Best Handhelds for Mario

Super Mario is the best-selling game franchise in history and one of the worst served by buying advice, because the honest answer is not one handheld - it is four, and they sit a whole price class apart.

Mario shipped on eleven of the eighteen systems in our capability index. That is more than any other franchise we grade, and the emulation difficulty of those eleven systems spans almost the entire range: the NES takes a straight A on 98.9% of the handhelds we grade and the Nintendo Switch on 14.5%. A guide that names a single device is therefore either spending $599 or quietly leaving out three quarters of the games.

So this guide is four price steps, and each one owns a different era:

• The entire 2D canon - Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and 3, the three Game Boy Lands, Super Mario World, All-Stars, RPG, Yoshi's Island and the four Game Boy Advance remakes - is a $30 purchase.
• The 3D era - Super Mario 64, Sunshine, both Galaxy games, 3D Land, Mario Kart Wii and Double Dash - starts at $160.
• Modern Mario - New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Odyssey and Wonder - lives on the Wii U and the Switch, and that is where the money goes.
• The full eleven systems at a straight A is a $599 purchase, and there are only 43 devices that manage it at any price.

Where the Super Mario games live

Two caveats, stated plainly. Mario never appeared on the Sega Genesis, the PlayStation 1, the Dreamcast, the PSP, the Sega Saturn, the PlayStation 2 or the PlayStation 3 - seven of the eighteen systems we grade are absent from this guide because Mario is absent from them, not because our data is thin. And the era table is about hardware, not about ports: Super Mario 3D All-Stars puts Super Mario 64, Sunshine and Galaxy on the Switch, which is why a modern buyer can sidestep the Nintendo 64, GameCube and Wii rows entirely - at the cost of buying a device that runs the Switch well.

What to look for

Three things decide the purchase:

1. Which era of Mario you actually want. The 2D games and the 3D games are thirty years and four hardware generations apart, and the price gap between them is a factor of five. Most people reading this want one era and will be sold the other one.
2. The emulation grade, not the chip name. Our capability index grades every handheld on every system, and those grades say which devices clear a system rather than merely boot it. Mario is a game about frame timing, so the distinction matters more here than in most franchises.
3. Whether the Wii U and the Switch are in scope. Those two systems carry every Mario game released after 2012 and they are the two hardest of the eleven. They are also the only reason a Mario guide ever costs more than $160.

The price ladder

Every figure below is computed from the capability index: the cheapest handheld in our catalogue that reaches that grade on that system, with the grade it publishes. The right-hand column is the cheapest handheld that makes the system playable at all, which the index defines as a B or better.

Read the top and bottom of that table together and the guide's whole argument is there. The NES takes a straight A on 438 of the 443 handhelds we grade - 98.9% of the catalogue - for $13, and the Game Boy takes one on 437 of 443 for $15. At the other end the Nintendo Switch takes a straight A on 63 of 435, 14.5%, and grades an F on 325 of them, which is 74.7% of everything we measure. There is no single device in this guide that is good at both ends of that column for less than $299.

The entire 2D canon is a $30 purchase

Here is the number that makes this guide worth reading. 356 of the 443 handhelds we grade take a straight A on all four of the Game Boy, the NES, the SNES and the Game Boy Advance at once - 80.4% of the catalogue - and the cheapest of them is the G28 at $30.

That is the whole 2D Super Mario canon. Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Bros. 3 and Dr. Mario on the NES. Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2 and Wario Land on the Game Boy. Super Mario World, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario RPG and Yoshi's Island on the SNES. Super Mario Advance 1 through 4, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Yoshi's Island and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga on the Game Boy Advance. Twenty-odd games that span 1985 to 2004, on one $30 device, at full quality.

Two caveats keep that honest. The first is that the individual systems are cheaper still if you only want one of them: the RGFC520 at $13 is a straight A on the NES and the GB300 at $15 is a straight A on the Game Boy and the NES, and neither will do the SNES or the Game Boy Advance. The $30 is the price of all four together, and the X6 at $25 is the cheapest device that makes the SNES playable at a B if you are willing to take the grade hit. The second caveat is the wall above it: the G28 grades the Nintendo DS a D and the Nintendo 64 a D, so the $30 device stops exactly where the 2D era stops.

Super Mario 64 is where the cheap tier ends

The Nintendo 64 carries Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Mario Party and Paper Mario, and it is the first system in this guide that a cheap handheld cannot do properly. It takes a straight A on 172 of the 443 handhelds we grade - 38.8% - and 75 of them grade it an F, which is 16.9% of the catalogue failing to run one of the most famous games ever made. The cheapest handheld that plays it at all is the R39S at $40 with a B+, and a straight A starts at $65.

The Nintendo DS is the same story in milder form, and it matters because it is where the best-selling Mario game of the 2000s lives. New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64 DS and Mario Kart DS are DS titles, and the DS takes a straight A on 208 of 442 handhelds, 47.1%, with 83 grading it an F. The cheapest straight A is the R39S at $40 - the same device that handles the Nintendo 64 at a B+ - and the cheapest handheld that makes the DS playable at a B is the U8 at $30. If you are buying for the DS Mario games specifically, $40 is the answer and the $30 G28 above is not.

Note what has happened to the price at this point. Two systems deep into the 3D era and the ladder is still at $40. The next step is where it breaks.

The 3D era starts at $160

Three systems carry the 3D Mario games, and all three are a significant step up in emulation cost.

The GameCube has Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. It takes a straight A on 119 of the 419 handhelds we grade - 28.4% - and an F on 200 of them, which is 47.7%. The cheapest handheld that runs a GameCube game at all is the Pocket Air Mini at $70 with a B, and the cheapest straight A is the KT-R2 at $159.

The Wii has Super Mario Galaxy, Galaxy 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart Wii and Super Paper Mario, and it is harder still: a straight A on 113 of 412 handhelds, 27.4%, against 238 F grades, 57.8%. The cheapest playable Wii is the Retroid Pocket Classic at $114 with a B, and again a straight A starts at $159 on the KT-R2.

The Nintendo 3DS has Super Mario 3D Land, New Super Mario Bros. 2, Mario Kart 7 and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. It takes a straight A on 115 of 436 handhelds, 26.4%, and grades an F on 268 of them, 61.5% - the highest failure rate of any system in this guide below the Wii U. The cheapest device that runs a 3DS game at all is the Pocket Air Mini at $70 with a B, and the cheapest straight A is the Mangmi Air Y Pro at $160.

That last number is the winner, and the reasoning is worth spelling out because a dollar separates it from the runner-up. 111 of the 380 handhelds we grade across the nine systems from the Game Boy to the 3DS take a straight A on all nine at once, and the cheapest is the Mangmi Air Y Pro at $160. The KT-R2 at $159 also takes a straight A on the GameCube and the Wii, and it is the cheaper device - but it grades the 3DS an A- rather than an A, and that hyphen is Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 running at slightly less than full quality. For $1 more the Mangmi Air Y Pro is a straight A on all three of the 3D systems. Nothing cheaper is a straight A on all nine.

The last two systems are the expensive ones

Everything above costs $160. Everything below is why a Mario guide ever costs more than that.

The Wii U carries New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, and it is close to unemulatable in this catalogue: a straight A on 53 of the 429 handhelds we grade - 12.4% - and an F on 306 of them, 71.3%. The cheapest device that runs a Wii U game at all is the Retroid Pocket 6 at $209, which grades it an A-, and the cheapest straight A is the Odin 3 at $299. The reason is structural rather than a matter of horsepower: Cemu, the only mature Wii U emulator, ships for Windows and Linux and has no Android build, so every Android handheld in this guide is out of reach of those four games no matter what its chip costs.

The Nintendo Switch carries more Mario than any system since the NES - Odyssey, Wonder, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario 3D All-Stars - and it is the second-hardest system we grade. A straight A on 63 of 435 handhelds, 14.5%; an F on 325 of them, 74.7%. The cheapest handheld that grades the Switch playable at a B is the AYANEO Next Lite at $299 and the cheapest straight A is the Steam Deck at $399. The emulator picture explains the gap: the two best-known Switch emulators, Yuzu and Ryujinx, were both shut down in 2024, and what remains on the Android side is young. If Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Bros. Wonder are the reason you are reading this, the honest recommendation is a Nintendo Switch, and this guide is about everything else.

Put those two systems together with the nine below them and the arithmetic is unforgiving. Only 43 of the 359 handhelds we grade across all eleven Mario systems take a straight A on all of them, and 41 of those 43 have a tracked price at all. The cheapest is the AOKZOE A2 at $599. And there is a detail here that surprised us when we counted it: those 43 devices are exactly the same 43 that take a straight A on all eighteen systems in the index. Being Mario-complete and being everything-complete are the same 41 purchases.

The shortlist

The GB300, $15. A straight A on the Game Boy and the NES for the price of a takeaway - the three Super Mario Lands, Wario Land, Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and 3 and Dr. Mario. The Game Boy takes a straight A on 437 of the 443 handhelds we grade, so this is not a compromise; it is the cheapest correct answer in the guide for two of its eleven systems.

The G28, $30. The cheapest handheld that takes a straight A on all four of the Game Boy, the NES, the SNES and the Game Boy Advance at once, which is the entire 2D canon - twenty-odd games from Super Mario Bros. in 1985 to Super Mario Advance 4 in 2003. 356 of the 443 handhelds we grade do the same; this is the cheapest. It grades the Nintendo 64 and the Nintendo DS a D, so it stops where the 2D era stops.

The U8, $30. The cheapest handheld that makes the SNES and the Nintendo DS playable at a B. That covers Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island at playable quality plus New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64 DS and Mario Kart DS, and it takes a straight A on the NES, Game Boy, SNES, Genesis and Game Boy Advance. If the DS Mario games are what you want and you cannot stretch to $40, this is the route.

The R39S, $40. The cheapest straight A on the Nintendo DS - New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64 DS, Mario Kart DS and both Mario & Luigi games at full quality - and the cheapest handheld that plays Super Mario 64 at all, grading the Nintendo 64 a B+. It also takes a straight A on the Game Boy Advance. 208 of the 442 handhelds we grade straight-A the Game Boy Advance and the Nintendo DS together, 202 of them with a tracked price; the R39S is the cheapest.

The Pocket Air Mini, $70. The cheapest handheld on which the 3D era is reachable at all: a B on the GameCube for Super Mario Sunshine, a B on the Nintendo 3DS for Super Mario 3D Land, and a straight A on Super Mario 64, the Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo DS and every 2D system. It is the cheapest device in this guide that adds three-dimensional Mario to the 2D canon without spending $114.

The Retroid Pocket Classic, $114. The cheapest handheld that makes the Wii playable - Super Mario Galaxy, Galaxy 2 and Mario Kart Wii at a B - plus a B on the GameCube and the 3DS, and a straight A on all six 2D systems. It is the cheapest single purchase on which every Mario game from 1985 to 2014 runs at playable quality or better, and the first device in the guide that covers the whole pre-Wii U canon in one go.

The KT-R2, $159. The cheapest straight A on the GameCube and on the Wii - Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, both Galaxy games and Mario Kart Wii at full quality, plus the GameCube's Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. It grades the Nintendo 3DS an A-, so 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 run just short of the top band, and its Wii U grade is a D. A dollar less than the winner, and the A- on the 3DS is what that dollar buys.

The Mangmi Air Y Pro, $160. The winner. The cheapest handheld in our catalogue to take a straight A on nine of the eleven systems Mario shipped on - everything except the Wii U and the Switch - which means the complete 2D canon and the complete 3D era in one device: the four Advance remakes, New Super Mario Bros. and Mario Kart DS, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, both Galaxy games, Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, all at full quality. 111 of the 380 handhelds we grade across those nine systems manage it. This is the best value in the guide by a wide margin and the point at which a Mario collection stops being expensive.

The Retroid Pocket 6, $209. The cheapest handheld that runs a Wii U game at all, grading the Wii U an A- for New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 and Captain Toad. It also takes a straight A on the nine-system set and grades the Switch a C+, so it is the first device here that reaches both modern systems in some form. It is the cheapest way to play 2012 to 2016 Mario.

The Odin 3, $299. The cheapest straight A on the Wii U, and one of only 77 of the 359 handhelds we grade on which all eleven Mario systems are playable at a B or better. It takes a straight A on ten of the eleven, with only the Switch falling short, and grades the Switch a B. One purchase, every Mario game playable.

The AYANEO Next Lite, $299. The cheapest handheld that makes the Nintendo Switch genuinely playable rather than merely bootable: a B, which is Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at a real frame rate, plus a straight A on the nine-system set below it. If the modern Mario games are the ones you care about and the real hardware is not an option you want to take, this is the cheapest legitimate answer.

The Steam Deck, $399. The cheapest handheld to grade the Nintendo Switch a straight A, and therefore the only device under $500 that runs Odyssey, Wonder and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe properly rather than approximately. It also takes a straight A on ten of the eleven Mario systems - everything but the Wii U - which makes it the last stop before the $599 tier.

The AOKZOE A2, $599. One of only 43 handhelds we grade at a straight A on all eleven Mario systems, and the cheapest of them with a tracked price. The full canon at full quality from Super Mario Bros. in 1985 to Super Mario Bros. Wonder in 2023, on one device, with nothing approximate anywhere in it. If you want to stop choosing, this is where the choosing stops.

The honest counterpoint

If you only want the 2D games, the winner is $130 too expensive. The G28 at $30 takes a straight A on the Game Boy, NES, SNES and Game Boy Advance together - the whole 1985-to-2004 canon - and 356 of the 443 handhelds we grade do the same. The Mangmi Air Y Pro only starts to earn its price at the point where you want Super Mario 64, Sunshine, the two Galaxy games and 3D Land as well, and if you have never finished a 3D Mario, that is $160 you do not need to spend.

If the modern games are the point, this guide cannot help you cheaply and should not pretend otherwise. New Super Mario Bros. U, Super Mario 3D World and Mario Kart 8 need the Wii U, whose only mature emulator has no Android build; Odyssey and Wonder need the Switch, whose two best emulators were shut down in 2024. The honest answer to "which handheld plays the new Mario games" is that a Nintendo Switch is cheaper than the handhelds that can imitate one, and $299 for a playable approximation of a $299 console is not obvious value.

And if you want everything, understand what you are buying. $599 for a straight A on all eleven Mario systems buys a margin, not a library: the Mangmi Air Y Pro at $160 already delivers nine of those eleven at the same grade, and the four systems it adds - the Wii U and the Switch, at full quality rather than playable - cost $439 between them. One last note, stated plainly: console emulation sits in a legal grey area, the Switch releases are the legal route to several of these games, and you should own the games you run.

Sources

• Nintendo - the Super Mario series and the current Mario portal: nintendo.com
• Nintendo - Nintendo Switch Online, the subscription that carries the NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis and Game Boy libraries: nintendo.com
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario, the franchise history and its platform-by-platform release list: wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - the complete list of Mario video games used to build the era table: wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario Bros. (NES, 1985): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES, 1988): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario Land (Game Boy, 1989) and its two sequels: wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario World (SNES, 1990): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario RPG (SNES, 1996) and its 2023 Switch remake: wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - the Super Mario Advance series, the four Game Boy Advance remakes: wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64, 1996): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario 64 DS (2004): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo DS, 2006): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Mario Kart DS (2005) and Mario Kart 7 (2011): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Mario Kart Wii (2008) and its four-player split screen: wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube, 2002): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario Galaxy (2007) and Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo 3DS, 2011): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario 3D World (Wii U, 2013) and New Super Mario Bros. U: wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch, 2017), the best-selling Mario game on the current console: wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario 3D All-Stars (Switch, 2020) and its 2021 delisting: wikipedia.org
• Delisted Games - the Super Mario 3D All-Stars eShop removal on 31 March 2021: delistedgames.com
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario Odyssey (Switch, 2017): wikipedia.org
• Nintendo / Wikipedia - Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch, 2023): wikipedia.org
• Cemu - the Nintendo Wii U emulator and the platforms it ships for: cemu.info
• Azahar - the Nintendo 3DS emulator, the successor to Citra: azahar-emu.org
• Dolphin / Wikipedia - the GameCube and Wii emulator, and its Windows, macOS, Linux and Android builds: wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia - Nintendo Switch emulation, including the 2024 shutdown of Yuzu and Ryujinx: wikipedia.org
• Lost In Consoles - the Handheld Capability Index, the per-system grades and tracked prices used throughout this guide: lostinconsoles.com
• AYANEO - the Pocket Air Mini and the Next Lite: ayaneo.com
• Retroid / Moorechip - the Retroid Pocket Classic and the Retroid Pocket 6: goretroid.com
• KT Pocket - the KT-R2: ktpocket.com
• Mangmi - the Air Y Pro vertical handheld: mangmi.com
• AYN Technologies - the Odin 3: ayn.com
• Valve - the Steam Deck: steamdeck.com
• AOKZOE - the A2, the cheapest handheld we grade at a straight A on all eighteen systems: aokzoestore.com

Method: the per-system grades in this guide are the frozen values published on each device's page in the Lost In Consoles capability index, and the price floors ($13 RGFC520 on the NES, $15 GB300 on the Game Boy, $30 G28 on the SNES and the Game Boy Advance, $40 R39S on the Nintendo DS, $65 on the Nintendo 64, $70 Pocket Air Mini on the GameCube and the Nintendo 3DS at a playable B, $114 Retroid Pocket Classic on a playable Wii, $159 KT-R2 on a straight-A GameCube and Wii, $160 Mangmi Air Y Pro on a straight-A Nintendo 3DS, $209 Retroid Pocket 6 on an A- Wii U, $299 Odin 3 on a straight-A Wii U, $299 AYANEO Next Lite on a playable Switch, $399 Steam Deck on a straight-A Switch, $599 AOKZOE A2 on all eleven Mario systems) are computed directly from that dataset. A straight A here means the index's top grade band, the letter A; there is no A+ in the dataset, and A- is the band below it. The grade counts quoted above - 438 of 443 devices at a straight A on the NES, 437 of 443 on the Game Boy, 356 of 443 on the Game Boy Advance and the SNES together, 208 of 442 on the Nintendo DS, 172 of 443 on the Nintendo 64, 119 of 419 on the GameCube, 113 of 412 on the Wii, 115 of 436 on the Nintendo 3DS, 53 of 429 on the Wii U, 63 of 435 on the Nintendo Switch, and 43 of 359 on all eleven Mario systems - are the same dataset counted in full; a denominator differs from 443 only where the index has no grade for a device on that system. Prices are the tracked street price at publication and move with the market.