The 10 WEIRDEST Mario Games
“Mario is Missing!” (1993)
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Likely the most well-known of the weird Mario games out there, Mario is Missing is quite the anomaly. Playing out as a sort of point-and-click style game with some very light platforming elements, you must guide Luigi all across the earth in search of…spoiler alert…Mario. Bowser is up to his nefarious shenanigans once again in this educational game, this time around, working hard to melt Antarctica with a staggering amount of hair dryers that he tries to hoover up. The game aims to teach players things like geography and history through multi-choice questions while also trying to find and acquire treasures. It’s a super bizarre experience that feels like a Mario game but doesn’t play anything like one. Plus, around the same timeframe, players were also treated to Mario’s Time Machine, another unlikely educational game all about time travel.
“Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle” (2017)
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If you would have asked most Mario fans over a decade ago if they would ever conceive of an XCOM-style strategy game featuring beloved Mario characters and the often maligned Rabbids, they probably would have laughed right at you. Well, fortunately, Ubisoft decided it best to meld together the two properties into a deeply enjoyable, if sometimes flawed strategy game for the Nintendo Switch, on top of a sequel years later dubbed Sparks of Hope. Getting to explore a lush and vibrant Mario-themed overworld while hopping into strategic, turn-based battles provides a lot of fun, with the game keeping up the challenge all throughout. Yes, there’s no doubt about how weird this mashup is, but for those that played it, they fell in love with the unique gameplay, charming characters, and humorous story.
“All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros.” (1986)
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Okay, this is definitely a wacky one but hear me out. There’s a Japanese radio broadcasting program known as All Night Nippon, and the show has featured some popular, quirky hosts over the years, at least from what I can tell. Well, in 1986, Nintendo decided it would be an absolute ball to team up with All Night Nippon to release a remixed version of the NES game, Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels in Japan, with only a few thousand copies ever being made available. What makes this title so darn bizarre is that many of the traditional enemies such as goombas or piranha plants are instead replaced with All Night Nippon hosts, making for some strange Mario-themed nightmare fuel. Plus, many levels were adorned with nods to the radio show such as recording mics and different symbols on flags, items, and the like And, instead of being greeted by Toad at the end of the castles, you are greeted by an All Night Nippon host. Strange indeed.
“Mario’s Game Gallery” (1995)
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Wanna play games like checkers, backgammon, and yahtzee with Mario staring into your soul? Well, if you said yes to that hyper-specific question then you’re in luck since Mario’s Game Gallery is here to save the day. A frankly bizarre creation of random real-world games featuring Mario shouting random lines at you, Game Gallery is quite something to behold. This compilation of games includes checkers, go fish, backgammon, dominoes, and yahtzee. While these games aren’t in and of themselves weird, it’s the way Mario demands you to play and keep up that makes this package quite unique.
“Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix” (2005)
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If seeing Mario bust-a-move across a host of wacky and colorful themed locales doesn’t put a big ol’ smile on your face then you need to stop being such a curmudgeon. There’s no denying this GameCube version of DDR is downright bananas. Complete with a full story mode where Waluigi steals a bunch of music keys, items to use Mario Party-style, and a host of Nintendo characters, DDR Mario Mix is actually a pretty darn well-rounded game. Getting to have Mario keep up with the beat while showing off his dance moves as remixed Mario songs play for your auditory enjoyment never really gets old.
“Hotel Mario” (1992)
Holy moly, that freakin’ opening to Hotel Mario is pure nightmare fuel, but then again, it could just be because the Philips CD-i didn’t quite provide lovely animations to enjoy. Enter, Hotel Mario, a weird Mario-themed puzzle game that you wouldn’t think exists…but it does. Now, to be fair, Hotel Mario is quite unique, at least for the time. In either solo or two-player mode, you can take control of Mario or Luigi as they move through various colorful hotel locations opening and closing doors, moving up and down elevators, and working through the single screen puzzle stages to save the day, because…reasons. Heck, you even have pretty epic boss fights in this puzzle game, something that’s unexpected and refreshing. Get ready to put your thinking cap on for this strange Mario title.
“Mario Family” (2001)
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While not technically a game, this Jaguar and GameBoy Color…we’ll call it an experience…is a Japanese-only embroidery and sewing software piece for Mario fans. Yes, you heard that right, this “game” exists to take a Mario and friends character, add some color and a palette, and embroider it onto the sweater of your dreams using the Jaguar JN-100 Sewing Machine. I don’t think I need to say anything else really: that sums up how darn weird Mario Family truly is.
“Mario’s Early Years!” (1992)
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Educational games were all the rage in the 90s with the likes of the plentiful Arthur or Sesame Street games, Gizmos and Gadgets, and in this entry’s case, Mario’s Early Years! Mario’s Early Years consists of three separate experiences with Letters, Numbers, and Preschool. Each one of these strange point-and-click games engages younger players with various Mario characters, diverse locales, and simple puzzles where selecting the correct letter, number, shape, color, etc is the key to success. Many of us have fond memories of playing games like this on the chunky computers in our schools back in the day but there’s no doubt that they are weird Mario experiences overall. Time to get your learning on!
“Mario Artist Suite” (1999-2000)
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While Mario Paint could have easily been slotted into this entry instead, it’s the Mario Artist Suite that really takes the cake for pure weirdness. This compilation of creative software pieces features the likes of Talent Studio, Polygon Studio, Communications Studio, and Paint Studio. Part of the 64DD from 1999-2000, these experiences utilized peripherals such as the Nintendo 64 Mouse to make for an easier form factor where a traditional computer mouse and keyboard would be used. Each part of the suite offered up a different set of studio-adjacent tools to create things like Mario pictures, animations, and short video creations. It’s a pretty remarkable package that we really haven’t seen in the years since then from Nintendo, with the exception of something like Labo.
“Mario Teaches Typing” (1992)
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The Dance Dance Revolution for your fingers is none other than the weird genre of typing games, especially if you grew up in the 90s like I did. Mario Teaches Typing looks and feels like an off brand Mario game experience, especially with the way Mario shouts at you when starting each round of typing exercises. Getting to listen to fever dream-like Mario music while typing out sentences about Zeus or the American Revolution sure is bizarre but there’s no doubt that it teaches you to type as the game’s title implies.
