To celebrate Toad's first solo game, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, we're counting down his greatest moments!
Editor's Note: Don't forget to check out our review of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker!
After decades of making him stand in Mario’s shadow (and even Luigi’s shadow, ouch!), Nintendo has finally given us a full-fledged spin-off game starring everyone’s favorite mushroom-headed pipsqueak, Toad! So as Den of Geek celebrates the release of Captain Toad: Treasure Trackeron the Wii U this week, we decided to take a look back at some of Toad’s greatest moments throughout the history of Mario games. You know, when he was doing something other than fanning Princess Peach. And as a small disclaimer, some fans consider Toad and Captain Toad to be two separate characters in the Mario universe, but we’ll be taking a more general approach to our mushroom-headed friend in this article.
Super Mario Bros. 2
There are many Mario players who might remember a character that strongly resembled today’s Toad in the original Super Mario Bros., serving as the smug mushroom messenger that was ever so happy to inform us, again and again, that the princess was, in fact, in another castle. Thanks, jerk, I get it.
But it wasn’t until the black sheep of the series, Super Mario Bros. 2, that Toad was officially given a name and upgraded to a playable character at that! Although he was the fastest and arguably most powerful character in the game, the Super Mario Bros. 2 version of Toad still echoes Captain Toad’s vertical challenges today, in that he had the shortest jump of all four heroes.
Wario’s Woods
While Toad has long since accepted his place as a side character in the Mario universe, whether serving as an informative NPC in Paper Mario, a snazzy game show host in Mario Party, or the permanent occupant of Princess Peach’s friend zone, Toad actually had another lesser-known starring role back in 1994.
The game was called Wario’s Woods, and players were cast in the role of Toad as he matched colored forest sprites to create bombs and restore the land that was once Toadstool’s Garden. Wario’s Woodsis actually a really fun puzzle game, if still a little bizarre (Birdo is in this one too, so what did you expect?). I guess Mario was taking a sick day for this one.
Mario Kart 64
Even though Toad was among the eight original racers to take to the tracks in Super Mario Kart, his triumphant return in Mario Kart 64 really sealed his position as a forced to be reckoned with. What’s more, Toad also came prepared with his very own course, Toad’s Turnpike, which is still one of the more devious Mario Karttracks to date (especially when you have to drive against the traffic in the game’s Mirror Mode).
Toad continued to add to the Mario Kartlegacy in future installments of the series, like bringing Toadette along for the ride (we’re still not sure if she’s Toad’s sister or mistress) and a fresh HD reimagining of Toad’s Turnpike in Mario Kart 8.
Super Mario Galaxy
It turns out there’s a whole bunch of Toads strewn across the universe, as 2007’s Super Mario Galaxy was quick to show us. In actuality, the reason for this is the Toad Brigade, a fearless group of five Toads who love adventure beyond the stars. And do you know who their courageous leader is? Yup you guessed it, Super Mario Galaxy featured the first appearance of Captain Toad!
While the Toads didn’t have a huge importance to the overall gameplay, they were still very smartly integrated into the overall Super Mario Galaxy experience, with their Starshroom ship often offering 1-up mushrooms and other rewards. A few missions also required Mario to seek out a missing Toad crew member on a given planet.
Super Mario 3D World
Our final pick in Toad’s long legacy should come as no surprise to those who frequent the Mushroom Kingdom: last year’s incredible Super Mario 3D World! Not only did Toad make a triumphant return to the foreground as one of the game’s four initial playable characters (not including the bland “generic blue Toad” and “generic Yellow Toad” characters in recent New Super Mario Bros. games), but Super Mario 3D Worldalso featured the fantastic Captain Toad puzzle bonus levels that would form the entire basis of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.
It may have taken years to find it, but the world-turning, non-jumping, 3D puzzling gameplay of these Captain Toad levels finally feels like the perfect fit to allow that little mushroom dude to shine on his own. And it’s very possible that the best is yet to come, once Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker excavates all sorts of secondary-character fun this weekend. Share your favorite Toad stories with us in the comments section below!
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