List of recurring Mario franchise enemies

This is a list of common enemies in the Mario franchise. The enemies on the list are in alphabetical order, and are most commonly found in Super Mario games, in which Bowser commands his minions to block and act as obstacles to Mario, who is normally attempting to rescue Princess Peach.

Most of these enemies are identical in look and are classified as species. While only those who belong to Bowser or specific antagonists are enemies to Mario or players, other members of these species (usually individuals) have their own life in or out of Mushroom Kingdom (e.g. King Boo; Goombario), similar with Toads or Yoshis. Most of them appear in the Mario role-playing games, and some may even aid Mario in his adventures.

Some Mario spin-off games present enemy species as playable characters even though they are not always actual individual characters.

Blooper

Bloopers (Gessō (ゲッソー) in Japanese, originally known in English as Bloobers) are white, squid-like creatures that often appear in water-based levels. Mario Party 8 was the first game in which Blooper appeared as a playable character.

Super Mario Maker

Super Mario Maker (Japanese: スーパーマリオメーカー, Hepburn: Sūpā Mario Mēkā) is a side-scrolling platform game creation system and video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii U game console, and released worldwide in September 2015. Players may create and play their own custom levels based on Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U, and share them online. Over time, new editing tools are unlocked, allowing players to download and play levels designed by other players.

Super Mario Maker received critical acclaim upon its release, with reviewers praising the game's user interface and level editing tools. As of February 3, 2016, players have created more than 6 million courses.

Gameplay

Super Mario Maker is a game creation and publishing tool and video game, which allows players to create their own levels from the Super Mario series using the Wii U GamePad, and then publish those levels to the Internet. Players can base their levels on the gameplay, and visual style of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U, with their corresponding styles of physics, gameplay mechanics and enemy behavior. Some elements are limited to specific game styles while others can be added to game styles that previously did not have them in the original game, such as Boos in Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario

Super Mario (Japanese: スーパーマリオ, Hepburn: Sūpā Mario) is a series of platform video games created by Nintendo featuring their mascot, Mario. Alternatively called the Super Mario Bros. (スーパーマリオブラザーズ, Sūpā Mario Burazāzu) series or simply the Mario (マリオ) series, it is the central series of the greater Mario franchise. At least one Super Mario game has been released for every major Nintendo video game console and handheld.

The Super Mario games follow Mario's adventures in the fictional Mushroom Kingdom, usually with Mario as the player character. He is usually joined by his brother, Luigi, and occasionally by other members of the Mario cast. As in platform video games, the player runs and jumps across platforms and atop enemies in themed levels. The games have simple plots, typically with Mario rescuing the kidnapped Princess Peach from the primary antagonist, Bowser. The first title in the series, Super Mario Bros., released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985, established gameplay concepts and elements prevalent in nearly every Super Mario game since. These include a multitude of power-ups and items that give Mario special magic powers such as fireball-throwing and size-changing into giant and miniature sizes.

Beetle

Beetles are a group of insects that form the order Coleoptera /koʊliːˈɒptərə/. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek κολεός, koleos, meaning "sheath"; and πτερόν, pteron, meaning "wing", thus "sheathed wing", because most beetles have two pairs of wings, the front pair, the "elytra", being hardened and thickened into a shell-like protection for the rear pair and the beetle's abdomen.

Taxonomy and evolution

The Coleopterans include more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known types of animal life forms. About 450,000 species of beetles occur – representing about 40% of all known insects. Some estimates put the total number of species, described and undescribed, at as high as 100 million, but a figure of one million is more widely accepted. Such a large number of species poses special problems for classification, with some families consisting of thousands of species and needing further division into subfamilies and tribes. This immense number of species allegedly led evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane to quip, when some theologians asked him what could be inferred about the mind of the Creator from the works of His Creation, that God displayed "an inordinate fondness for beetles".

Mario

Mario (Japanese: マリオ, Hepburn: Mario, [ma.ɽi.o]) (English /ˈmɑːrioʊ/; Italian: [ˈmaːrjo]) is a fictional character in the Mario video game franchise, created by Nintendo's Japanese video game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. Serving as the company's mascot and the eponymous protagonist of the series, Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creation. Depicted as a short, pudgy, Italian plumber who resides in the Mushroom Kingdom, his adventures generally center upon rescuing Princess Peach from the Koopa villain Bowser. His younger brother is Luigi.

The Mario franchise is the best-selling video game franchise of all time. Over 210 million units of the overall Mario series of games have been sold. Outside of the Super Mario platform series, other Mario genres include the Mario Kart racing series, sports games such as the Mario Tennis and Mario Golf series, role-playing games such as Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario, and educational games such as Mario Is Missing! and Mario's Time Machine. The franchise has branched into several mediums, including television shows, film, comics and licensed merchandise. Since 1995, Mario has been voiced by Charles Martinet.