Super Mario Bros: What Does Your Favorite Power Up Say About Your Personality Type?

Why Does Almost No One Want A Star?

Faster than a speeding Goomba…

More powerful than a Luigi Kart…

Able to leap tall green pipes in a single bound…

It’s Super Mario!

So you’re standing underneath one of those power-up blocks that cycles through a bunch of different options. If you jump at just the right time, the block will spit out the power up you want.

But wait. You picked THAT?

And your friends look at you like you dabbed a little ketchup on your steak.

W. T. F.?

Did you know the one you want says a lot about your personality type?

WHEN I SAY JUMP, YOU SAY

Your Options (scroll below to find your power-up/personality type)

Mushroom Fire Flower Leaf Cape Yoshi Star

MUSHROOM

It’s the most basic power up. The Super Mushroom is in fact the reason we call him Super Mario.

In a lot of Mario games, the mushroom is the first power up you encounter and the one you need before you can get anything else. But just because you can go beyond mushrooms doesn’t mean you should.

Sign Up Here For a Free Audible Trial to Listen to SUPER MARIO: HOW NINTENDO CONQUERED AMERICA By Jeff Ryan

If you prefer the Super Mushroom, you enjoy taking life as it comes. You don’t need any special abilities. It turns out you already have one. How else could you go through level after level without accepting the temptation of a few advanced power ups?

There are, of course, variations on your favorite delicacy (eg mini Mushroom, MEGA Mushroom). But you’ve experimented so often with your form in prior games, you’ve come to love that plumber shape for what it already is.

FIRE FLOWER

You are versatile and enthusiastic, even if sometimes a little TOO enthusiastic. Your go-getter attitude comes from how easy it is to use your ability. Your hesitation is in how hard it is to master that same thing.

But once you learn how to focus your powers in close quarters — no really, stop firing from far off, get in close to those Goombas or Napping Guppies, and treat the Fire Flower like an extension of your plunger punches — you’ll race forward faster than a speed run.

No one can stop you. Not even weirdo aliens who — in this multiverse — came to Earth through a plumber’s pipe instead of a wormhole.

You’ve discovered variations on your power as time has gone on. An Ice Flower, a Penguin suit, even a Fedora at one point (I wish that was a joke), but while you’re a master of many trades, you’re a double-fisted blaster of one in particular.

LEAF/RACOON

The Leaf began it’s legendary celebration of trash pandas around the same time Fred Savage was still a young child starring in a barely-disguised advertisement for Nintendo and Super Mario Bros 3 (offsite to Amazon).

The Leaf requires the player to attack and defend against enemies with hand-to-hand combat. Aside from the ability to fly not much better than a penguin trying to pick up chicks, a leaf may as well be a pillow. Fortunately, Goombas hate pillows!

If you have a leaf and want a projectile, you can throw a turtle shell, but only after you’ve jumped on its head or used your pillow tail to swipe its feet. So it requires planning, and a player who is adept at switching between direct confrontation vs taking a huge running leap and flying to greener pastures.

THE TANOOKI SUIT

Perhaps because the Tanooki suit is so rare, those who prefer it tend to carry around an intense individuality. They don’t always fit in with those around them — and they have the temporary willpower to make themselves immune to whatever you throw at them — but that isn’t to say these players shy away from connection.

They never lose faith that they will make it through the level. Their ability to armor up into a statue merely gives them the ability to pause, reflect, and determine the best path forward.

Though their willingness to think things through can frustrate the faster-paced players, Tanooku suitors often bring creative solutions to difficult levels.

CAPE

This couldn’t be included with the Leaf. If this is your favorite power up, you know why.

Some aspects of the Cape are so much like the Leaf that they draw folks from both. But the Cape is like an opera singer who starts off with a big voice. It can do the same stuff as anyone else’s voice, but it’s hard to contain so much potential for more. You may as well be walking around in a world made out of tissue paper.

To access the cape’s full powers, you need more than a rapid-fire tap on the B button. You need to coordinate take-off, tucking that cape behind you and around your feet, and hitting the back button at just the right time to catch air and stay in flight forever.

Or until you hit a wall.

YOSHI

This eternally-youthful member of their species is coveted by many. But while the Mandalorian is willing to give his life to keep Baby Yoda safe, Mario is willing to throw Baby Yoshi to the depths if it gets him closer to the end of the level.

It’s not entirely Mario’s fault. Most games don’t allow the player to ditch Mario instead of Yoshi.

But having said that, I’ve never met anyone who loved Yoshi who wasn’t also ready to abandon that cute little green guy to complete their quest.

If Yoshi is your favorite power up…what does that say about you?

STAR

The strength of the Star is that it empowers you to run forward with no thought to any obstacle but a bottomless pit. With a Star, you’re suddenly invincible. Most enemies will BLOOP off the screen with a single snap from your fingers.

And if the goal of a Mario side-scrolling level were merely to get from one end to the other, you’d be as golden as a persistent Mario Kart racer.

But a Star is more than the power to brute force your way through anything in your way. It’s also the grace — for just a little while, anyway — to take your time. To pause, to slow down, to take a chance on an impossible path, and maybe discover the power ups everyone misses when they’re focused on the finish line.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you’re as excited to learn the story of Mario as you are to pick your favorite power ups, we recommend Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America (offsite to Audible). The book alone is worth reading, but if you ever wanted to give an audiobook a shot, this is the one that deserves your trigger finger. Ray Porter could make a grocery list sound good. Getting to tell us about the IP heists and corporate espionage behind Super Mario Bros is almost cheating.

AND NOW FOR…

SOMETHING FUN: How To Win Monopoly Every Time (and lose your friends…every time)

SOMETHING SERIOUS: Avengers: Age of Consent

THE END (DAMN GIRL, THAT’S DARK)

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IP REFERENCED Nintendo, Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart, It’s Superman (a novel), Superman & Lois, Superman III, Superman vs Atom Man, Alice in Wonderland (1951), Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, Iron Man, Monopoly, Avengers: Endgame, Link/The Legend of Zelda