Technically, Mario has been a series with multiplayer games s🅘ince the beginning: Mario Bros. in arcades let you sling qu🔯arters with a buddy, after all. Then, in terms of console titles, the NES Super Mario Bros. offerings also have multiplayer, but you switch off between turns with Mario and Luigi. It's only 'multiplayer' in the strictest sense; and while that can be fun in competitions, what about actual co-op?

It wouldn't be until the Wii that the first mainline Mario adventure included what could really be considered a true co-op experience. Nowadays, it’s fairly commonplace – there's markedly more co-op plumber goodness out there on Nintendo systems. So, which Super Mario gꩲames can you pu🐟t on to sour your personal relationships?

The games below are ordered by release date.

Updated on September 16, 2024, by Bobby Mills: With 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario Bros. Wonder continuing the now long-held tradition of unrelentingly chaotic co-op modes, it seems we'll be chucking our chums down pits and hogging Fire Flowers for a while yet. It's tough to imagine a time before the whole family could plop themselves on the couch to enjoy whatever Mazza's newest outing was – but all Mushroom Kingdom history deserves to be preserved, so we're tarting up our list just a little. Let's-a go!

15 Super Mario Bros. (1985)⭕

The original Mario game (not counting Donkey Kong or Wrecking Crew) set the tone for the series. This was the sequel to the arcade favourite, but it was meant to be enjoyed in your own home; a novel concept for the 80s. Famously, these early titles were incredi✅bly hard to complete, and you could get set back significantly for small mistakes – but they kept kids busy for a summer, and that's all parents really care about.

Player one controlled the protagonis✨t, Mario, and if a second player joined, they'd control his brother Luigi. As previously mentioned, it's not pure multiplayer, because you alternate turns instead of playing together – though there was opportunity for devious cruelty by purposely dying to ensure your unsuspecting tagalong got the hard stages.

14 Super Ma💜rio Bros꧅. 3 (1988)

The next multiplayer Mario Bros. game was the third entry in the series. It originally came out for the Nintendo Enterta🌟inment System, but has since been indiscriminately ported to tons of other platforms (officially and unofficially) for you to enjoy in the modern day. SNES, Wii, 3DS, Wii U, Switch, NES Classic... the choices are endless.

Like Mario 1, you and your co-op partner will take turns. It's a pure, predictable platformer, and the exper🍃ience didn't change much between the first and third games. However, a smattering of new elements brought some shine to the proceedings, like sliding, climbing vines, and the iconic Tanooki Suit.

13 Super Mario Wo♊rld (1990)

Super Mario World is one of the most uni☂versally beloved entries in the franchise. Th🙈e basic setup mimics the previous games - free Princess Peach from Bowser as quickly as possible - but the SNES' 16-bit processor brought lashings of pizzazz.

You'll be familiar with the fundamentals if you've played other Mario offerings, but there are a few updates and improvements; Yoshi, the sprawling world map, and the infectious soundtrack being chief among them. Again, the multiplayer involves taking turns instead of truly pl🐬aying together, but it still makes for a great little competition between siblings or friends.

12 Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995)

Yoshi's Island is memorable because it shook uꩵp the Super Mario Bros. formula. Instead of controlling a stout Italian man, you're controlling a dinosaur (talk about your swerving left turns). Granted, said Italian man is still around, but he just happens to be a) a baby, and b) riding on your back. Calling this 'Super Mario World 2' was a tenuous move at best by Nintendo's marketing department, but probably a canny one.

While there's no co-op in the main game, there is a secret multiplayer mode that you can activate from the main menu, either by inputting a code or attaining a certain level of completion. It'll allow you to play little minigames found during Yoshi's aꦚdventure - like melon gobbling and balloon tossing - a🌞nd earn power-ups so that the single player isn't lumped with all the misfortune.

11 New Super Mario Br💎os (2006)

The original New Super Mario Bros. game (and therefore the only one for which the subtitle's claim of 'New' is valid) came out on the Nintendo DS in 2006. It♚ was the start of a wh🐽ole new generation of Mario games for the company, one that they continue to milk to this day. Hey, if you've got a proven formula, stick to it like Krazy Glue.

If you can believe it, this was the first 2D Mario since the 1990s, and the first in over a decade to offer any kind of co-op, barring the 'multiplayer' in Super Mario 64 DS, which was a patheticꩵ glorified tech demo we aren't going to cover.

The multiplayer mo🔴de is competitive in this game; one person plays as Mario and the other as Luigi, and the two try to earn as many stars as possible by knocking the living daylights out of one another in a selection of custom mapဣs. As an added bonus, minigames from 64 DS were added and revamped for two players... yes, even the Luigi poker, you gamblers.

10 Super Mario Galaxy (2007) 𒁃

Super Mꦰario Galaxy launched on the Wii in 2007, before later being ported to the Switch as part of the 3D All-Stars collection. It's an intergalaᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚctic masterpiece, and conjures a sense of magic and wonder Nintendo have never quite been able to replicate.

The co-op mode, though, was a bit ofꦦ an afterthought: it had the second player use a Wii remote to collect Star Bits, which was only moderately useful, and they could also stun enemies – but not kill them. The game wasn’t especially hard to begin with, so overall this 'little brother mode' was not necessary, but it is a great feature for younge꧅r players or inexperienced gamers who want the illusion of helping out.

9 🧸 New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009)

New Super Mario Bros. Wii launched on the Wii in 2009. It was the first true co-op experience the main series had ever seen, as was hinted at in our intro. It went balls-to-the-wall, allowing not just two players but up to four in total. You could choose to play as Mario, Luigi, a blue Toad, or a yellow Toad (to this day, fans question why Daisy, Wario, or Waluigi✃ couldn't have filled the fourth slot).

Indeed, the roster variety wasn’t as good as Super Mario Bros. 2’s collection of characters, especially since each player didn’t have their own uniq꧃ue abilities. You'd think Luigi leaping higher than his brother would be a given. However, it was still a solid Mario platformer alone, or with the chaos of three friends along – and 'chaos' is an understatement. Blocking your partner's jumps, stealing their powerups, sending them careening into lava; a few rounds of NSMB Wii will turn the air bluer than a Spiny Shell.

8 Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010) 💙 🃏

Super Mario Galaxy 2 upped the ante from the original Super Mario Galaxy, starting life as an expansion pack that soon ba☂llooned into a fully fledged sequel. It launched for the Wii in 2010, and unlike its prede♎cessor, it included an actual co-op character.

The second🐟 player could now take the form of an Orange Luma that remains shackled to Mario's side throughout his quest. Granted, it's a purely cosmetic change: gameplay-wise, player two is still limited to everything from the first game, only this time with the inclusion of being able to wallop enemies💜. About the only new wrinkle that's an active benefit for player one is the Luma's ability to hold onto powerups until they're needed in a pinch.

7 New Super M🌳ario Bro🍬s. 2 (2012)

New Super Mario Bros. 2 (which is actually the third in the subseries) launched on the 3DS in 2012. It subtracted two players from its Wii cousin, and instead focused on Mario and Luigi. The interesting thing about this case was that each player had their own screen, since the multiplayer was powered by wireless communicat🍌ion between two 3DS devices. It allowed both parties to wander🌠 off and do their own thing, which minimized some of the blood-boiling difficulty of NSMB Wii.

This toned down approach made the co-op more enjoyable, and more conducive to kicking back and immersing yourself in the Mushroom Kingdom without cussing up a storm. NSMB2 itself is, oddly, focused around hooverin𒊎g up as many coins as possible and putting Scrooge McDuck to shame – so it was a perfect fit for two-player action. Kerching!

6 🃏 New Super Mario Br𝔉os. U (2012)

New Super Mario Bros. U launched, appropriately, alongside the Wii U in 2012. It landed within mere months of NSMB2, and it was at this point that the series had hit full saturation for fans. Co-op wise, it was an identical setup to its Wii cousin: Mario, Luigi, a blue Toad, and a yellow Toad were all playable again. It was fun enough, and the return to an open-ended world map was welcome, ൲but it was undeniably just more of the same.

If they so wished, a fifth player could join the game using the 💟Wii U GamePad, using its touchscreen to inhibit enemies and place down temporary platforms for Mario and company. This was known, charitably, as 'Boost Mode.'

Aside from enabling the team to grab Star Coins with borderline cheap levels of effort, this was boring and precisely no fun for player five (assuming you could even assemble five mates to play w🦩ith 🗹you at once).

In 2018, the game came to the Switch as New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. It added Toadette and Nabbit into the equation, but inexplicably the cap remained at four players. The most notable thing to come out of this otherwise lackadaisical port was Toadette’s transformation: if she got a Super Crown, she would turn into Peachette, an exact doppelgänger of the monarch herself. For reasons we won't delve into here, this... sent th꧟e fanbase into an uproar.