Which are the 'mainline' Mario titles?

[Breetai]

What progression do you see?

It's the main series!
Maybe it should just be four games: Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, 3, 4 (SMW)? I think I'm just fighting from emotion here and using the Mario Wiki as my ammo.

Now if I were to tell someone that Princess Daisy in SML was actually a grayscale Princess Peach, how would they ever know the difference?

It says "Land"!

Oh and each area of Mario 3 was a different Kingdom ruled by a different Monarch. Until the last World, Peach was safely at home in the Mushroom Kingdom, writing letters to Mario.

Good point. The Mushroom world is a large world indeed.


Perhaps I could be persuaded into adding Super Mario Land 1 and 2 to the "main" series list for this thread's sake, but that's it! No Yoshi's Island! It's like saying Street Fighter Alpha is part of the SFII series.

[Flake]

Well yeah, I agree with that. The criteria should be as simple as : Mario is the main character and it is a platformer made by Nintendo.

[flamepanther]

My main criteria in determining whether a game is "main line" in a series with little to no story is whether (or how much, or in what way) it influences or is likely to influence the games that come after.

Super Mario Land innovations in gameplay never really made it off of the Gameboy. Characters that were introduced in that series are either largely forgotten (Tatanga, anyone?), or are used only in other side games. Daisy and Wario show up in plenty of Mario games, but it's always the sports, party, or kart games--except for that one time Wario showed up as an extra player in a remake of a game he wasn't meant to be in, arguably a side game itself.

Influence also works both ways. A "main line" game should generally show a certain amount of similarity to previous games in the series. SML1 does fine here, but SML2 has a certain weirdness to it that I find difficult to pin down. In terms of the mechanics, it generally behaves like a Mario game, but the "heart" that was put into it feels like it's off in some other direction. There are a lot of enemy designs and art quirks that I just feel would never be one of Miyamoto's Mario games. For it to be part of the "main line" it should be in the spirit of the games that came before, even if the original creators aren't involved (or even if they are).

[alienjesus]

Influence also works both ways. A "main line" game should generally show a certain amount of similarity to previous games in the series. SML1 does fine here, but SML2 has a certain weirdness to it that I find difficult to pin down. In terms of the mechanics, it generally behaves like a Mario game, but the "heart" that was put into it feels like it's off in some other direction. There are a lot of enemy designs and art quirks that I just feel would never be one of Miyamoto's Mario games. For it to be part of the "main line" it should be in the spirit of the games that came before, even if the original creators aren't involved (or even if they are).

The heart thing I always assumed was a concession for the game boy, where a super mushroom and 1up mushroom would look identical in greyscale.

[Flake]

My main criteria in determining whether a game is "main line" in a series with little to no story is whether (or how much, or in what way) it influences or is likely to influence the games that come after.

That is an even shakier standard than using the story. If you want to go that direction, you would need to consider Mario Bros 2 (US) since many of the enemies from that game (especially shy guys or that weird moving cactus) became staples for the Mario franchise later on.

Keep it simple: Mario is the main character in a platformer. That's all you need.

[flamepanther]

The heart thing I always assumed was a concession for the game boy, where a super mushroom and 1up mushroom would look identical in greyscale.

Uh, I meant the "feel" of the game, not the literal heart power up.

That is an even shakier standard than using the story. If you want to go that direction, you would need to consider Mario Bros 2 (US) since many of the enemies from that game (especially shy guys or that weird moving cactus) became staples for the Mario franchise later on.

Well it was definitely considered "main line" in the U.S. and the sequels out of Japan seem to hold to that, so why not? It was a bit of a departure, given it's origins, but the weirdness was absorbed and integrated into the rest of the series, so now it's a part of the whole.

Keep it simple: Mario is the main character in a platformer. That's all you need.

That would include include SMB2(USA) even more definitely than my method. It would also include Mario Vs. Donkey Kong and Super Paper Mario, both of which scream "side game" to me, so I still like my method better