Who's gonna make the list?

I can’t stop thinking about the Super Mario series of games no matter how hard I try (which isn’t very hard actually). I keep coming back to my favorites and remember what made me fall in love with the plumber in the first place. So I thought, “Hey, New Super Mario Bros Wii is out now and this week is Thanksgiving, so what better time for me to rattle off my favorite Mario enemies?” I instantly agreed with myself and began searching through the Mario database to remember each and every enemy Mario has ever faced. After searching I discovered I couldn’t limit myself to just 10, so here it is, my list of the 20 Greatest Mario Enemies.

20. Wiggler:

Right, like this guy's gonna harm me?

One of the best parts about the Mario games is the way enemies don’t always make a whole lot of sense. Take Wigglers for example. Initially they look like cute, happy caterpillars just boppin’ around, doin’ their own thing with a pretty flower on their head. But then you stomp on their flowers and they go nuts. Suddenly they freak out, turn red, and bum rush you. All because the pretty flower is now gone. You heartless monster.

19. Blargg:

That's my reaction to Blarggs, too.

Fun to say, more fun to pretend to be. I’m assuming a Blargg is a type of fire dragon thing as they live in lava, only to pop their eyes out and lazily dive at you with a “Blargg!” sort of sound. Take a second now and go find your sister (or brother if he’s been particularly evil to you lately). Hide somewhere and when they come by, jump out with a “BLARGG!” If that isn’t fun, I don’t know what is.

18. Fawful:

Always play your Mario & Luigi before bed.

Sometimes people just don’t heed my advice. If you don’t know who Fawful is, you’re probably not heeding it. Have you heeded? I bet not. Go play Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and you’ll know exactly who this little bean of hilarity is. Known for his catchphrase “I have fury!” Actually, this may be the proper response to “BLARGG!”

17. Dino Piranha:

That's it, I'm replaying Super Mario Galaxy this week.

Super Mario Galaxy did a lot right, but it didn’t add too many new enemies that stood out for me. It did however bring back a favorite of mine in this Petey Piranha upgrade. The Dino Piranha is like Petey Piranha on steroids, and while I don’t endorse the use of drugs other than Super Mushrooms and Fire Flowers, I do support the revamped primal-urges of the Dino Piranha, such as “Destroy!” and “BLARGG!”

16. Francis:

It's like they took my high school self and made a video game character out of him.

The Paper Mario games have a way of getting funnier and funnier with each new sequel. When I heard about Super Paper Mario, I wasn’t too enthused since it wasn’t going to be an RPG like its predecessors but rather a 2-D/3-D platformer. And then I got to the third world and encountered Francis the chameleon, an uber nerd. When Princess Peach attempts attacking him, he boots Swoon.exe, a program that’s primary function is to talk to girls. I think this quote says it all: “Booting up Swoon.exe! Activating Nerd2Babe interface mod with real-time wooing!” That’s priceless.

15. Kriffid:

Beware the deadly fish-bush!

You’re going to find a good handful of Super Mario RPG enemies showing up here, with the first being Kriffid, a bush-like thing. Or maybe a fish-like thing? I think it’s closer to a fish-bush actually. The first time I encountered one of these things I thought there was a mistake and the game didn’t load the proper enemy. Then the bush opened up and a fish enemy scuttled around and wasted my face using electrical attacks. I’ve been terrified of bushes ever since, a trait shared only by a few select individuals in history such as Moses.

14. Super Koopas:

More powerful than the Justice League.

“Why haven’t we seen Koopas yet?” Is that what you’re asking? Well, I thought about them and determined that Koopas kinda suck. Yes, I enjoy them and all, but what does it say about you when you get stomped on and then killed with your own shell? That’s like if I was punched, my shirt fell off, and then someone strangled me with my own shirt. Well, Super Koopas don’t have that problem and they don’t take guff from no Mario. They can fly and they do so in groups, making normal left-to-right gameplay a massive hazard of flying doom.

13. Ptooie:

This is why I don't travel.

Ptooies are cheaters, plain and simple. I first saw these in Super Mario Bros 3 and since the day I witnessed a Piranha Plant walking about outside a pipe, keeping a spiked-ball suspended merely by blowing, I called foul play. Something about that just never seemed right to me as I was just used to the idea of deadly plants emerging from usually safe plumbing. Now suddenly they could walk about and become massive annoyances. No, that’s just too much. Red Flag called on account of absurd.

12. Jinx:

The original Napoleon Complex.

Here’s another from Super Mario RPG, and while I love this enemy, you don’t technically have to fight him if you don’t want to or if you suck at the game. The picture there doesn’t really do him justice as this dojo master is roughly the size of Mario’s foot, yet can lay the smackdown like no body’s business. He’ll leap at you with a flying kick, jump behind you and explode your Achilles tendon, or just hit you with a giant bullet that comes from nowhere. Simply, this guy owns you.

11. The Koopalings:

Glad to see you back, but what took so long?

Well, they didn’t quite break the top 10, but they came close. Why don’t they make it higher? Well, they got overshadowed by Bowser Jr, that’s why. First seen in Super Mario Bros 3, each Koopaling had its own airship and my budding gaming skills were no match for their “Jump on me three times” defenses. They returned in Super Mario World to get beaten again, and once more in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. Finally they get revived for New Super Mario Bros Wii and for that I couldn’t be happier. But still, I’ve got better enemies waiting just ahead.

10. Fuzzy:

Remember kids: Don't do drugs.

“Touch Fuzzy. Get Dizzy.” Simple words for a simple concept. Everyone that’s played Yoshi’s Island knows what a Fuzzy is. Think of them as our real-world equivalent of a kick to the head, or really cheap beer (I prefer the kick to the head). If Yoshi so much as brushes up against these little puffs the screen gets distorted and causes much difficulty with controls. All you can do is just sit and wait for the effects to wear off.

9. Angry Sun:

Why I don't leave my house when the sun's out.

Super Mario Bros 3 was a hard game because everything wanted you dead. Even the sun. Yes, the sun would scowl at you from the sky until it eventually couldn’t take any more and began dive-bombing every chance it got. And it wouldn’t even smile if it killed you, either. I remained angry. You’d go “Whoop! I died!” and fall off the screen, but the sun would still scowl like you’ve caused him far too much grief for your death to matter anymore. What did you do to him anyway? Did you murder the sun’s son in a previous game? Something to think about.

8. World 1-1 Goomba:

"AHHH Motherland!"

No other enemy on this list has as many kills racked up as this one simple murder machine. Goombas as a people are pitiful, stupid enemies that hobble back and forth, hoping you’ll step in front of them as they slowly bump into you. But this one lone solider stands as the very first enemy Mario encounters in Super Mario Bros and somehow year after year, new players pick up the controller unaware that they should jump over this stupid Goomba and instead suffer the ultimate fate. Even worse is when a seasoned player loses patience and rushes headfirst into death by accident while their friends shake their heads in shame. Yes, I’m speaking from experience.

7. Booster:

I wish I looked like this.

One of the most memorable characters from Super Mario RPG was this rough-faced scoundrel that goes by the name Booster. He has his own tower that he typically just plays around in while riding a train, but Princess Toadstool fell from the sky after the events at the beginning of the game and landed on his balcony. Therefore, he figures he should marry her since he’ll get a cake out of it. Pretty much, I sort of want to grow up to become this guy some day.

6. Pionpi:

These WILL kill you, no arguing.

Super Mario Land was always odd to me, since the English version didn’t change the Japanese enemies’ names. I always thought they should have renamed everything so you could describe them easier to your friends, since we did that anyway. “You know those Jumpy-Spiders?” “Oh, you mean Kumos?” “No, I mean Jumpy-Spiders, jerk.” By the time you get to the fourth world, which has a very distinctly “Chinese” vibe to it, you encounter enemies that look like Chinese people hopping around without much thought. They’re actually called “Pionpi” and are based off of ghouls known to Japanese people, but come on, they look just like evil Chinese people mindlessly hopping back and forth. Like I’m going to listen to Japanese developers when they says, “No seriously, we weren’t making fun of Chinese stereotypes or anything.” Don’t believe you. Plus, these enemies never die! They just get mad!

5. Boss Bass:

I know you've been eaten by one of these at least once.

BLARGG! Second only to that stupid World 1-1 Goomba in aggravating deaths, Boss Bass is the fish from Super Mario Bros 3 that swims around and hops every so often. If it catches you in its mouth, instant death. No chance to get out of it, you just die. You can kill these with a well-timed throw of a block or a shell, with a fireball, or even just grab a star and give the jerk a taste of his own medicine. But then he comes back! What the heck?! These should have been called “Blarggs” instead of those lava dragons.

4. The Rawk Hawk:

"Can you smell what the Rawk is cookin'?!"

Now we’re talking. “Are you ready to get RAWKED?!” Yes, I am ready. You have a brief stint as the Great Gonzales partway through Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door where you fight your way through the Glitz Pit to take on the champion. And who is the champion? A hawk that knows Lucha-style moves and spews catchphrases similar to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. If he’s losing he’ll even jump up to the rafters and shake down debris. I was almost sad to kick his butt.

3. The Koopa Bros:

They're the world's most fearsome fighting Koopas!

C’mon, like I’m not going to include the obvious Ninja Turtle reference? The Koopa Bros show up as the first real bosses of Paper Mario and do a fairly competent job of dealing some punishment should you not focus your attacks very well on stopping their ultimate attack of hopping into each other’s backs and launching a spinning tackle. Plus they get cool theme music to beat your face in. I really want to see these enemies come back but we haven’t seen a bit of them since the end of Paper Mario.

2. The Axem Rangers:

Go Go Axem Rangers!

First the Ninja Turtles, now Power Rangers? You bet your sweet bippy. My favorite enemies from Super Mario RPG came near the end but when they showed up I was totally blindsided. I got destroyed the first few times I tried fighting this hardcore team of Smithy’s most loyal but with enough practice I figured out the secret. However, no fight with them is ever simple since each member gets an attack and the Black Ranger attacks twice. They can scrape your sorry team in one move if you aren’t careful. And once you knock out all five, that’s it, right? Wrong! They get behind the Megazord head and fire the Breaker Beam at you, leaving you clinging for dear life.

So who can possibly beat super Koopas, Blarggs, giant fish, cheating plants, Chinese stereotypes, a Lucha chicken, the Ninja Turtles, and the Power Rangers? Oh, I think you know.

1. Giga Bowser:

"Please give me all your faces for I now own them!"

Like there was any doubt who was going to top this list? Bowser appears in just about every single Mario game and causes more than his share of chaos, but Bowser felt a little too simple to top the list. In comes Super Smash Bros Melee with a final boss battle against a Bowser reborn as Giga Bowser. Basically, take Bowser and increase his killing power, making him an unstoppable force of destruction. All he has to do is headbutt you and dark energy sparks from his noggin. Why? Who cares? Giga Bowser could take on every enemy on this list and not even lose a life, and that’s why he makes the top of the list.

Do you disagree with my list? I bet you probably do since everyone has his or her own favorites to talk about. So tell me about them with a comment or two. There are hundreds of enemies in the Mario universe and I only touched on 20. There’s plenty of room for your voice to get heard, so let’s hear it!

You see this? This is called a Grand Slam.

Oh joy! Not since my time as a wee child have I been so purely excited about a video game. Something about Mario always brings out the best in me. Given enough of Mario’s influence I might even go ahead and become a being of unadulterated elation, floating through the physical world as a glowing light that stops off every so often and anchors itself to New Super Mario Bros Wii.

So uh, I really like New Super Mario Bros Wii.

Now that the holidays are sneaking up on us, Nintendo has decided that we haven’t given them enough money. I say to them, “You fools, I’m not handing you any more money.” Their only response is, “Oh, okay, we’ll just take our new Mario game and be on our way.” So I have to rush over and stop them before they get away without my money. “Have double,” I say. And they say, “Nay, we only need $49.99. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.”

Same Game, Different Day

I mentioned New Super Mario Bros Wii a while ago with a preview article. Now that it’s out I can safely talk about every facet of the fantastic game. Xbox 360 and PS3 owners have their Modern Warfare 2, but Wii owners have this one and no reason to be jealous as a result. Everything about the new Mario Bros game harkens back to the good old days of platforming where there was no need for a story and no need for overly complex gameplay. There was just you, the controller, and tricky jumps to get frustrated at and cause you to throw the controller.

The classic power-ups are back with two new additions in the Propeller Mushroom (fun for high-jumps), and the Penguin Suit (slide on your belly, freeze enemies, and look adorable). I’m most happy to see the return of Yoshi in a Mario game since his last appearance was in Super Mario Sunshine and while I enjoyed Sunshine, it wasn’t Yoshi’s best moment.

Still The Best

Tilting your controller will change the angle the light shines at. Hooray for simple motion controls!

Level design is once again at its best with this one. There is a very good mix of simple levels and aggravatingly difficult levels but everything is paced in such a way that you won’t feel too pressured to just turn the game off after a tough level. Beyond just this, I want to talk about a new feature that may just change the landscape of video games. Let’s talk about the Super Guide.

Assume you’re having a particularly difficult time with a level and somehow die eight times in row. At this point the next time you start a level you’ll have the option of hitting a green block to let Luigi come in and play the level for you. Yes, that’s right, the game plays itself when it gets too tough for you. The computer-controlled Luigi doesn’t go out of his way to grab power-ups or coins or any bonuses for you but he does complete the level. You can even take over at any point if you think you’ve got the hang of things. The idea of having a game alleviate the difficulty so that you don’t just give up and move on to something different is beautiful in concept since it entirely gives you the choice. You don’t have to use the Super Guide, but the option is there.

Co-op Mario

Look how cute they are!

Multiplayer in Mario has always been limited to one player at a time. In New Super Mario Bros Wii up to four people can play at once. At once! And you don’t have to play nice, either. You can help each other out by grabbing another player and managing the jumping while they shoot fireballs or something. Or you can just toss them into lava and start laughing. You’ll have fun with this game no matter how many people you’re playing with.

I can’t give enough reasons to pick this one up. New Super Mario Bros Wii is perfection as a Mario game and a platformer. This is yet another excuse to purchase a Wii. If you already own a Wii, this is the game you should be buying next. I’ll run down a list of reasons to own it: Yoshi, Penguins, Koopalings, Super Guide, Four-Player Simultaneous Play, Fun, Entertaining, Amazing, Merry Christmas. That’s it, review over. Go get it.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is the third game of the series and it’ll be on the DS this September.  Surprisingly, the Mario & Luigi role playing games don’t get nearly as much credit as they deserve.

Look, I’m a Mario addict, especially anything that plays like Super Mario RPG.  The Paper Mario series is also great, but people forget about the Mario & Luigi games on the Game Boy Advance and DS.

So why should you be buying it?

The Mario & Luigi games are turn-based role-playing games that put you in control of Mario and Luigi.  Different from most RPG’s is the ability to increase the damage you can inflict on an enemy by timing a button press correctly, so when Mario is about to stomp on a Goomba for instance, a quick press of the A button before he lands will do increased damage.

Likewise during defense, pressing the A button will save Mario from damage if timed correctly.  For Luigi, just insert the letter B instead of A.

That’s where the fun comes in as you have to keep track of Mario and Luigi individually and time things right, so if an enemy swings a bat or something, you have to evade as Mario and then Luigi.

It’s tricky to figure out, but once you get going, everything just feels awesome.

The biggest draw of these games is the humor.  Few games are written with as much obvious humor as the Mario & Luigi games.  When people say, “Oh, this game is funny,” it’s hard to believe them.  But I promise, with these games, I’ve found myself guffawing multiple times, running to find someone to show off the funny thing that just happened.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is one of the few games I actually plan on getting the day it comes out.  It’s both lighthearted enough for kids to play, but offers a great deal of challenge for the older gamers.  Thus far the game has been fairly popular in Japan, but why gamers in the US haven’t gotten excited is completely beyond me.