Cap

A cap is the trademark type of wearing garment seen in the Mario franchise. Many characters wear a cap such as Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Goombario and many others.

The three power-up caps in Super Mario 64 give Mario certain special abilities:


 * the Wing Cap, which is basically Mario's Cap but with wings, which gives Mario the ability to fly.
 * the Vanish Cap, a see-through version of Mario's Cap, which turns Mario intangible.
 * the Metal Cap, a metal replica of Mario's Cap, which makes Mario metallic and invincible.

Mario's Cap can be stolen by Klepto and Ukiki, or blown away by a Fwoosh or the giant Snowman in Snowman's Land. When Mario loses possession of his cap, he takes twice as much damage when hit by an enemy. When lost, Mario's Cap can be found by defeating enemies that wear it.

In Super Mario 64 DS, the various characters' caps appear instead and serve a new function. Grabbing a cap allows whomever possesses it to change his appearance and abilities (however, his voice will remain unchanged). If a character (besides Yoshi) loses his cap, short-fused Bob-ombs will pop out of ? Blocks instead of power-ups, in addition to the original game's defense penalty. In the early portion of the game, those kinds of caps also act as 1-Up Mushrooms. For example, if Yoshi wears Mario's Cap and takes another one, he will be awarded with a 1-Up. However, as Yoshi frees Bowser's three captive prisoners, redundant caps will be replaced with ones of a different color and it will be impossible to find two caps of the same color. Yoshi can choose to wear the caps of whatever characters were rescued before entering a course.

In Super Mario Sunshine, the Swipin' Stu enemy can steal the Mario Cap. If Mario does not get back his cap, his energy will slowly drain until he dies, due to it being so hot (standing in the shade has no effect). Along with wearing his cap, it gains a Mario-esque mustache.

In Super Mario Odyssey, Cappy can take the forms of many different caps that Mario can wear. These caps can be thrown to hit blocks and enemies, capture certain characters or objects, and be used as a temporary jumping platform for Mario (among other uses). All caps are aesthetic and have identical abilities (excluding access to certain areas).

Trivia

 * Mario was not supposed to have a cap; instead, he was supposed to have just hair. However, the quality and graphics back then made it impossible to put hair on a moving sprite, so he was given a red cap.
 * In Super Mario 64, in the levels Wet-Dry World (downtown) and Dire, Dire Docks, Mario can put on both the Vanish Cap and the Metal Cap combining their powers. Mario will be given the Metal Mario form, but will have the transparency of Vanish Mario. The length of the power up and music played will depend on the second cap Mario obtains. Overall, Mario will be heavy and can walk through walls. No level allows for the Wing Cap to be combined with any other one.
 * The concept of Mario using a power-up to transform into other characters from Super Mario 64 DS would be revisited with Costume Mario in Super Mario Maker. However, rather than keeping Mario's voice and gaining new abilities, Costume Mario typically gains new voice clips/sound effects while keeping Super Mario's abilities.