Mario's Time Machine is an educational video game originally released for MS-DOS and then for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES consoles.

Because these actions will eventually change history permanently, the player character Mario takes control of the Timulator to return the artifacts to their proper areas in time.

Like Mario Is Missing!, the console versions use a password system to order to resume play from a particular game state.

The museum is the main hub, where the player obtains the artifacts and directly accesses all the game's levels (which consist of locations on Earth in different time periods) using the Timulator.

The player thus is required to converse with the non-player characters depicting the local denizens of the time period in order to learn various facts and be able to fill in the blanks.

[1] In the game's ending cutscene, Mario manages to confront Bowser, who then steals back the Timulator to make his escape.

After all the artifacts have been returned, the player is tasked to answer three random multiple choice questions pertaining to the historical periods visited.

GamePro praised the game's dialogues with historical figures, commenting that "the scenarios make flesh-and-blood human beings out of people who are usually just static pictures in textbooks".

[17] They later suggested that it was an unpopular game, commenting that "five, maybe six people played the NES version of Mario's Time Machine".

[20] In the book Video Games: A Guide for Savvy Parents, author David Sheff found the educational elements good, but criticized the gameplay.

[22] The Independent's Janet Swift discussed Mario's Time Machine in her article on the latest generation of educational titles in 1994.

He also criticized the act of putting Mario in realistic time periods, commenting that he "occupies the imagination, a place with Star Festivals and giant piranha plants".