Mario Kart World — Review
The first all-new Mario Kart in a console generation. Open-world traversal, redesigned items, and a release that has to follow the best-selling kart racer ever made.
2 min read
Franchise Hub
Mario
Nintendo's flagship platformer franchise — the most consistently well-made game series in the industry, across 2D, 3D, spin-offs, and beyond.
No major series in gaming has maintained a higher floor than Mario. The 2D line from Mario Bros. 3 through Wonder is practically a working history of platformer design. The 3D line — 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, Odyssey — reinvents the genre roughly once a console. The spin-offs (Kart, Party, RPG, Paper Mario) are their own ecosystems.
Where other franchises cycle between hits and misses, Mario's low point is usually "solidly made but familiar." Its peaks — Galaxy 1 and 2, Odyssey, Wonder — are among the best games of their respective years without qualifiers.
This hub covers reviews of the modern entries, retrospectives on the older ones, and the broader craft question: how Nintendo keeps an almost-40-year-old platformer series feeling like it's doing something genuinely new.
Key Games in the Series
Super Mario Bros. 3Super Mario WorldSuper Mario 64Super Mario GalaxySuper Mario OdysseySuper Mario Bros. WonderSuper Mario RPG
Mario Reviews
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