Shigeru Miyamoto reveals the Mario games that have impressed him the most
Posted on July 18, 2026 by Brian(@NE_Brian)
in General Nintendo, News
Have you ever wondered which Mario games Shigeru Miyamoto was personally impressed by? We now have that answer for you thanks to an interview.
You may have heard that Casa Brutus previously published a special issue about Super Mario Bros. As part of that, the magazine interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto. One question was about the titles that have impressed him especially.
Miyamoto named two games in his response. The first is Super Mario World, which gave him the feeling that he had “mastered the two-dimensional Mario world.” Then with Super Mario 64, he was reminded of his childhood.
Miyamoto said that 2D Mario “felt like drawing manga”. On the other hand, 3D “brought me back to puppet theater,” he said. Miyamoto once had dreams of becoming a puppet maker.
His full response is as follows:
“I have a deep emotional connection to all of my works. By the completion of Super Mario World, I felt that I’d, to a degree, mastered the two-dimensional Mario world. But then, with Super Mario 64 going 3D, I was reminded of my childhood. Going back even further than my manga-drawing junior high school days, in grade school I loved the NHK puppet shows, such as ‘Chirorin Village and the Walnut Tree’ and ‘Hyokkori Hyotan Island’, and I thought I wanted to become a puppet maker. I’d construct these ‘monster dioramas’ and shoot them with my camera. Creating Super Mario 64 felt like a return to that time. Two-dimensional Mario felt like drawing manga, while 3D brought me back to puppet theater… It’s somehow all connected, you know?”
Miyamoto previously spoke in vague terms about what’s to come next for Mario. He felt that Nintendo did just about everything it could with the series on Nintendo Switch, and wondered how the team will take on the challenge of making a new game for Switch 2.
If you’re interested in picking up the Casa Brutus Super Mario Bros. issue yourself, you can do so here.
More: Shigeru Miyamoto, Super Mario 64, Super Mario World, top
