Hotel Mario

Hotel Mario is a game that was published by Royal Philips Electronics for the Philips CD-i. Philips Media had acquired the rights to produce Mario and The Legend of Zelda games after initial plans to make a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo fell through. Released in 1994 to little fanfare, the game did very poorly due to a lack of interest in the CD-i system. The game received very bad reception as well.

In the game's plot, Bowser and his children have taken over the Mushroom Kingdom, where they've built seven Koopa Hotels and have kidnapped the Princess, hiding her in one of them. After Mario and Luigi are informed of this, they set out to rescue her.

The general goal in each stage is to close all the doors on every floor. However, various enemies will interfere and reopen them at times. Elevators are needed to travel between floors. Each hotel has around three stages.

The Princess is held captive in each hotel until the moment of its destruction, at which point she is taken off to a different hotel. Each hotel is run by a different Koopaling (except for the last one which is run by Bowser) who must be fought by Mario in order to destroy the hotel. The game also has a two player mode, allowing a second player to control Luigi. As with previous titles, Mario and Luigi take turns playing during a two-player game.

Story
Princess Peach invited Mario and Luigi to a picnic, but instead, they found a letter from Bowser on the door of the castle. In the letter, they find out that Bowser took over the kingdom, kidnapped the princess, and held her in one of the seven Koopa Hotels. Mario has to close all doors in all seven hotels so he can restore peace in the kingdom. At the end, Mario and Luigi save the princess from Bowser and the Koopalings.

Main Characters

 * Mario (voiced by Marc Graue)
 * Luigi (voiced by Marc Graue)
 * Princess Peach (voiced by Jocelyn Benford)
 * Bowser (voiced by Marc Graue)
 * Koopalings

Hotels

 * Morton's WoodDoor-Hysteria
 * Roy's HardBrick Hotel
 * Larry's Chillton Hotel
 * Lemmy's High-ate Regency Hotel
 * Ludwig's Thump Castle Hotel
 * Wendy's Blitz Snarlton Hotel
 * Bowser's Seizures Palace Hotel

Enemies

 * Boo
 * Goomba
 * Koopa Troopa
 * Wiggler
 * Bob-omb
 * Para Bob-omb
 * Mini-Ninji
 * Buzzy Beetle
 * Monty Mole
 * Spiny
 * Paragoomba
 * Banzai Bill
 * Paratroopa
 * Boo Buddies
 * Big Boo
 * Skeleton Koopa
 * Pat the Bat
 * Evil Coin
 * Rhinestone Goomba
 * Mechakoopa
 * Bellhop Goomba
 * Z Koopa

Items

 * Coin
 * Super Mushroom
 * Fire Flower
 * Starman
 * Toad

Trivia

 * This is one of the only games in which Mario and Luigi have four fingers. Mario is shown to have five fingers on the box art, but four during the cutscenes.
 * Iggy doesn't have his own hotel, but appears as a boss in Bowser's. Interestingly, the game files indicate that there would have been a hotel between Ludwig and Wendy's hotel, as the levels skip from L5 to L7. While some unused cutscenes and audio were extracted from the game disc, this unfinished hotel is completely blank and doesn't have files associated with it. However, it's likely that Iggy was intended to have his own area like usual rather than share the stage with Bowser.
 * Most of the names of the Koopaling's Hotels are puns on real world hotels ("WoodDoor-Hysteria," "Blitz Snarlton," etc.). Roy's HardBrick Hotel, however, is more likely named after the song "Heartbreak Hotel."
 * Other cultural references include Mario's lines "We ain't afraid of no Koopas!" (a play on the line "I ain't afraid of no ghost!" from the Ghostbusters theme song) and "Hey, you! Get off-a my cloud!" from the Rolling Stones song, "Get Off of My Cloud."
 * If the game is played on January 1st, the game will say "Happy New Year!" instead of "Here we go!" when loading a game or starting a new one.
 * Hotel Mario marked the last appearance of the Koopalings in an official game until Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, which was released nine years later in 2003.
 * It should be noticed that Mario and Luigi never refer to Princess Peach as anything but 'the princess'. This is possibly due to differences in her name between Japan and other countries.
 * Oddly, the game refers to the 1-Up Mushroom with Toad's name.