Mario

The Mario series is a popular series of video games that were created by Nintendo and is one of the best selling video games of all time.

Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong was Mario's first appearance. It was released in the arcades in 1981 and on the Famicom in 1983 (NES in 1985). Mario (Jumpman in the arcade) has to rescue his girlfriend Pauline from Donkey Kong who has taken her to the top. The game itself became a huge success in the arcades. The arcade version has many bootleg clones that were released in North America and in Europe. The Famicom version removes 50m due to Nintendo not having enough memory at the time. The game had two sequels. Donkey Kong Jr where you have to save Donkey Kong by climbing vines and other things and avoiding Mario's traps and Donkey Kong 3 where you take control of Stanley and stop Donkey Kong from causing ruckus in the greenhouse. The Famicom version of Donkey Kong and it's sequels has appeared on many multicarts due to its small size.

Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros. is a platform video game released on the Famicom in September 13, 1985 and on the NES in November of 1985. The player plays as Mario (Second player plays as Luigi) and has to run through the Mushroom Kingdom, getting through Bowser's forces and saving Princess Toadstool. He is able to stomp on enemies, collect coins and go down pipes in the levels. Power-ups can be gained by hitting the ? Blocks that are found throughout the levels. Super Mario Bros. was one of the best-selling video games of all time and it sold about 40.241 million copies worldwide and has been held with very high acclaim. Due to the game's popularity and small size, it can be found on a large number of multicarts, either hacked or still the same. Some known pirated hacks have been produced, such as Pandamar, Pocket Maero (sic) and Super Simpsons as well as another hack which replaces the graphics with those from the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2. The game was ported to the Mega Drive under Super Mario Bros. 2 and Sonic Jam 6. The first couple of Super Boy games were based off this game.

Super Mario Bros. 2 (Japan)

Super Mario Bros. 2 is the sequel to Super Mario Bros. released on the Famicom Disk System in September 13, 1985. It plays very much like the original but with the option to choose either Mario or Luigi, with the latter being able to jump higher but has less traction. The sequel adds some new things such as Poison Mushrooms, Warp Zones taking you backwards, red Piranha Plants (still go up and down even if you're near them), etc. It was never released in North America due to the difficulty as well as being too close to the original Super Mario Bros. The game itself has been unofficially ported to the Famicom.

Super Mario Bros. 3

Super Mario Bros. 3 is the third Super Mario Bros. game released in Famicom in October 23, 1988 and the NES in 1990. Mario and Luigi have to save each king of the seven kingdoms from Bowser and his kids. This game has some new power-ups such as the Raccoon Tail which makes you float and fly. It managed to sell 18 million copies worldwide, making it the best selling game not bundled with a console. This game has been unofficially released on the pirate market. Mario's sprites in this game have been used in pirate hacks and games such as Somari and Super Mario World. Super Bio Man 4 for the MSX is a Mario game with SMB3 elements in it. It has been ported to the Game Boy Color under Super Mario 3 Special by Yong Yong.

Super Mario World

Super Mario World is the first Mario game that was released on the Super Famicom and the SNES, It was released in November 21, 1990 for the Super Famicom and September 13, 1991 for the SNES and was a pack-in title for both. Mario and Luigi have to save Dinosaur Land from Bowser in this one. This game includes the cape power-up and Yoshi who became a very popular Mario character. This game was later ported to the Famicom by Hummer Team and to the Mega Drive under Super Mario World 64 by an unknown company. Super Boy 4 on the Master System was closely inspired by this game.

Super Mario Kart

Super Mario Kart is the first Super Mario Kart game. It was released in August 27, 1992 for the Super Famicom and September 1, 1992 for the SNES. The player can play as either Mario, Luigi, Toad, Princess Toadstool, Yoshi, Koopa, Bowser, and Donkey Kong Jr and race against the CPUs or another player or play Battle Mode where players have to pop each others balloons. It was responsible for creating the kart-racing sub genre and expanded the Mario series beyond the normal platform games. Although never ported to the NES, Kart Fighter by Someri Team uses characters from the game.

Pirates

Due to the official Mario games being highly popular, the series have been a target for pirates. Super Mario Bros. and the Donkey Kong games have appeared on many multicarts, thanks to the small memory. Super Mario Bros. 3 can also be found on multicarts, although this is nowhere near as common. Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 have been released unofficially as well. In Taiwan, Mario is usually taken off the front of the cart due to copyright issues. There are hacks that replace the main character with Mario, usually using sprites from Super Mario Bros 3. Some of these are Super Bros 10 Kung Fu Mari (Hack of Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu) and Super Mario 14 (hack of Kid Niki 3). These hacks often refer to Mario as "Mari" or "Mali", which comes from his Chinese name 瑪莉, or do not use the Mario name at all, probably to avoid Nintendo's trademarks.

Super Mario Bros. has been ported to the MSX by Zemina under Super Boy I which has many sequels including Super Boy II (Super Boy I with altered level design, somewhat similar with Super Mario Bros. to Super Mario Bros. 2), Super Boy 3 and Super Boy 4 (both Mario games with Super Mario World elements. Super Boy IV was only released for the Sega Master System). Also on the MSX, Super Bio Man 4 by Zemina is a Mario game using SMB3 elements and Dr. Hello is a port of Dr. Mario. Mario has been on the Mega Drive in Super Mario Bros. 2 (port of Super Mario Bros), Super Mario World 64 (port of Super Mario World) and Super Mario World (hack of Squirrel King). Someri Team/Hummer Team made a few games involving Mario that became popular. They are Somari (Sonic The Hedgehog on the NES with Mario instead of Sonic), Kart Fighter (fighting game with Super Mario Kart characters) and Super Mario World (port of Super Mario World to the NES). Mario has also appeared in World Heroes 2 as one of the fighters and in Street Fighter V 20 Peoples in Blanka's stage, both games by Cony. Dian Shi Ma Li features a Mario look-alike known as Fortran.