you should play The Secret of Monkey Island (1990)

official noelle tier list of times mario has ever been miserable in his life when

genuinely there are like so few canon moments where he's so much as upset so i don't think i could come up with a tier list... there's a few that always stick out to me though i guess.

of course there's the movie which i appreciate for having him be very out of his element and just really stressed out and upset in general the whole time. like you know you're fucked when your dad says that becoming a PLUMBER is "some kind of crazy dream" 💀💀 ?????? i do appreciate how good they were with his body language in the movie though like with how uncomfortable he seems when people are like overly-touchy with him and like the dinner scene obviously. realest scene ever like that really sucked. also not what this is about but i did enjoy the fact that he was very much single-minded about his goal of getting luigi back even in the face of the mushroom kingdom getting destroyed and stuff... he has his priorities. but yeah

i think that the ending of paper mario the origami king is really good because he genuinely seems to be mourning olivia's loss on top of also having lost bobby earlier in the game... just from what i've seen from sticker star and colour splash a very similar thing happens at the end of those games but i've never seen mario's reaction to it for kertsi or huey so i can't speak to that. i just think about how peach was like quietly leading mario through the festival and then the shot where he just stands and stares at olivia's throne on the model.... it's so much. mario is generally written as being really good with kids and he definitely really liked olivia so it's just devastating to think about for me...

also and this is not nearly to the same effect but like when luigi saves him in lm3 and he's stoked to be saved but then immediately runs up to where peach like running back and forth towards her and luigi like "cmon, cmon, luigi, please, help! luigi - cmon! bro, cmon!" just very very worried obviously... it's a good scene and also just a good way of characterizing him in general because he very much was rushing ahead and not waiting to take the time to realize that luigi was unable to parkour like him with like 50 lbs of heavy machinery on his back LOL. he was worried and stressed out and that makes him really one-track minded..

and also like luigi's mansion 1 in general where we barely see him but he's just like banging on the inside of that painting the ENTIRE game which is really good. he hated that. let him OUT!

and like. big whammy here but that scene in spm where after peach and bowser both "died" luigi thought he convinced mario to run ahead while he was fighting dimentio because they didn't have any time to spare this close to the end of the world for mario to stay and fight with him. literally luigi was like "don't let bowser and peach's scarifies be for nothing! or ...mine, either!" like trying to convince mario to go ahead. and then it was revealed that he did not in fact run ahead and was waiting outside of the door the whole time... and when he realized it was caved in and tried to open the door and it didn't work??? and then he stood there for a sec before going literally saying out loud that he doesn't have time to grieve? DEVASTATING. dude. i will jump off of 100000 buildings and not feel that pain. that was insane of him

yeah though in general for a series without about one million games there are soooo few moments where mario is actually like really upset yknow. like given what he's been through??? but with your help we can change this. we can make mario upset on occasion. PLEASE