Collection essentials #395: Mario Clash (VB)

Here’s a neat, obscure little Mario game that remains exclusive to the Virtual Boy as of 2025. It could be considered a sequel of sorts to the popular 1983 arcade game “Mario Bros.” It’s a stage-based game involving Mario trying to get rid of bad guys who are infesting the sewers. The goal is to defeat all enemies in each stage, upon which you will move on to the next one, trying to get the highest score possible. 

While the game is conceptually very much like Mario Bros., you can tell immediately that it is very different. For one thing, you no longer defeat enemies by hitting them from the floor below anymore. Instead, Mario must primarily throw turtle shells (by jumping on turtle enemies first) to knock them out. Also, there is now a background and a foreground, taking advantage of the Virtual Boy’s stereoscopic 3D. There are always pipes that Mario can enter to get to the other side, and enemies use them too. The platform and pipe layouts can vary from stage to stage, not to an extreme degree but more so than in Mario Bros. Mario can throw turtle shells to his left or right, but he can also throw them to the opposite side of the level. As players progress they will be greeted with more and more types of enemies and hazards. Occasionally between levels there will be a coin-grabbing minigame to add some variety. 

Mario Clash is a neat little game, but one thing I don’t like about it is the fact that the score has a cap of 999,999. There are few enough levels in the game that if you make it really far then you will very likely reach that cap. This is disappointing since it means mastering this game won’t give you a way to distinguish your performance from other people who have also mastered it. 

Mario Clash isn’t one of the best Mario games or anything, but it’s still pretty unique and I’d like to see this concept brought back again someday. As one of the most notable Virtual Boy titles, it’s an easy pick as a collection essential.