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- “Press START or press Up on the
Control Pad to pause the game. You never know when you'll need to take a second to extract a nose nugget!”
- —Wario, WarioWare: Touched! instruction manual
Pausing is a game mechanic found in many non-arcade video games, allowing the player to stop the action temporarily. Most often, pause menus are activated with the "Start" button, though in systems without a designated "Start" button like the Wii, other buttons are used. In early games, this simply stopped the game while sometimes replacing all sprites onscreen with the word "pause," though later games often added one or more menus to it, often with options such as starting over, exiting a level, or viewing totals for completion. Some games, particularly RPGs, have highly robust pause menus with several functions and sometimes even tutorials for using them.
As pause menus are so ubiquitous in games, this list will primarily cover pause menus with notable gameplay functions, or milestones in their development relative to previous and later games in the respective series. Games that are not listed generally have one that is standard for the era, be it simply stopping all action or having a basic "Options" and "Quit" menu.
History
Super Mario series
The earliest games of the Super Mario series simply stopped the game when paused. Starting with Super Mario Bros. 3, they began to have other utilities as well.
Super Mario Bros. 3
In Super Mario Bros. 3, pausing removes all sprites from the screen and replaces them with a giant "P A U S E" graphic, with the exception of the Battle Mode, which keeps the sprites. Foreground tile-layer animations, such as ? Blocks and water, continue animating while it is paused; this in particular affects piped Munchers, which continue emerging and retracting even while paused, and thus can affect how Mario or Luigi interacts with them.
Super Mario World
In Super Mario World, pausing stops the action, but pressing 
on the pause screen of a completed level allows the player to leave it in their current state; as such, they can enter a stage, grab a power-up, and leave with the power-up intact. This is in contrast to most later games, where quitting a level through the pause menu will usually restore the player to the form they entered in.
Super Mario Land 2 - 6 Golden Coins
In Super Mario Land 2 - 6 Golden Coins, pausing causes the light and dark shades on the screen to invert, with the sprites slowly blinking lighter and darker colors.
Super Mario 64
The pause menu in Super Mario 64 gives the option to change basic game settings, quit the stage the player is in (a function that returns in all later games in the series), or quit the game when they are in the Mushroom Castle (which also returns in later games' respective hubs and maps). Additionally, it shows the totals of Power Stars that have been collected for each course with empty spaces for uncollected ones, though all the miscellaneous ones are instead given a numbered counter. The options to change the camera or quit the stage do not appear when Mario is in motion, most likely to prevent lives from not being lost.
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario Sunshine has two separate pause menus. The primary one, activated with 
, has game settings and the quit option. It can be activated only when Mario is on the ground, as doing it while he is airborne will result in a buzzer noise; this is likely to prevent players from avoiding losing a life by quitting a stage when they are about to fall into a pit. Additionally, pressing the 
button brings up a different pause menu that features a map of Isle Delfino with pop-up information for the various locations and inhabitants as well as the collection totals.
Wario Land series
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 has a pause menu that primarily just stops the action. However, by pressing the 
button several times in a row on it, the player can access the debug menu, allowing them to adjust their coin and life counts.
Wario Land II
Wario Land II has two separate pause screens, with the 
button simply putting a giant "PAUSE" notice in crooked font on the screen, and pressing the button shows the various treasures and other items collected.
Wario Land 3
Wario Land 3's pause menu allows the player to look at the stage's item totals as well as tutorials for using different unlockable moves.
Donkey Kong Country
In Donkey Kong Country, pressing after pausing in a level that has already been beaten lets the player return to the map screen.
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars has an in-depth pause menu that Toad gives a tutorial for. It has multiple inventory menus, a map, and the ability to switch party members.
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
In Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, pausing allows Yoshi to see his score totals for the level or use a Special Item.
Donkey Kong 64
In Donkey Kong 64, the pause menu can be used to view the totals for the various items throughout the game.
Luigi's Mansion
Luigi's Mansion has three pause menus: the standard one, activated with the button, which allows the player to switch control styles or quit the game; the inventory menu activated with the button, which allows the player to check the treasures and portrait ghosts they have collected; and the map, activated with the 
button.
Paper Mario series
In most entries of Paper Mario series, pause menus are similar to the one in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, having multiple tabs that the player can use to access different types of items, maps, lists, partners, and other aspects. However, in Paper Mario: Sticker Star and Paper Mario: Color Splash, these are often reduced due to menu functions being performed in other ways. Additionally, the Nintendo GameCube version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has a basic pause screen in the Bowser stages as part of their throwback to the original Super Mario Bros.
Super Smash Bros. series
In the Super Smash Bros. series, pausing often gives the player the ability to move the camera relatively unrestricted, rotating it around the player character and zooming it in and out. They may also use it to view the full stage at once. By inputting a certain button combination, the player can quit out of the current match.
WarioWare series
In the WarioWare series, pausing during a microgame causes the game behind the pause screen to turn black. In the case of pausing during a transition screen or a minigame, the game only dims.
Mario & Luigi series
In the Mario & Luigi series, pause menus feature items, gear, maps, level totals, and other such aspects. In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, the menu is depicted as the inside of the bros.' suitcase, in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, it is inside Stuffwell the living suitcase, and in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, it is Starlow's star menu. Later games do not give an in-universe explanation for the menu, however.
Wario World
In Wario World, the pause menu allows the player to view the treasures and Spritelings for the level they are on. The theme that plays in the background of the pause menu consists of Wario constantly singing "Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah!" in the background of it, though after about 50 minutes, he will stop and apologize.
Gallery
Sprites
Super Mario Bros. 3 pause text (cave)
Super Mario Bros. 3 pause text (fortress)
Super Mario Bros. 3 pause text (artillery boss)
Super Mario Bros. 3 pause text (sea and castle)
Super Mario Bros. 3 pause text (desert fortress)
Super Mario Bros. 3 pause text (cave fortress)
Super Mario Bros. 3 pause text (ice fortress)
Super Mario Bros. 3 pause text (Bowser's Castle)
Super Mario Bros. 3 pause text (
World 6 castle)
Screenshots
Super Mario All-Stars (Super Mario Bros. 2)
Super Mario All-Stars (Super Mario Bros. 3)
Donkey Kong (Super Game Boy)
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!
WarioWare: Get It Together!
Names in other languages
| Language | Name | Meaning | Note(s) | Ref. |
|---|
| Japanese | ポーズ
Pōzu | Pause | | [1] |
| Dutch | Pauzeren | To pause | | [2] |
| Pauze | Pause | | [2] |
| Onderbreken | To pause | Super Mario Bros. | [3] |
| Finnish | Tauota | To pause | | [4] |
| Tauko | Pause | | [4] |
| French | Pause | - | | [5] |
| German | Pausieren | To pause | | [6] |
| Pause | - | | [7] |
| Unterbrochen[sic] | To pause | Super Mario Bros. 3 | [8] |
| Italian | Pausa | Pause | | [9] |
| Korean | 중지
Jungji | Stop | | [10] |
멈춤
Meomchum | Pause | | [11] |
| Spanish | Pausar | To pause | | [12] |
| Pausa | Pause | | [13] |
| Swedish | Paus | Pause | | [14] |
References
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