Mario Series Stage Roster

And that's the stages! Obviously, these are only my picks. One could probably make their own roster, using exactly the same logic I did, and still come up with something completely different. In the end, I tried to represent every major game, spinoff series, and recurring stage theme, with a few oddball games represented and thrown into the mix.

My question for you is: I guess maining stages doesn't seem to be much of a thing, but if this roster were real, and you were booting this game up with friends, and you got first pick on stages, which one you picking first?

Wrecking Crew

And finally, we end with Wrecking Crew, arguably the last major game before the Mario series took a turn into the world of the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario Bros. The game took place on a construction site that Mario and Luigi were determined to demolish, the site’s foreman and his crew standing in their way.

Smash currently has a stage based on this game already existing. I would mostly leave it as is, at least in form and function, but change the aesthetic to match the original game a little bit better.

Potential theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xAOecKb1eA

Waluigi Pinball

Yet another semi-personal pick from me. Waluigi is certainly an oddball character in the Super Mario Bros. series, having literally zero presence in any main adventure game of any kind, but is a permanent fixture of every sport, party, or other multi-player game. Despite this, he has developed a massive fan following, and even stages based upon him, the most famous being the Waluigi Pinball track from Mario Kart DS.

The stage will likewise be built upon the giant pinball machine of the racetrack, but reworked to act more as a smash stage, with slopes along the bottom leading to a pit guarded by flippers, with bumpers and rolling balls causing problems of their own here and there.

Potential theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT6PZUTdd04

Vibe Island

Despite poor reception, Super Princess Peach does stand as a unique game within the Super Mario Bros. series, being one of the few games to star Peach as the game’s main character. The game takes place on Vibe Island, a place where emotions run rampant due to Bowser’s fiddling with the legendary vibe scepter, which is not what it sounds like.

The stage will take place on a large platform with an arrangement of smaller platforms above it, which will float around a recreation of the island from the game, showing it from all sides. At regular intervals, one of Peach’s emotion splash pages will flash across the screen, inducing the respective emotion on the fighters. Anger will surround them in flames and give them a boost of power, Sadness will heighten their speed but make everything slippery, Joy will cause them to become light and floaty, and Calm will progressively heal any damage.

Potential theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb83w0hLh60

Underground

Not to be confused with “The Underground” above, Underground is the last of our biome-themed levels for this roster anyway. It is based on the second level theme ever seen in Super Mario Bros., being set underground in a cave crawling with Buzzy Beetles and Piranha Plants.

This stage will be a standard underground stage, possibly similar to the underground version of Mushroomy Kingdom. It will feature a line of blocks across the top that can be broken with just a hit and platforms moving up and down on conveyor belts.

Potential theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0SuIMUoShI

Truffle Tower

One of the most unique Mario spinoffs was their brief collaboration with Konami to make a Dance Dance Revolution game starring Mario. The game featured a loose plot involving Waluigi breaking into Truffle Tower and accidentally scattering the four magical music keys across the kingdom.

As a stage, this will be pretty basic, with the fighters fighting on a light-up dance floor in the middle of the stage, with pits on either side. Lines of arrows will rise from the floor to the ceiling on either side of the stage, causing damage to anyone who connects with them and launching them in the direction pointed. The four musical keys will appear and float around in the background.

Potential theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbI4xsR49Q

Toy Box

The Mario Party series has seen numerous different incarnations throughout the series, but it follows the same general concept of characters moving around a board game layout and competing in quick minigames for points. Perhaps the most fitting “Mario Party” setting seen was in Mario Party 3, when they were all transported into a toy box.

The stage will take place inside of a giant toy box, with different levels and platforms being made up by the toys lying here and there. Every stretch of terrain will have Mario Party spaces across it, and some will cause various effects. Much like the Wario Ware stage currently existing, the game will often enter a minigame that the characters will have to compete in.

Potential theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDquKkm0YTw