Summary

• Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam offers a unique crossover RPG experience worth revisiting on your Nintendo 3DS.
• Mario Party DS may have been overlooked, but it's a classic Mario Party game that deserves some love.
• Super Princess Peach challenges stereotypes with unique gameplay mechanics and charming art style on the Nintendo DS.

Folks are practically swimming in games these days. It's like an all-you-can-eat buffet without the dire bathroom trips afterward, at least depending on which game you're playing. Hey, everybody reacts to Hotel Mario in their own way.

But with this bountiful harvest of titles under the famous plumber's stache, it's only natural that a few might find themselves pushed aside in favor of their more popular brethren. As Alpha Protocol taught us, reviews don't necessarily tell the whole story. So what are some often-overlooked Mario games that deserve a second glance?

10 Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam 𝄹

Everybody loves a good crossover, right? Note the 'good' qualifier there. The final original entry in AlphaDream's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mario & Luigi RPG series capped things off with a bang. But unfortunately, it seems not a lot of people were aro𝄹und to hear🎃 it.

The game is exactly what it sounds like, a crossover between the Mario & Luigi series and the Paper Mario games, with Paper Mario himself joining your team and adding some honestly pretty clever new moves to your arsenal. Despite solid reviews, fans quickly forgot about this one, but it's well worth picking up, particularly if your 3DS has ironically been serving as a paperweight.

9 💖 Mario Party DS 🍎

The Mario Party👍 series has enjoyed a turbulent journey of fan reactions, ranging from masterpiece to barely worth being used as a coaster. So some were understandably burnt out on the games by the time Mario Party DS came around, which is a shame, since it plays really well.

At the time, it wasn't difficult to see why it didn't really 'wow' the crowds. It was just a typical classic Mario Party game on a handheld. The thing is, it was the last one to use that fan-favorite formula for over a decade until Super Mario Party. So maybe give Mario Party DS some overdue love next time you see it in a bargain bin. It held the line the best it could.

8 ꦬ Super Princess Peach

This might be a bit controversial, particularly given the optics of Super Princess Peach giving its heroine an arsenal of abilities revolving around being emotional. But if people can look past 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stellar Blade's lack of personality in favor of unfortunate character designs and ani🐠mations, this should be no biggie.

One of the precious few games featuring Princess Peach in a starring role, Super Princess Peach does indeed change things up. It's a satisfying platformer with unique mechanics and a charming art style. Sure, it's admittedly rather easy, but who doesn't need a nice palate cleanser after hurling your Elden Ring controller across the room?

7 Paper Mario: Color S🍸plash 𒅌

You might remember the predominantly 𓄧negative response Paper Mario: Color Splash drew from fans when it was first announced. Its predecessor, Stꦏicker Star, left about as bad a taste as it could without actually feeding fans paper, so the idea of another game along the same lines was questionable.

But despite continuing to stray from Paper Mario's RPG roots, Color Splash excelled particularly well with its writing, a quality shared by the much more beloved Paper Mario: Origami King. So if you like the latter (and have a Wii U), give this colorful entry a shot.

6 Yoshi's New Island

Here's the thing about sequels. Sometimes, they just copy the original like a kid sibling. That's the case with Yoshi's New Island on the 3DS, which arguably stuck a little too close to the ideas of its predecessor, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.

But on its own, is that a bad thing? Sure, a sequel should generally be taken as an opportunity to innovate on a familiar formula. But if it instead keeps things largely the same, then at worst, you now have more of what you loved in the first place. If you want another helping of the comfy Yoshi's Island, this is how you get it.

5 Super Mari🍸o Land

Super Mario Land is notable for its simple art style, deceptively amazing soundtrack, and for being the 'other' Mario Land game on the Game Boy. You'll find many fans understandably proclaiming their love of Super Mario Land 2, but there's still something special about this one.

Admittedly, Super Mario Land is one of the more beloved and well-known 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Game Boy games. But it often finds itself overshadowed by its sequel. Checking🎉 it out is worth your time, though💙. This game has you fighting sea monsters and aliens to get to Princess Daisy, and frankly, she deserves nothing less.

4 Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 🌌

After appearing as the villain in Super Mario Land 2, Wario quickly grabbed his own starring role in a series of games more focused on hoarding money than any vaguely heroic pursuits. Who says video game characters aren't relatable?

The Wario Land games still maintain a sizable fanbase, even if you might not hear people talk about this original outing quite as much due to how relatively simple it is. It's worth a play, though — it introduced Wario's charge attack and you'll find its various hat power-ups are still a blast to use. It's also endlessly entertaining that he powers up by eating garlic.

3 ⭕ New Super Mario Bros. 2 🦋

Remember how Wario cares more about money than being a hero? Well, apparently h൲e became a bad influence on Mario and Luigi too, because New Super Mario Bros. 2 sees the plumber boys gathering wealth like a CEO 🔯during layoffs.

This 3DS sequel isn't quite as memorable as its smash hit DS predecessor New Super Mario Bros. Plus, its focus on coins isn't exactly the most compelling motivation. But it's notable for bringing back the racoon suit with the same flying functionality as in Super Mario Bros. 3, and that alone is worth a playthrough or two.

2 🦂 Mario Tennis

The 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nintendo 64 was a solid game platform in general, with Mario titles like Super Mario 64 and Paper Mario continuing to influence new titles to this day. But many consider Mario Tennis as little more than that game where Waluigi first appeared. (To be fair, the most imp🐎ortant milestone.)

Other Mario Tennis games have come and gone since those days, but you might be surprised how much fun this original can be with friends. Like Mario Kart 64, it's refreshingly straightforward compared to later entries. But unlike Mario Kart 64, you get to play as Shy Guy who makes funny noises.

1 Princess Peach: Showtime! ⭕

Yet another Princess Peach-focused game, and people immediately slept on it.While some might simply just write it off as a kids' game, that's doing it and themselves a disservice.

The amount of variety on display in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Princess Peach: Showtime! is especially impressive, featuring platforming elements with gameplay changes tied to costume ch🐷anges, all creatively themed as a stage play. This game proves that Peach deserves the spotlight far more often, literally in this case.