Super Mario bros (NES)- 1985

Title - Super Mario Bros

Publisher - Nintendo

System Releases - NES (1985,1988 w/ Duck Hunt), SNES (1993 - as part of Super Mario All-Stars collection), Wii Virtual Console (2006), Wii U Virtual Console (2013), NES Classic (2016), Nintendo Switch Online - NES Classics (2018)

Review (by jbassc):

Super Mario Bros. is the game that single-handedly turned around an industry, and helped lead us to the diversity we all now enjoy in modern gaming, but as a young kid on Christmas morning back in 1988, I didn’t know or care about any of that.

My grandparents got me the Nintendo Entertainment System Action Set - complete with Super Mario Bros. + Duck Hunt on a single cartridge, an orange Zapper, and a few other games. Immediately, I wanted to go in the den of my uncle’s house and hook up the Nintendo to his TV, but they made me wait, only until he opened the exact same Action Set with some different games. Thankfully my grandparents had us open our two biggest presents last, as all we wanted to do was to try out our new games, and Super Mario Bros. was instantly the first game we tried and became hooked for life.

World 1-1 is iconic for so many reasons, but the real genius lay behind the design that taught you how to play the game without a manual. Games at the time didn’t have stories per se as they were modeled after arcade games, and what you were left with was only a few levels to figure out how controls worked. As examples of this intelligent design, Nintendo placed ? blocks that made you want to find out the surprise inside. The first few pipes increased in size, and you learned quickly to hold the down direction on the d-pad to stop your momentum, only to discover the game’s first secret room filled with coins. Climbing to the top of your first set of stairs only led to ground below, so the pits that followed the next set of stairs weren’t as scary. 

Nintendo cleverly balanced a feeling of familiarity with a feeling of exploration all throughout the game, so that as you progressed through the levels, your new experiences rapidly turned into “I’ve seen this before, but they tweaked it for this level”. Which only made you want to see if you could overcome the latest obstacle in your path to get even farther in the game. Really the only “mean” trick to those of us that were playing the game for the first time, was the ending of world 1-4, where the excitement as Bowser falls into the lava after chopping the bridge down with the axe, turns to dismay as you discover that Toad awaited us with bad news - “your princess is in another castle”.

Looking at the latest games today playing in 4K with all kinds of environmental effects, crazy realistic lighting, and the only real limit to graphics being your imagination - it’s hard to go back to an 8-bit era and say that Super Mario Bros. was an amazing graphical achievement. However, coming from an Atari 2600 or an Intellivision - having that many colors on screen was revolutionary, and the Mario sprite even sported a mustache of all things (nevermind that the mustache was the basic way to define the shape his face!). This was our first foray into the vast areas of the Mushroom Kingdom, and it was magical to see all of these fanciful things rendered in a beautiful multi-color palette when so many previous games were only a handful of colors in total.

So how does this game hold up? Sure the nostalgia factor is really high for someone that played the game as a kid, but there are a few things that set Super Mario Bros. apart from other platformers of the era. 

• First, tight controls and simple gameplay go a long way to making a game fun for the user. 
• Second, Mario and the mushroom kingdom are now iconic, and the characters are instantly recognizable at first glance. 
• Third, the controls are so simple that young children can play the game, but there’s enough depth that adults can enjoy finding all of the secrets and pulling off insane tricks. 

In conclusion, Super Mario Bros. is a classic by any measure, and deserves all of the press it receives. It’s easily a top 10 game for the NES system (and I would argue Top 5), and enjoyable for everyone - from the most casual run-throughs, to completion-focused play, and even speedrunners. There’s a good reason why NES broke the home console slump and re-ignited the video game craze while using this game as a pack-in when you bought the system. Highly recommended to play/buy for all players.

Detailed Game Ratings:

Best System Version - the original NES Version is the best, but in my opinion, Nintendo Switch NES Online is a close second with both online play and save states, even though some would argue for Super Mario All-Stars

Visual Style - 9.0, totally blew away competition from Atari

Art Longevity - 9.0, not perfect, but very iconic even more than 30 years later

Story - 3.5, you didn’t know there was a princess to save until you beat the first castle

Gameplay - 7.0, it defined platforming as a genre, but the gameplay was also very basic

Controls - 10, basic, but incredibly precise, which is why speedruns are so popular

Difficulty - 5.0, most average players can get to world 8 with no problem, especially with the warps, even though there are some interesting challenges as a speedunner

# of Players - 2

Multiplayer Interactions (Categories)

• Cooperative or competitive? Competitive
• Co-op, split screen, or alternating play? Alternating
• Is Multiplayer a Hindrance or Help to finishing the game? Help, you teach each other where to go

Nostalgia Rating - 9.0, a must play as part of gaming history

Durability Rating - 8.5, game changer, but it did have some shortcomings

Overall Grade - 9.5, find the money, you owe it to yourself to own the Mario that started it all on some system

Alternate Versions

• VS Super Mario Bros. (Arcade) was a much harder version of the same formula that was designed to eat coins
• Super Mario All Stars (SNES) upgraded it to 16-bit graphics and expanded music
• Super Mario Bros Deluxe/DX (GBC) was the portable version that was a combination of Super Mario Bros 1 & Super Mario Bros USA (aka Super Mario 2) with an overworld map that featured all of the worlds
• Super Luigi Bros. was featured in NES Remix 2 & Super Mario 3D World for the Nintendo Wii U that mirrored the game, so you go left instead of right

Sequels - This was the one that started the Mario craze, but there were 2 different sequels depending on where you lived - in Japan, you got Super Mario Bros. 2 (aka The Lost Levels for US & EU) which was a direct sequel, and in the US we had Super Mario USA (aka Super Mario 2 for most of us) which was a reworked Yumi Kojo: Doki Doki Panic from Japan, and a radical departure from the original.

Good if you like - Platformers, Speedruns, Adventure, Finding Secrets

Hashtags - #2DMario, #Mario, #NESClassics, #GamingIcon, #ClassicForAReason