Nintendo’s world-famous Mario series is renowned for being incredibly easy for anyone to pick up and play. The bright and joyful color scheme, combined with generous and responsive controls make Mario the perfect game for players of all ages. However, that hasn’t stopped our now ex-plumber’s franchise from kicking our butts on more than one occasion.
New or old, the Super Mario games have always been fond of throwing in an absolutely killer level from time to time — the kind that leaves you wanting to throw your controller at the TV after failing your twentieth attempt. Read on to discover some of the Mario series’ most notoriously difficult levels.
Super Mario Sunshine - Lily Pad Ride
Super Mario Sunshine was by and large a cheery game, but that didn't stop us screaming in frustration when trying to complete what is unquestionably the game’s toughest level. Lily Pad Ride isn’t just a difficult level in its own right, what really put the poisoned icing on the already bitter cake was the fact that even reaching the level was a challenge. To clear the forcefield blocking access to the pipe, you needed to secure a Yoshi before taking him on a multi-stage boat ride, hopping between islands as you wait for the next boat to arrive. It’s slow progress, and with a single touch of water spelling the end for poor Yoshi, it’s a serious test of patience rather than skill.
And once you finally make it, what are you rewarded with? The infamous Lily Pad Ride. The premise of this level was your classic ‘collect eight coins to earn the shine’ — simple, right? Well those coins were all suspended over a flowing river of acid, of which a single touch would end your run. Riding on top of a bobbing lily pad, you needed to control your direction by firing the FLUDD backwards, aiming to float past coins up ahead. Missed a coin? Too bad, the river was just too strong for you to power your way back. Oh, and did we mention your floating platform degraded over time, so if you took too long then Mario ended up taking a bath straight out of Breaking Bad’s first season. We really don’t want to think about how many hours we wasted in failed attempts to complete this We’d love to see Sunshine ported to the Switch, but we’re equally terrified at the prospect of having to face this hell all over again.
New Super Mario Bros. U - Don’t. Touch. Anything.
The final coin collection level in New Super Mario Bros. U, was a clever inversion of your typical Mario instincts. Filled to the brim with coins and items, Don’t. Touch. Anything. asked you to reach the end of the level without — you guessed it — touching a single coin, item or enemy. Add in a pair of Lakitus throwing spinies down at you every few seconds, and this level became anything but easy.
Littered with tempting item boxes and rotating platforms smothered in coins, carefully precise jumps were needed to find a clean path through. With time-dependent scoring thrown in the mix it was tricky as hell to get anything above a bronze ranking out of the level.
Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels - World C-3
Originally held back for being too difficult for western gamers, The Lost Levels was first released to Japan as Super Mario Bros 2. in 1986. As a game bumped from a market for its difficulty, it’s no surprise to see it crop up in a list of Mario’s toughest ever levels. World C-3 was an especially cruel challenge, featuring springs which rocketed Mario well above the top of the screen, making it extremely tough to know where exactly you’d be coming down.
Many of the jumps you needed to make were straight up leaps of faith, with the landing zone positioned well out of view from where you launched. Once again Lakitu turned up to make the stage even tougher, and there are even random gusts of stormy winds which could easily send Mario slipping to an early grave. The Lost Levels were filled with evil ideas to make our stalwart plumber's life harder, but World C-3 was an especially cruel mistress to contend with.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - The Perfect Run
Taking on The Ultimate Test in Super Mario Galaxy 2’s Grandmaster Galaxy required you to utilize every one of the skills you’d honed throughout the game. A series of miniature worlds, it took you through everything from Wiimote-pointing Yoshi swings to Cloud jumping through an electric maze and dodging expanding laser rings while you flipped platforms.
Sounds tough, right? Well the games final star, The Perfect Run, made you do all of that again — only this time you had to complete it in one run without taking a single point of damage. Youch. Earning this final star forced you to really nail down each and every segment to a tee, and getting truly efficient meant mastering little tricks like saving a few of cloud mario’s platforms to help you through the subsequent part. Completing The Perfect Run was gruelling, but by the gods it felt good once we made it.
Super Mario Bros. 3 - World 8 Airship
When it comes to the old 2D Marios, auto-scrolling levels are up there as some of the worst offenders for frustration-inducing difficulty. The Airship in Super Mario Bros. 3’s World 8 easily puts itself near the front of the pack. Jumping between platforms in the sky, Mario needed to dodge cannonballs, wrenches and flames as he kept pace with the rolling background. This Airship, matched perfectly by its foreboding music and stormy background, is Super Mario Bros. 3’s toughest level, and one well worth saving a P-Wing for.
Super Mario 3D World - Champion’s Road
Don’t let 3D World’s cheery demeanour, gentle start and adorable kitty costumes deceive you. This multiplayer Mario title started out easy, but that didn’t stop Nintendo from including a devilishly tough challenge towards its end. Champion’s Road was heavy on all sorts of fiendish traps, while unhelpfully light on checkpoints. That is to say, there are none. To best this course you had to overcome sinking platforms, swinging spikes, time-synced block flips, an auto-scrolling water segment and, well, the list goes on.
We don’t know what level of coordination Nintendo thinks we have with our friends, but considering how tough the regular 3D World levels were when playing together, we clearly fall short of their expectations. Champions Road is a tough level to complete alone, so as far as we’re concerned, anyone who can beat it in a group of four is a literal wizard.
Super Mario World - Tubular
One of the strangest Mario levels ever conceived, Tubular was an empty void in the skies, with the only stable ground provided by the occasional pipe or block. If you weren’t lucky enough to have Yoshi or a cape on hand, Mario could only progress by inflating himself up like a balloon, gliding between enemies as you desperately tried to collect enough P-power to keep afloat. Hit a single enemy or run out of juice and you’d quickly find yourself falling to a swift death at the bottom of the screen. There’s never been anything quite like this in any Mario title since, making Tubular entirely unique in its challenge.
Super Mario 64 - Wing Mario Over the Rainbow
One of the game’s secret levels, Wing Mario Over the Rainbow sent the moustachiod man on a tour of the skies, taking multiple flights to collect eight red coins dotted around a series of clouds and rainbow-sprouting podiums. Aside from some transparent platforms there were no hidden traps or machiavellian obstacles to overcome here, but the level proved surprisingly difficult regardless. While they were groundbreaking at the time, Mario 64’s controls simply don’t hold up compared to the modern titles, and directing the plumber’s flight path with the winged cap could prove extremely challenging, especially once you picked up some speed. Figuring out how to use the cannon correctly to secure each and every coin took multiple attempts, and each failure would see you dumped back outside Peach’s Castle, making you to run all the way back up to the level’s entrance next to Tick Tock Clock.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - World 9-7
The mechanic behind World 9-7 is actually pretty cool. In a level comprised near entirely by ice blocks, you had to make use of a Fire Flower power up or the flame-spewing Piranha Plants to collect the three Star Coins hidden throughout. In practice, the level proved far more difficult than we could have imagined. While the Fire Flower is certainly useful, every shot bounces, removing far more of the level ahead than you'd like. Piranha plants are packed in every few steps, forcing you to dodge in and out of their shots while you slid about on the ice, desperately keeping track of any new gaps in the floor. Completing a good run of this level required patience as well as awareness, making it one best tackled alone to minimize the number of reckless fireballs tossed out.