Barrel

Barrels are weapons that Donkey Kong used against Mario in the Donkey Kong arcade game. Since then, barrels have shown up in many other Donkey Kong and Mario games, but they are more common in Donkey Kong games. Common barrels can be picked up and used to attack enemies or destroy thin and not so strong walls and surfaces.

Appearance
In the Mario universe, barrels do not differentiate at all from those in the Real World. A barrel is made of several vertical convex staves (fourteen in the latest appearances) bound to form a pseudo-cylindrical vase, which is the barrel itself. Four gray steel hoops (only three in the New Super Mario Bros. games) circle the staves : two of them are each placed at one of the barrel's base, while the other are donned on the barrel's bigger circumferences. Usually, barrels do not contain anything, as they do not leave anything when broken.

Donkey Kong
In Donkey Kong, the first threat Mario ever faces is from a blue barrel that Donkey Kong tosses in level 25m. When this blue barrel rolls into the Oil Drum at the start, it will spawn a Fireball. Donkey Kong mostly throws brown barrels at Mario which the hero could jump over - once successfully passed over, a barrel will roll further and it won't represent a peril for Mario anymore (also, with every dodge, the player is granted 100 points). With the aid of a hammer, the chubby carpenter can smash the barrels, and this is going to award him 500 points.

Donkey Kong '94
The first four levels of the Game Boy version of Donkey Kong is an almost exact imitation of the classic arcade game, which means that barrels appear once again in the 25m stage. The ape foe whom Mario pursues throws them and tries to hinder the plumber. When he jumps over one, he is awarded 100 points, just like in the original game. Nevertheless, the player only earns 300 points upon destroying a barrel with a hammer, unlike in the arcade Donkey Kong; later in its Game Boy remake, when the adventure of Mario starts to take a more extended shape, Donkey Kong still uses barrels occasionally, so as to down the hero. When a rolling barrel encounters an edge and falls down to the platform underneath, Mario needs to perform a handstand right under the falling barrel and stop it with his feet. The barrel will then land upright, and can be picked up and put to good use - Mario has to hurl the barrel back at Donkey Kong in order to harm him. Barrels can only be picked up when they are standing, otherwise Mario cannot stand one. Sometimes, it is not necessary for the plumber to do the aforementioned procedure, whereas barrels can stop automatically. But in certain battles, such as in the final one with the overgrown Kong, barrels slip from platforms and fall off the screen, and Mario has to handstand beneath the barrels to stop them.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
In Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, small barrels are used to transport Donkey Kong to different kingdoms. Every barrel has a letter in front of them, with each letter spelling out the initials of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. The D Barrel links to the Banana Kingdom, Orange Kingdom, Watermelon Kingdom, and Apple Kingdom. The K Barrel warps the player to the Strawberry Kingdom, Pineapple Kingdom, Lemon Kingdom, and Grape Kingdom. The J Barrel goes to the Cherry Kingdom, Peach Kingdom, Melon Kingdom, and Durian Kingdom. The B Barrel introduces the player into the Pear Kingdom, Lychee Kingdom, Chili Pepper Kingdom, and Star Fruit Kingdom. Completing all the kingdoms in each barrel allows Donkey Kong access to the next barrel.

The heads-up display of the game permanently features a large barrel, lying horizontally in the upper left corner of the screen. On this barrel stays written the number of bananas Donkey Kong has collected in the level he is currently in. As a matter of fact, the ape hero uses this barrel to transport the bananas.

Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Land series
The game Donkey Kong Country introduces Regular Barrels - and also some other types - as weapons used by Donkey Kong in combat with enemies. They appear frequently in many levels throughout the game. When Donkey Kong picks up a barrel, he lifts it above his head by using his powerful arms. This can be done if the player presses on the SNES controller when the ape hero is next to the barrel. However, Diddy Kong, the second hero, is not as strong to lift the barrel up, and only carries it in front of his body; nevertheless, this is a good technique used to protect himself from hazards. The barrel can then be hurled by releasing the button. Barrels are necessary to destroy tough or well protected enemies, including Zingers and Krushas. The mechanic of a barrel is simple: after it gets picked up and thrown, it will start to roll on the ground until it hits a wall, and it breaks afterwards; every enemy who withstands this mighty weapon will be overthrown and downed by it. Later in the game, Donkey and Diddy Kong encounter abominable orangutan-looking foes called Manky Kongs, which, much like Donkey Kong in the original Donkey Kong, toss dangerous barrels at the heroes. These barrels only break when they hit a wall, and oddly enough, when Rambi bumps into a barrel thrown by a Manky Kong, the wooden weapon will not shatter its staves, but instead will simply fall off-screen.

After Donkey Kong Country, throughout the other many adventures of the Kongs, barrels still have the same function as they had in the aforementioned game. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest's barrels do not sport any apparent change, and so they remained in Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, Donkey Kong Country Returns and its remake, and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Apart from the Donkey Kong Country series, barrels also make appearances in the Donkey Kong Land games, and retain the exact same function. While Donkey Kong Land 2 and Donkey Kong Land 3 are full of barrels, the first Donkey Kong Land features a very small amount of normal barrels, three to be more precise, each in the following levels: Jungle Jaunt, Freezing Fun and Tricky Temple. In this game, barrels are smaller and take the form of wooden kegs.

In Donkey Kong Country 2 and Donkey Kong Country 3, Dixie Kong can lift barrels over her head with her ponytail. Also, exclusively in Donkey Kong Country 3, Kiddy Kong's method of holding barrels is the same as Diddy Kong's.

There are some barrels in the first Donkey Kong Country which do not display steel hoops, but instead weaker-looking, greenish ones. When these are thrown, they will roll on the ground just like common barrels, yet they are so fragile they will break when hitting an enemy. Barrels in Donkey Kong Country 3 function the same, although these do not sport any change in appearance from generic barrels.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong series
Just like in the Game Boy remake of Donkey Kong, barrels can be used by Mario as improvised artillery against Donkey Kong in Mario vs. Donkey Kong. They are relatively common, and most of them can be found lying on the ground in Donkey Kong Jungle. Once picked up, they can be carried by the player to any accessible place and either tossed at enemies, or put convenably to serve as helpful platforms for Mario to reach very high knolls. Likewise, they can be placed on spikes. The only boss battles where Donkey Kong uses the common wooden objects against Mario are 3-DK and 3-DK+. They can be deflected with a handstand.

The last battle with Donkey Kong before accessing the "Plus" worlds, the one where Mario needs to free the Toads, has the ape roll a spiky "variety" of barrels towards the plumber, which damage him easily. They cannot be stopped - not even with a handstand. Big tuns, labeled "DK" on the side facing the player, are also thrown by Donkey Kong, and cannot be braked either, unless Mario liberates all three Toads. Once these large barrels take off the screen, the Toads quickly appear with them back, transpoting and placing them safely in the center of the bottom platform. The "DK" tuns are the only weapon against the main foe in this fight. Whilst this fight has no normal barrel, the very last battle of the game contains them. They are plummeting from the sky, along with other potentially dangerous objects, once Donkey Kong, who controls a large mecha robot, pounds its fist on the ground.

Super Mario Bros. Special
Super Mario Bros. Special marks the second time barrels are used in the Mario series. In this game, barrels are not called as such, but rather credited as Tarusar. They are introduced in World 3-4 and continue to appear occasionally throughout the game. These obstacles did not change since their latter and first appearance in Donkey Kong; they just roll continously towards the hero, either on castle stairs or on steep mushroomy platforms. Here, barrels apparently spawn and plummet from high areas, and their source is nowhere to be seen. Mario's simple stomps cannot destroy the wooden hazards, although the game features the hammer, whose head can crush everything, not to except barrels.

New Super Mario Bros.
In New Super Mario Bros., large, horizontal barrels can be found buoying above the surface of water. Mario or Luigi can use them as platforms to skip over Skeeters and, eventually, avoid swimming. However, these barrels cannot float on the water and sustain the respective hero at the same time, and so they will sink continuously until he liberates them from the pressure. Under the effects of a Mini Mushroom, the hero can prevent the tuns from going down when stepping on them, and thus staying afloat they act as normal platforms. The barrels can be found yet again in New Super Mario Bros. 2, respecting the physics they had in the previously mentioned game.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Barrels are placed throughout deserts and haunted mansions in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, this time as handy items. They can be carried and thrown by the player in order to defeat certain enemies, just like in Donkey Kong Country. However, they can also harm other players if they get hit by one. Broozers can punch barrels to make them roll and use them as obstacles against the player. As seen in World 2-2, barrels can easily break when in contact with a spiked ball, whether they roll into them or stand still.

Super Mario 3D Land
Barrels appear in Super Mario 3D Land. In the final boss battle with Bowser, there is a point in the battle where Bowser throws barrels at the hero, a reference to the original Donkey Kong arcade game.

New Super Mario Bros. U / New Super Luigi U
Barrels reappear in New Super Mario Bros. U, and act just as in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. In this game they are less common, only appearing in some Ghost Houses with Broozers. Barrels return in New Super Luigi U as rare items, only found in the level Broozers and Barrels.

Mario Kart series
In the Mario Kart games, barrels are scattered around various courses; should a player bump into one of these with his/her vehicle, the barrel will break and free an aleatory item, which can help or hinder the player. In these games, the general appearance of barrels is much more realistic - appearance that was also approached in the Donkey Kong series - than that from the New Super Mario Bros. games.

DK Barrels are scattered in the starting part of DK Jungle, a racetrack from Mario Kart 7. The players can interact with them the way described above - however, unless they wear the power of an Invincibility Star or use external forces, such as fireballs or Bob-ombs, their kart will decelerate significantly upon bumping into a barrel, which makes it risky to destroy such object just for the sake of the items found inside. With the return of this racetrack in Mario Kart 8, DK Barrels reappear, but they do not sum up the only type of barrel found in this game. Simple barrels, which "act" the same as the other barrels do, are found on the airship section of Cloudtop Cruise, and also on the boardwalk part of Wild Woods. Toad Harbor features barrels decorated with flowers, which are found on the racetrack along with large, wooden boxes. Despite their slightly changed appearance, they are, technically, the same as common barrels.

Vases and crates from the Mario Kart games can be technically compared to barrels, as they reveal secrets upon crashing into them.

Other appearances in the Mario series
In Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, the Sunken Ship contains large piles of barrels. They help maintaining the old ship scenery, but also help Mario climb high walls, as they are grouped and formed in stairs. Later in the game, one of the puzzles hosted by Dr. Topper inside Bowser's Keep had the player guess how many barrels are stacked up in a large heap seen from the usual in-game perspective. In another area of Bowser's Keep, Mario confronts a Chained Kong that stands atop a high place in a lofty room and hurls barrels down several stairs, whom the hero must dodge; this is a homage to the classic Donkey Kong.

Super Mario Sunshine included items known as Water Barrels, which can be broken open and used to refresh F.L.U.D.D.'s water supply, clear large patches of Graffiti, or to instantly cool things down.

Bink challenges Mario and Luigi to a minigame in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. In this minigame, the objective is to arrange rows of barrels of the same color.

Rare barrel stickers cling around in Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Two of them may appear if the player defeats the Broozers in Bowser Jr.'s Airship.

Super Smash Bros. series
Barrels also appear as items in Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Melee, where they contain one to four items and can roll along inclines. They also sometimes explode when broken. They return in subsequent Super Smash Bros. games, alongside Crates. In these games, barrels change appearance depending on the stage in which they appear. For example, they turn into Present Barrels on the Yoshi's Island stage; though the effect of the barrels remains unchanged.

WarioWare series
Barrels briefly showed up in a microgame from WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!, called Donkey Kong. This microgame is based upon 25m, the very first level of Donkey Kong for the arcade. The microgame has Donkey Kong constantly tossing barrels at Jumpman; the character needs to dodge them while he stands still. Likewise, in WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase, barrels are featured in an extremely similar microgame, again named Donkey Kong, in which the player must protect Jumpman - who continuously walks on the girders and clambers ladders - from the barrels thrown by the simian foe.

Wario World
Barrels appear during the battle with Captain Skull in Wario World. They can be destroyed by being thrown or by any of Wario and Captain Skull's various attacks, and may contain Coins, Garlic, or nothing at all. They can also be used as weapons against Captain Skull, as they will knock the captain out if hurled at him. Throwing either a barrel or Captain Skull's bombs at him is required during the second half of the battle, when he becomes immune to Wario's punches.

Types of barrels
In many of the games of the Mario universe, mostly in the ones from the Donkey Kong series, a handful of barrel variations, derivated from the classic barrel, appear. Each fulfils a unique functionb that may or may not help the heroes. Oddly enough, DK Barrels, Auto Fire Barrels and Barrel Cannons are actually more oftenly found by players, than regular barrels. Below is a list with all types of barrels: