Super Mario Chess Collector's Edition Review: 32 Figures in a Tin

32 hand-painted Nintendo figures, a tin box, and a board with Mario on it. That's the Super Mario Chess Collector's Edition in one breath, 16 figures per side. My verdict: I'd buy it for a family that plays on rainy Sundays, and I'd skip it if you want a set you can read at a glance across a table. USAOPOLY has been in licensed board games for a long time, and this one sits in the display case first and the playing table second.

What it is and who it's for

The listing is clear on the count. You get 32 hand-painted Super Mario Brothers figurine pieces, split into two rosters. Red side: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Princess Daisy, Yoshi, Toad, plus Coin pawns. Green side: Bowser, Bowser Jr., Magikoopa, Birdo, Goomba, and Koopa Shell pawns. That's a proper cast, and it's the reason people buy this instead of a generic novelty board. It also ships with an exclusive Super Mario Bros. game board and a collectible tin box.

What the listing doesn't do is map those figures onto king, queen, bishop, knight, rook. You get the roster, not the role chart. If you're teaching a seven-year-old, work that out before the first game or you'll spend ten minutes arguing about whether Toad is a bishop.

Who it's for: Nintendo households, gift shoppers, and anyone who wants a chess set that looks like something on a shelf. Not for the club player who keeps a scoresheet. If the theme matters more than the geometry, there's a wider field in my guide to themed chess sets worth a browse before you commit.

What the specs actually tell you

Here's the honest inventory: 32 pieces, one board, one tin, hand-painted finish, USAOPOLY branding. No king height. No square measurement. No piece weight. No material callout beyond the paint.

That gap matters more than it sounds. US Chess guidance puts a workable king at roughly 3.375 to 4.5 inches tall, on squares of 2 to 2.5 inches, with the king's base running about 75 to 80 percent of a square. USAOPOLY publishes none of those numbers, so I can't tell you whether this set clears the bar. Nobody can, from the listing alone. Measure it when it lands.

And figurine pieces are wider at the base than Staunton pieces of the same height. Sculpted Mario, sculpted Bowser, sculpted Birdo: those bases eat square space. If the board is tight, you'll get crowding in the middle game and pieces bumping into each other on captures. That's a design tradeoff baked into every character set, not a knock on this one specifically. I've compared the options in my roundup of the best Mario chess sets and the same tension shows up everywhere.

The "collector's edition" label is doing marketing work. Don't read it as limited run or numbered. It means tin box and painted figures.

What owners report

The praise clusters in the same place every time: how it looks. People photograph it. It gets left out on coffee tables. As a gift, it lands well, and the tin makes it feel like more than a cardboard-box toy.

The complaint that repeats most is piece recognition. Mid-game, with red pieces on the far side of the board, telling Peach from Daisy from a Coin pawn takes a beat longer than it should. Bishops and knights get confused. Casual players laugh it off. Anyone playing with a clock gets annoyed fast.

Second theme: the board and pieces feel lighter than the tin suggests. Thin board, hollow-feeling figures. That's what you get at this end of the licensed market, and it's the same story with most character sets, including the ones I cover in my LEGO chess set review. People who wanted a heavy resin set were disappointed. People who wanted a fun object were not.

Third: storage. The tin holds everything, which owners like, but a few mention the insert not cradling pieces tightly. Pack it flat.

Pros and cons

Pros

• 32 hand-painted figurine pieces, split into two full rosters
• Red side includes 6 named characters plus Coin pawns; green side includes 6 named characters plus Koopa Shell pawns
• Collectible tin box included for storage and gifting
• Board is Super Mario specific, not a generic roll-up

Cons

• No published king height, square size, or piece weight anywhere in the listing
• Sculpted figurine silhouettes are slower to read than Staunton shapes
• No replacement pieces or spare pawns mentioned
• No rating average or review count published on the listing data I reviewed

Specs at a glance

Alternatives worth a look

The product data I was given for this piece covers one set only, so there are no second and third ASINs to line up here. No marker lines, no fake comparison. What I can do is point you at the directions I'd actualy walk in.

If the Mario theme is the draw but you want to see how this tin compares to the plastic-cased and wooden Mario boards floating around, start with my roundup of the best themed chess sets and filter from there. The Collector's Edition usually sits at the top of the price band for Mario chess, and you should know what the cheaper tiers look like before you pay it.

If you're flexible on franchise and just want a character set that reads well in play, Star Wars sets tend to use taller, more differentiated sculpts. My guide to the best Star Wars chess sets covers the ones worth the money. Same logic, different paint job.

Should you buy it

Buy it if you want a Nintendo chess set that looks good enough to leave out and sturdy enough to survive a kid's game night. The 32 hand-painted figures and the tin are the whole value proposition, and they deliver on that. Buy it as a gift and you'll look clever.

Don't buy it if you're after a playing set with verified proportions, spare pawns, and silhouettes you can read from three feet away. USAOPOLY doesn't publish the measurements, and the sculpted pieces won't fix that. For serious play, spend the same money on a Staunton set and buy the Mario one later as a shelf piece. That's what I'd do, and I say it as someone who owns more novelty sets than he needs.