Miyamoto Names Super Mario World and Odyssey as the Series’ Defining Peaks
Shigeru Miyamoto has singled out Super Mario World and Super Mario Odyssey as the two Mario games that impressed him most, describing them as the high-water marks of the series’ 2D and 3D eras respectively. The comments come from a new interview the Nintendo veteran gave to Japanese design magazine Casa Brutus for a special issue marking Super Mario Bros.’ 40th anniversary, and have since been corroborated by multiple outlets that reviewed the feature.
Miyamoto noted that he considers Super Mario World to be the pinnacle of the 2D era, and Super Mario Odyssey to be a similar achievement for modern 3D games, according to a report on the interview. It’s a rare moment of Miyamoto ranking his own back catalogue, coming straight from the man who has shepherded the plumber through four decades of hardware generations.
Super Mario World as the ceiling of 2D design
Speaking about the franchise’s 40-year history, Miyamoto said he holds “deep feelings” for every title he has worked on, but reserved special praise for the 1990 Super Nintendo classic. “By the time we finished Super Mario World, I felt we had thoroughly explored what could be done with Mario in two dimensions,” he said, as reported by Video Games Chronicle.
That sense of having exhausted the format is precisely why the jump to the Nintendo 64 felt so significant to him. “Then, when we moved into 3D with Super Mario 64, it brought back memories from my childhood,” Miyamoto added, framing the console transition as less a technical leap than an emotional homecoming.
Odyssey and the limits of the Switch
On the modern side of the ledger, Miyamoto pointed to 2017’s Super Mario Odyssey as the moment the Switch generation reached its ceiling for the series. “With the achievement of Super Mario Odyssey, I think we’ve gotten everything we wanted out of the Switch system. Up to now we’ve released new [Mario] titles with the advent of each console; I’m excited to see how the current team will handle that,” he said, according to My Nintendo News.
That framing lines up with Nintendo’s long-standing pattern of pairing a landmark 3D Mario with the launch of new hardware, from Super Mario 64 on the N64 through Super Mario Galaxy on Wii to Odyssey on Switch. With Nintendo Switch 2 now on shelves, Miyamoto’s remarks read as an acknowledgment that Odyssey closed out the original Switch’s Mario story and that a new benchmark title is expected to define the successor console.
Why Miyamoto still plays the first 30 minutes of every new Mario
Even though he has stepped back from day-to-day development, Miyamoto revealed he still personally checks each new Mario release before it goes out the door. “Nowadays, I have teammates who help maintain the world of Mario, so I entrust much of it to them,” he said. “Even so, I always personally play through about the first 30 minutes of the game and check the interface thoroughly — to make sure it really feels like Mario.”
According to Video Games Chronicle, Miyamoto said that even though he isn’t as involved in game development today compared to the past, he still ensures that each entry has “Mario-ness”, which he defines as being easily accessible and unique. It’s a quality-control ritual that has apparently outlasted his shift away from hands-on design work.
A jokey nod to Mario’s 50th anniversary
Asked how long he intends to keep up that first-30-minutes habit, Miyamoto suggested he might eventually loosen his grip entirely. Miyamoto joked that he might one day stop controlling the process: “Maybe I’ll say: ‘I won’t watch anymore!’ (laughs) The main thing is to stay healthy until Mario’s 50th anniversary”, a target that would fall in 2035 based on the character’s 1985 debut.
The interview also touched on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, the Illumination-Nintendo sequel to 2023’s billion-dollar hit, with Miyamoto expressing confidence in the follow-up despite keeping plot details close to his chest. Between the film sequel, the ongoing Super Nintendo World expansions, and speculation about what a flagship Switch 2 Mario title might look like, the Casa Brutus feature paints a picture of a creator who has handed over the controller but is still keeping score.
Read also: Switch 2 OLED Model Rumoured for Late 2027 as Ocarina of Time Remake Looms
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