#51: Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo, NES, 1988/1991)

This is the game where Mario learns to fly, tail flapping, perhaps on unseen wires in front of platforms casting shadows on a painted sheet sky. Like Super Mario Bros. 2 before it, Super Mario Bros. 3 presents some pretty explicit suggestion that its events are not meant to be taken as the depiction of reality, only this time, rather than a dream, it is instead a stage performance, literally opened with a raised curtain.