Super Mario Bros.

"Now you're playing with power...Super Power."

Introduction

For those who care, this review is written from the point of view of someone who remembers a time when he was very young when the NES had not yet hit US markets and who used to play an Atari 2600 every day until his grandparents bought he and his brothers the basic NES set that came with two controllers and Super Mario Bros. That same person had forgotten about video games for some time as he got older and he had increasingly less time and money to spend on his NES and SNES. Then one day he discovered that he had a wife and daughter who had never played video games and sought to remedy the situation. What would he do? Why, he would introduce them to the world of Super Mario Bros and begin their video game education “from the beginning”.

Why is any of that important? One of the things that I've seen from looking at other gamefaqs reviews is that the authors all seem to be writing from various viewpoints and contexts. Some of these I can guess at. Others I can't, but I think that it helps to understand who I am and why I'm writing this.

Super Mario Bros is often described by these reviews as the first platform game, the first game to involve jumping, and the game to single handedly save the video game industry. Most of these assertions are outright wrong and some of them are much more complicated than they appear. SMB certainly did do a great deal to revitalize the industry and it was a seminal work in the development of the video game and especially the platform game. One only needs to look at the numerous clones and sequel that have sprung up over the years to tell the impact that this game had on the industry.

It ought to be pointed out as most reviews do that this wasn't Mario's first appearance. He was originally known as Jumpman in Japan (for his jumping ability, ‘natch) and he first appeared in Donkey Kong. He then received his own game with the aptly named Mario Bros. Both of these games were originally released as arcade games but Super Mario Bros was the first to feature Mario on a video game system and it is easily the one that began his rise to fame (for instance, until recent years I never realized that the star of Donkey Kong was supposed to be Mario and I bet that most of my contemporaries didn't either. I always thought that it was only the NES version of that game that substituted the regular hero of the game with Mario).

The innovations of this game's concept are many. The one that I've seen overlooked in most reviews and which doesn't really fit well into any of the subject blocks below is the fact that it has an ending. This was an incredible rarity in the days when we only knew of video games through Atari. Most Atari games and arcade games of that era had endlessly repeating levels that you simply progressed through until your stamina gave out and you died or that became increasingly more difficult in some fixed way until you died. Either way, they were just endlessly repeating patterns. The objective was to see how high your score was or how many of these levels that you could get through before you died but an actual ending was out of the question. Mario and many of the other new Nintendo games changed all that and it is important piece to understanding why Nintendo revitalized video games and why people started playing these games after their frustration with Atari.

Story 5/10

Many of the other common misconceptions about this game are that Mario is an Italian plumber from Brooklyn who saves Princess Peach from Bowser. The fact of the matter is that the game simply says that the Koopa Clan, an evil group of turtles known for their black magic, has invaded the Mushroom Kingdom. King Koopa, their leader, has transformed the people into stone blocks, bricks, and horsehair plants, and kidnapped Princess Toadstool, the only one who can reverse this transformation. Mario hears of their plight and sets off on a quest to free Princess Toadstool and save the Mushroom Kingdom.

Nowhere in the original game are we led to believe that Mario is an Italian plumber from Brooklyn. In fact, he's described as a carpenter in Donkey Kong so it's unclear where this whole plumber thing started. Someone probably saw how he ducks through pipes in the Mario games and just figured that pipes equal plumber. The Italian thing is easier to figure out since Mario is an Italian name. The Brooklyn part probably comes from the Super Mario Bros cartoon of the late 80's since there's certainly no indication in the early games of where he came from. Some people have also reconciled the Princess and King Koopa's names with what we are told later by indicating that they are Princess Peach Toadstool and King Bower Koopa, respectively. Why we refer to them by their given names now is not clear but it's a rational enough explanation to reconcile the different names.

Taking the story by itself, though, it's pretty lame. Sure in the Atari era not every game even had any kind of definable plot but the plot of this game is bothersome for several reasons. First, there's the assertion that the koopa are known for their black magic. If so, why do we see no evidence of this in the game? About the only clue that we see is that King Koopa has disguised his minions as copies of himself in the first 7 worlds and you can only reveal their true form by pelting them with fire balls. Then there's the fact that blocks and bricks seen in the game are actually citizens of the mushroom kingdom. The problem becomes obvious once you consider this fact. Super Mario smashes bricks all the time and every time he's killing some hapless member of the kingdom. I don't think that the writers of the instruction booklet talked to the game designers or I really bet that this would have been omitted. Finally we have the fact that the Princess can reverse this effect. Why does King Koopa merely kidnap her and why does he keep some of her retainers alive instead of changing or killing them. The only thing that I can think is that he wishes to mate with the princess and is using her retainers as hostages but this is unclear as is why he is keeping each retainer in a separate castle. Does he know that Mario (or someone) is coming?

As a result, this game gets a 5/10. It's a start in the right direction but the fact that the story doesn't mesh with what we see in the game (or if it does it means that Mario is an “ends justify the means” type of hero who kills citizens turned into bricks) means that it clearly could have done much better on this score

Game play 7/10

The game play is very good. Having four buttons on the controller (as opposed to Atari's 1) allows for increased options. First, there's a pause feature. This is standard faire now but if you think about the time period in which this was released you will understand how revolutionary this was. You just couldn't pause games on the Atari. Some games had a built in pause where you could walk away between stages and had to press the button to resume game play but being able to pause the game at any time was unheard of and allowed people to pause the game and come back to it later if they didn't have enough time to defeat it in one sitting.

Three controls are rolled into two with the ‘A' and ‘B' buttons. ‘A' allows you to jump and ‘B' allows you to throw fire balls if you are Fire Mario or allows you to run in any form if you hold it down and move in a particular direction. For the most part this versatility works and it is certainly something that could never be done on a one button system. However, the game does lose some points by combining the run and fire commands in a single button. They were limited by the controller but this can cause trouble when you're Fire Mario. When you press the button intending to run you also fire a fireball. This can have unexpected consequences especially if you want to chase a turtle shell that you've just kicked. One solution is to press backwards before holding down ‘B' so that your fireball goes the other way but it is an inelegant solution at best. Still, this rarely comes up so it never becomes a critical issue.

The exception to these controls is on the water worlds. In these places, ‘A' swims while ‘B' fires fireballs (if Fire Mario) or holding B while pressing ‘A' produces faster swimming. Control on the water worlds is less than ideal and the game loses a few points here. Controls are sluggish and it's hard to change direction. It should be easier to stop and move in a different direction in water but not here. While the addition of a swimming level is an innovation in itself some work could be done on making it work better as they did in SMB3.

This game can be difficult but that just adds to the fun. A host of villains plague our hero. Many can be defeated by jumping on them. Some harm you if you jump on them and some others can be forced to retreat into a shell if jumped on but will come out and attack you if you leave them lying around for to long. Most enemies can be defeated with a single fireball. King Koopa and his disguised minions can be defeated by fire but must be hit many times. A couple others can't be harmed by fire at all. If you get up to Koopa without fire your only recourse is to get behind him where an axe will allow you to cut the bridge that he stands on and plunge him into a lake of fire. Thus, you need some basic strategic skills to assess your various foes and determine how to defeat them based on your abilities.

Mario (or Luigi since the two are exactly identical except for coloring in this game) in his regular form can be killed by one hit by a foe or by falling into a pit. There are several power ups to help him as he progresses through the game, though. By touching an orange mushroom he is able to become Super Mario. On top of becoming larger he gains the ability to burst bricks when he jumps under them and a hit by an enemy reduces him to regular Mario rather than killing him. If he grabs a fire flower he becomes Fire Mario and gains the ability to hurl fireballs. Once again a hit by an enemy reduces him to regular Mario rather than killing him. However, this is also an annoying nit on the game as many people believe that Fire Mario ought to be reduced to Super Mario when hit. This was rectified with Super Mario Bros 3. It doesn't present a huge issue on this game and simply adds to the difficulty. Touching a star changes any form of Mario into Invincible Mario and makes him invincible for several seconds (although you can still die by falling into a pit). Finally there is the green mushroom which grants another life. Also, there are coins scattered through the games. Gaining 100 of these coins adds another life to Mario.

Adding to the difficulty is the time limit. Several levels of the game are not extremely difficult in themselves but become difficult when you need to rush through them to complete them in the time allotted. If you cannot complete the level in the allotted time, you lose a life and must start over.

There are many tricks and secrets to the game that add to the variability and enhance game play. There are warp zones which allow you to skip certain levels and give you a better chance of beating the game and allowing you to beat it in less time. Then there's the sliding feature that allows you to access certain areas that you wouldn't think that you could access unless you were regular Mario but if you master this skill you'll be able to run, duck, and slide into small nooks and crannies.

There are several pointless features to the game. One is the point system. This is a legacy from the old Atari and arcade games. Mario was part of that initial revolution that made most point based systems obsolete. You get no benefits from points other than gloating rights and in my entire life I don't think that I've ever heard anyone compare high scores with Mario. People are more likely to compare how many lives they obtained, how many lives they lost, or length of time defeating the game with or without warp zones than they are to compare high scores. The other useless element is the 2-player mode. This is a holdover from previous gaming systems. Basically each player plays until he loses a life and then the other player plays. They alternate back-and-forth until either of them wins or loses all of their lives. I don't know anyone who used this mode often. There is no advantage to playing as either Mario or Luigi and both are identical except for color and it is annoying to wait for the other person's life to expire before your turn begins. The characters never interact (another features fixed in SMB3) so it is more efficient for each player to play in 1-player mode and just hand the controller over to the other player when they're finished rather than alternating lives in this way.

Another reason why this game loses a few points is that several of the levels are almost exact copies with previous levels except that there are a few more enemies or the platforms that you need to jump on are smaller. Super Mario Bros presents more possibilities and more variability to the levels than previous games but this was always an annoying factor to me and I feel that with a little more time the game designers could have really fleshed out each individual level, perhaps leaving the difficulty upgrades for the B Quest.

So, overall there are some useless elements and there are a few minor hindrances which is why I think that the game play is excellent but not perfect.

Graphics 8/10

The graphics if viewed from the point of view of someone who has never played anything other than Atari are excellent. There's actually some variation in shading that you can see on the night worlds, caves, castles, and water worlds and that is really excellent. There's also some shading to provide some depth to the objects. All of these elements were new and unique at the time and wowed everyone who played the game. However, if viewed in light of the NES era, other games proved that the graphics could have been better. Later Mario games would improve in sharpening the clothing and Mario's face so that his features and clothing were more discernable. As a result, the score falls short of perfect but is still above average for the NES era.

Sounds 8/10

Many reviews have written volumes on how memorable the Mario main theme is. There's no disputing that and it is classic. The cave theme and castle theme are also distinctive and help set the respective moods of their locations. However, the water music can get very annoying especially since those levels themselves tend to be a little annoying.

Sound effects tell the same story. Some of them are really good. The brick cracking is especially nice as are the coin grabbing, power-up sounds, and enemy frying sounds. Then there are some truly annoying sounds like the Mario dying sound and the Mario de-supering sound. The worst sound is the “Mario hitting a block he can't break sound”. Still, overall the music and sounds are good but a few clunkers derate the overall score.

Play Time/Replayability 10/10

Play time is variable which rolls up into the repeatability factor. You can beat this game in 15 minutes if you make maximum use of the warp zones or it can take a couple of hours if you go through the entire thing without warping ever and especially if you then go through the entire B quest as well.

This brings me to the replayability. The true innovation of this game is the fact that you do have choices which dramatically change the course of the game. You can choose to take warp zones and you can change which warps you take. You can decide not to take warps at all. Then, once you've defeated the game you have a B Quest to go through where everything is more difficult. It took me from the time that I was 5 to the time that I was 26 to finally beat the B Quest without taking warp zones. I wasn't playing the game constantly for that entire period but that shows how much replay value there is. Now, I feel as if I've finally mastered the game since I can beat both quests without warps but it took me years to get to that point. Never in all that time did I feel that I was wasting my time.

On top of the variations, there are also many hidden secrets in the game. Finding all of them can be another reason to keep on playing. Also if you have the original NES version with all of its glitches, you can take the time to try and expose all of those, including the infamous minus world and becoming a regular-Mario with fire power (read some of the FAQ's to understand what I'm talking about). If there's one thing that this game has in spades, it's the replay value.

Final Recommendation

I don't know anything about the re-releases and don't know how altered they are. I know that they get rid of the glitches, which in a way makes them kind of hollow in my eyes but I don't know if there are any further changes. If you have an NES I recommend that you pick up this game. I don't think that you'll get sick of it until you can beat at least the A quest without warps and can beat the B quest with warps (that's when I originally gave up for a few years anyway) but I guarantee that from time-to-time you'll pick the game up again and give it another go until you've truly mastered all of the levels and can beat the B Quest without warps.

Give it a try; millions of people can't be wrong.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/28/08, Updated 10/12/09

Game Release: Super Mario Bros. (US, 10/18/85)