Is there a reason levels in mainline Mario games are called "courses"?

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It's not a translation quirk or anything; they're called "courses" in Japanese as well (コース, which is a loan word from English). But clearly even Nintendo's localization teams find this a weird word choice; in the English version of Super Mario Maker 2 there's a bunch of jokes about Nina getting the terminology wrong and most other localizations opt to call them "levels" regardless.

It does makes sense that they wouldn't use "level" originally though as Japanese game terminology tends to favor "stage" (ステージ, again directly borrowed from the English word) for that context, with "level" (レベル) in the context of video games being more associated with the RPG mechanic over there. But "course", as far as I'm aware, is not an established gaming term in either language.

So with all that in mind, why did they go with "course" over something like "stage"? Did they just want a unique franchise term to stand out, like how Sonic has "zones" and "acts"?
 
This is something I've frankly asked myself as well, and I have a hunch.

"Level" or "stage" denote a progression or continuity between those self-contained areas you play through which make up a game. It implies they have a position on a scale of some sort, e.g. difficulty-wise, much like their dictionary definitions would suggest. "Course" is a more individual term: it defines a progressive set of elements within only one of those areas.

Beyond having a better semantic value in context, I'm guessing Nintendo just went with "course" a sort of franchise term, like you said, that's consistent in-between games such as Mario Maker and Mario Kart. Although, there have been games in the past 10 years that used the "level" terminology; namely, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars. I have no idea to which extent they're willing to enforce the former... "course" of action.
 
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You see, Mario is for babies, so courses are here are the educational kind, of course.
 
Koopa con Carne said:
This is something I've frankly asked myself as well, and I have a hunch.

"Level" or "stage" denote a progression or continuity between those self-contained areas you play through which make up a game. It implies they have a position on a scale of some sort, e.g. difficulty-wise, much like their dictionary definitions would suggest. "Course" is a more individual term: it defines a progressive set of elements within only one of those areas.
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That's actually a pretty good hunch. I could see Nintendo staff saying something like that in an interview if they were ever asked why (assuming they haven't been already).
Koopa con Carne said:
Beyond having a better semantic value in context, I'm guessing Nintendo just went with "course" a sort of franchise term, like you said, that's consistent in-between games such as Mario Maker and Mario Kart. Although, there have been games in the past 10 years that used the "level" terminology; namely, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars. I have no idea to which extent they're willing to enforce the former... "course" of action.
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As I stated in the topic title, it seems to be most strictly enforced in the mainline games (keep in mind that Nintendo considers both Super Mario Maker games to be mainline). When you branch out to the spin-offs there seems to be a little more leeway, and then you have sub-franchises like Donkey Kong that rarely if ever use "course" and prefer more traditional game terms like "level" or "stage".

I did notice it was used in Mario Kart as well, but there it stands out a lot less due to its nature as a racer, so it's easily to interpret its usage of "courses" in the context of "racecourses". "Track" might be somewhat more common, but "course" is established enough as a racing term that I wonder if Mario Kart's usage of it was even meant to allude to the main platformers. Although it could still very well have been intentionally chosen for the double meaning.
 
Glowsquid said:
Back when SMB was new, Miyamoto referred to its genre and other jumping and running-heavy platformers as "athletic games". I assume the nomenclature was chosen with this in mind.
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Interesting stuff; thanks for sharing! I know the loanword "athletic" is often used in Japanese to refer to outdoor obstacle courses, so with that in mind it's much easier to understand where they got "course" from.
 
The use of the term "athletic" is fascinating. It would explain the name for the alternative theme in several Super Mario games (including the first Yoshi's Island, which is itself a Super Mario game), where they are basically called the "Athletic theme".

Thank you for reading.
 
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