Mario's clothes depend on the game he is in. For example, in the "Super Mario Strikers" soccer game, Mario wears a football kit instead of overalls, and in "Super Mario Sunshine," a very sunshiny tropical game, the character wears a red T-shirt and can also put on sunglasses and a Hawaiian-style shirt. In some games, Mario can turn into different forms, each with different clothes.
Mario is a kind-hearted and brave hero, with a love of pasta and pizza. People know Mario has a great, happy, personality since he has a high pitched, funny voice. Since "Mario's Game Gallery", Charles Martinet has been his voice actor. In the games, Mario speaks in English with a thick Italian accent. In other things like TV shows, he has a more Brooklyn-styled accent. Mario does not say many things. He usually says: "Okey dokey!", "Woohoo!", "Let's a-go!", "It's-a me! Mario!", "'ere we go", "Mama mia!" and more, though in sports games, he says things relevant to the sport, in Mario Golf he says "Fore!" for example. Mario hardly ever speaks properly in any games, leaving the talking to other characters. He does speak normally in the DiC animated cartoons and the anime series.
Mario is a plumber (he was a carpenter). He only acts like a plumber in the games, "" and the original "Mario Bros.", but pipes are always one way to get around. Mario was seen plumbing during the animated series. He knows a lot about tools and fixing pipes in the movie. In the first Donkey Kong games when Mario was called Jumpman, he was a carpenter.
In the "Dr. Mario" games first seen in 1990, Mario is a doctor. In 2001, Mario appeared in "Dr. Mario 64", an updated version of the original puzzle game. Dr. Mario appeared as an secret character in the Nintendo GameCube game "Super Smash Bros. Melee", and in another newer version, "Dr. Mario Virus Buster", for WiiWare. In the Game Boy game "Mario's Picross", Mario is an archaeologist.
Mario usually saves Princess Peach (AKA Princess Toadstool), Princess Daisy and . And he usually has to defeat villains, like Bowser(AKA King Koopa in Japan) Most characters in the games know who he is because he acts like a hero, as shown in "", where they are called "superstars", or celebrities.
In "", it is said that Mario has a toy-making company that earns him money.
Since his first game, Mario has to save the "damsel in distress" of the game. Originally, he had to rescue his girlfriend Pauline in "Donkey Kong". Pauline was soon replaced by a new damsel-in-distress, Princess Peach, in "Super Mario Bros." (she was first named "Princess Toadstool" or simply "the Princess" in English-speaking places until 1993, when "Yoshi's Safari" was sold, even though the name was not widely used until "Super Mario 64" was sold three years later). Pauline returned in the Game Boy remake of "Donkey Kong" in 1994, and later "" in 2006, although the character is now said to be "Mario's friend".
Mario has rescued Princess Peach lots of times since "Super Mario Bros.". In a role reversal, Peach rescues Mario in "Super Princess Peach". Some people say the two could be a couple.
Luigi is Mario's younger brother. He is usually a companion on many of Mario's adventures and the character whom players play as in two-player sessions of many of the video games. He sometimes acts like a "scaredy cat" who sets off to help Mario but instead needs help himself, though he has also had to rescue Mario occasionally as displayed in "Mario is Missing!" and "Luigi's Mansion". Yoshi is another one of Mario's friends.
Mario rescued Princess Daisy in "Super Mario Land" for the Game Boy. In "Super Smash Bros. Melee", the text explaining Princess Daisy's trophy states that "after her appearance in Mario Golf, some gossips portrayed her as Luigi's answer to Mario's Peach", although Luigi and Daisy were previously paired as a romantic couple in the live-action "Super Mario Bros" movie.
Wario, Mario's evil counterpart was first seen in "". Though there is no clear relationship between the two, Wario was once referred to as Mario's cousin in Nintendo Power. Wario is designed to act, in a way, as an anti-Mario.
Baby Mario is Mario when he was a child. He first appeared in "", released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and has appeared in several titles since. Baby Mario has often appeared in Nintendo-sports titles, such as "Mario Golf", "Mario Tennis", "Mario Superstar Baseball", "", "Mario Super Sluggers", and "Mario Kart Wii". These games imply Mario and Baby Mario are separate characters, but those games are considered to be outside the continuity of the main "Mario" series. More recently, he has appeared in "", in which Baby Mario appeared via time travel along with Baby Luigi, Baby Peach, and Baby Bowser, which could explain the separation of the two characters. Like the older Mario, Baby Mario is voiced by Charles Martinet.
During the development of "Donkey Kong", Mario was known as "Jumpman". Jumping—both to access places and as an offensive move—is a common gameplay element in "Mario" games, especially the "Super Mario Bros." series.
Mario's most commonly portrayed form of attack is jumping to stomp on the heads of enemies, first used in "Mario Bros.". This jump-stomp move may entirely crush smaller enemies on the stage, and usually deals damage to larger ones, sometimes also causing secondary effects. This attack often enables Mario to knock the turtle-like Koopa Troopas into their shells, which can slide into and damage other enemies or Mario.
Subsequent games have elaborated on Mario's jumping-related abilities. "Super Mario World" added the ability to spin-jump, which allows Mario to break blocks under him. Later, the Game Boy version of "Donkey Kong" allows Mario to jump higher with many jumps, and perform a back-flip. In "Super Mario 64", Mario has several jumping abilities, such as a sideways somersault, a "ground pound", which makes Mario hit the ground under him hard, and the "Wall Kick", which propels him upwards by kicking off walls.
Mario uses many items, which give him various powers. The one that shows up the most often is the "Super Mushroom", which allows Mario to grow to twice his size, becoming "Super Mario" (after the name of the series), and can take a hit before shrinking back down to "regular" Mario. If "Super Mario" collects a "Fire Flower", he will transform into "Fire Mario", who can throw fireballs at enemies. Picking up a "Star" makes it so nothing can hurt Mario for several seconds.
A common theme in the "Mario" series' power-ups is the fact that many items give Mario a semi-animal appearance, sometimes related to the item itself, for example "Super Mario Bros. 3"s Frog Suit, which turns Mario into a frog, and ""s Power Carrot, which turns Mario into a rabbit. Other times the item may not be related to the power; for example, the Raccoon Leaf gives him raccoon ears, a tail, and the power of flight. Other power-ups are overall more useful; in "Super Mario World", the Cape allows Mario to fly and glide, and a balloon in a later game in the series allows similar effects. "New Super Mario Bros." introduced other types of Mushroom power-ups, such as the "Mega Mushroom", which causes Mario to grow to a screen-filling size and the "Mini Mushroom" that makes him shrink to a very small size.
In "Super Mario 64", Mario takes extra damage without when he is not wearing his hat. Different types of caps found in the game also give him powers of flight, invincibility, and invisibility. Along with these basic features, caps gave more practical abilities as well. For example, the Metal Cap allows Mario to sink to sea floors and the Invisibility cap allows him to walk through thin surfaces such as iron grates.