a city underneath

*Snow Kingdom*. On the surface, a frozen plain swept by a blizzard that reduces visibility to a few metres: the kingdom seems empty. That is a decoy. A well hidden under the snow leads to Shiveria Town, a cave city dug beneath the ice pack, where the Shiverians live, bouncing seals. There you run the Bound Bowl Grand Prix, a race in which you have to bounce rather than jump. The setting borrows from a fantasy Siberia, nesting dolls and dancing included. Fifty-five Moons, and the Broodal Rango as guardian.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseySeaside KingdomA smart resort and a miraculous water

*Seaside Kingdom*. Turquoise cliffs, golden sand, crystal-clear waters: the kingdom openly quotes the Côte d'Azur and the Riviera. Its central zone is Bubblaine, an upmarket seaside resort whose entire economy rests on a sparkling water reputed to bring luck. The verticality comes from the Glass Tower, which has to be climbed to the top. It is also the most underwater stage of the 2017 game, with Maw-Rays and a Sphynx lurking in the depths, and one of the richest in collectibles: 73 Power Moons to unearth.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyLuncheon KingdomA volcano that spits stew

*Luncheon Kingdom*. Here, almost everything is edible. Giant pots, outsized cutlery, mountains of food and a floor of salt: the setting takes the idea all the way, and the central volcano, Mount Volbono, spits not molten rock but a pink lava evoking stew. The local people, the Volbonans, are living forks who prepare the Stupendous Stew — the very one Bowser comes to requisition for his wedding. The climb is made on the back of a Lava Bubble. The cited inspirations are Pompeii and Vesuvius, with a touch of Réunion. Boss: the bird Cookatiel.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyBowser's KingdomThe Koopa King takes up the Japanese castle

*Bowser's Kingdom*. The thirteenth kingdom of the adventure, and a deliberate change of tack: forget the European medieval fortress bristling with spikes. Bowser has treated himself to a traditional Japanese castle, with concentric walls, a dry garden, a tea house — and moats of poison. Two captures peculiar to the place structure the crossing: the Pokio, a pheasant that climbs along walls, and the Jizostatues, stone skeleton keys that sink to the bottom of the water. The forced wedding is prepared here, before the player's eyes, and the Broodals come back in formation for one last stand at the controls of the RoboBrood. Sixty-two Moons.

2017 · Super Mario OdysseyMoon KingdomThe fourteenth stage: the Moon, the real one

*Moon Kingdom*. The terminus of the 2017 main story, set on the Moon itself: a grey, dusty setting organised around Honeylune Ridge. The low gravity changes the whole vocabulary there — jumps carry further, the fall is slow, and passages that would be trivial elsewhere call for a different reading. The Moon Caverns house a second fight against Madame Broode. At the end waits the Wedding Hall, where the ceremony is ready, and the final confrontation. Thirty-eight Moons to gather — and, once the credits have rolled, the game's real content opens up.

Cross-seriesYoshiaki KoizumiThe director trained in cinema

Born on 29 April 1968, a cinema graduate of Osaka University of Arts, he joins Nintendo by way of the Zelda saga, where he works on precisely what platforming with volume would lack: camera placement and the targeting system. He becomes a director on Sunshine, reaches his peak with Galaxy — he is the one who writes Rosalina's storybook, in secret, in the evenings, outside the game's specification — then becomes a producer for Galaxy 2 and Odyssey. He is today general producer of the Nintendo Switch and a senior executive at Nintendo EPD.

Cross-seriesMahito YokotaHe rewrote Galaxy for fifty musicians

Born on 13 April 1974, sound director at Koei before joining Nintendo in 2003, he inherits the Galaxy soundtrack and first delivers demos that Koji Kondo rejects one after another. The episode nearly cost him the project. He starts again from scratch and rewrites everything for an orchestra of some fifty musicians — the first in the series' history. The signature then settles in on Galaxy 2 and 3D World, and he moves up to sound supervisor on Odyssey, alongside Kondo. More than twenty years of loyalty for a name few players know.

2026 · the filmThe Super Mario Galaxy MovieThe second film heads into space

It was announced as devoted to Yoshi and Dinosaur Land: that was wrong. The franchise's second feature is called The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and draws on the 2007 episode. World premiere at the Minami-za theatre in Kyoto on 28 March 2026, French release on 1 April, Japanese on the 24th. The plot does not adapt the game: Bowser Jr. kidnaps Rosalina there, and Mario sets off to recover the scattered Lumas, with the Comet Observatory as the central setting. Illumination and Nintendo sign together again, three years after the first film.

Cross-seriesThe physics of the jumpThe move everything else serves

Before 1985, jumping in a video game was a matter of fixed animation: one button, one predefined arc, no nuance. Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka tune three parameters that change everything — an inertia that makes running palpable, a gravity that gives weight, and a control that stays active in mid-flight. The jump stops being a command and becomes an intention. Everything the branch with volume has built since rests on that: the triple jump of Mario 64, the spin of Galaxy and the hat throw of Odyssey are only extensions of that setting.

Cross-seriesThe graphic evolutionHis moustache was born of a constraint

The first Mario fits into a sprite of sixteen pixels by sixteen and three colours. At that scale, animating a mouth is impossible: so a moustache is drawn, which replaces it. The dungarees exist to distinguish the arms from the torso; the cap avoids having to animate hair. Every technical limit became a character trait. This dossier follows the mechanics through to the first complete model with volume in Super Mario 64, then to the high-definition era where Galaxy and Odyssey refine the texture of fabrics and the reflection in the eyes.

Cross-seriesIn what order to play themBy sub-series rather than by date

The saga imposes no narrative continuity: each episode stands on its own, and nobody has ever needed to know the ending of one Mario to understand the next. This guide therefore offers two routes instead of one. Release chronology, which has the merit of conveying the changes of generation. And grouping by family — two-dimensional platforming on one side, platforming with volume on the other, the role-playing games apart, the spin-offs somewhere else again — which gives a more comfortable order when you come to the series today.

Cross-seriesThe hardest levelsWhat waits after the credits

The Marios with volume have a reputation for being accessible, and that is true up to the credits. Afterwards, the series brings out its real trials: The Perfect Run in Galaxy 2, a galaxy with no checkpoint where the slightest hit sends you back to the start; Champion's Road in 3D World, a string of conveyor belts, lasers and synchronised platforms; the Darker Side of Odyssey, a succession of challenges with no safety net. This ranking compares them with the most feared passages of the two-dimensional episodes, including the pachinko machine of Sunshine.