Super Mario Bros.

"The game that made Mario the most famous plumber in the world."

Super Mario Brothers is what is called a classic game. SMB started the long road of great games that would star the plumber known as Mario! The graphics in SMB are truly something else considering they were made back in the 1980's and it completely blew all old Arcade games away! SMB not only was a major upgrade in the old Arcade system it was put on the first home console the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). SMB seemed to shine with the NES and even made it all the way to the World Records for most game ever sold. Super Mario Brothers it truly what games are all about, the graphics are great for their time, unbelievable amounts of gameplay, tremendous fun, great sounds, and old-school music! Super Mario Brothers is definitely what old-school gaming it all about, fun. The game doesn't need to have tremendous graphics or need to be 3-D, being the old-school game that it is I would say Super Mario Brothers goes down in the books as one of the best games of all-time. Not only did it make the NES shine, but gave way to the name that so many people have come to respect, Shigeru Miyamoto, he never went wrong with this game he made, perfected, and delivered one of the greatest games of all-time: Super Mario Brothers.

The Super Mario Brothers storyline is very intriguing and innovative in the same sense. The storyline to SMB is Mario and Luigi to plumbers from Brooklyn have come into this new world called The Mushroom Kingdom. The Mushroom Kingdom is under attack and siege by the evil King Koopa Bowser, who has taken away Princess Peach and invaded. As Mario you must go through the game knocking out, yes you never kill anything in this game or any other Mario game, and making your way to Koopa so that you can thwart him and rescue the Princess so that you can return peace back to the awesome Mushroom Kingdom! This storyline that we have come to know and love is the basis for Super Mario Brothers, back in the 1980's there had been no storyline like this one! I mean Mario; a plumber from Brooklyn had come through a pipe and was asked to save the Princess of the land! The storyline happens to be the most innovative masterpiece I have ever heard of. The storyline to this game is definitely a major plus to the game and should always be commented on.

The Graphics in Super Mario Brothers are definitely something, the old Arcade systems being the basis for graphics of the time, SMB took what the old Arcade systems could not do. The graphics are really something else, the nice backgrounds, the character models aren't the best but you can see the hard work that was put into these models. The ground to the enemies, to the character designs are definitely something else. The great things about these graphics are that they really push the power of the old, old Nintendo Entertainment System. While cartridges were the major thing, and the system itself didn't have any laser scanning devices it's amazing the game had what it did back in the day. Now while writing this review it is obvious that the graphics in SMB aren't going to compare to the graphics of today, but that's something you really can't look at because for their time SMB graphics were considered by many the best graphics ever! The effects of the graphics are awesome, never lagging or having problems running the graphics does the NES have. The game is great all around the graphics, while not the best part, are truly something else!

The gameplay in SMB is possibly the best kind any game could possibly have, and is the most fun kind ever! When you pick up the game and pop it into your Nintendo Entertainment System you'll have such fun running, jumping, and throwing fireballs. While Mario has a limited amount of functions he can do, the major way to KO enemies is to simply jump on them. While Normal Mario or just Mario he can be KO'ed to by getting hit by an enemy that is why is has power-ups such as the Mushroom which allows him to grow big and turn into Super Mario. While in this form he can jump higher, run better, but he can't get into some places that Normal Mario can. The Starman makes you invincible, and the Fire Flower turns you into Fire Mario allowing you to throw Fireballs at the enemies. All of these contribute to the greatness that is SMB!

The gameplay is very innovative, collecting these items, getting coins, KOing enemies to get points and try to get a high score all of this adds to the endless amount of fun you have while playing SMB. The game itself it pretty long, there are 8 worlds with 4 sub-levels within each of these worlds. Throughout the game there are a few Warp Zones which allow you to warp three worlds ahead, depending on which world you are on. This is very intriguing because you have to try to search and find these Warp Zones in order to warp, and they are well hidden. Other than that the bosses, who happen to be related to King Koopa himself occupy level 4 in every world. In order to get to the boss you have to go through their own custom made castle and the further you get the harder those castles become! Koopa's castle in definitely a challenge as well as a ton of fun! The games other levels are really fun and some of them are really challenging. There is a lot of variety in the levels as well, water, land, sky, etc. all add up to the different platforming fun you can have while playing SMB. Overall the gameplay pulls through being the best aspect of SMB and is definitely something that everyone should not have a single complaint about and is definitely one for the record books!

The sound and music of SMB is comical and great at the same time. Hearing the classic jump sound when Mario jumps is awesome and the original music of the Super Mario Brothers is also a great thing to hear while playing. Most of the time you'll have fun just hearing the sound of you jumping on a Goomba. The sounds from growing into Super Mario or hitting an enemy are funny and also great to listen too. Even jumping up and hitting a block adds a bit of coolness to the game. For the old system that it is the sounds aren't scratchy or hoarse either, they sound very nice and are very well done for the time the game was released. The other great thing about this part of the game is the original music!! The old Super Mario Brothers themes started here and have yet to let anyone down. From being in water, to ground, to being in the sky the music is simply amazing and is always fun and easy to hum along with! The music is almost as good as the gameplay itself because of the innovative and simply awesome soundtrack that was with this game! Overall the game is just too awesome in the sound/music area and in my opinion will never disappoint anyone.

The replay value, while a good sufficient part of the game, nothing that will shock you. Basically this game has a great amount of replay value. You have no save option in it so you cannot be in a world and expect to save your data to comeback and play it later; rather you have to play through once to get to the final boss this is simply awesome! Nintendo thought of everything possible instead of having a save option where you could just play and save and then comeback later to finish the game it made is just like that of an Arcade system, except you don't have to pay because when you turn it off you have to start all over and you almost always want too! I mean beating this game and just being done with it is stupid, the game has a great amount of replay value because you might want to go back and check for new Warp Zones, play through the levels again, see how fast you can beat it, or just try to get a higher score than your friend and compare afterwards! There is an endless amount of replay value to this great game.

So now it comes down to the overall of the game. The game has extreme amounts of replay value, a great soundtrack/sound, possibly the most innovative gameplay, and the best storyline a game has to offer! Basically you will not be disappointed with this game and everyone who has ever owned an NES has played this game once in their life, actually almost everyone has played this game once in their lives. If you haven't I highly suggest you pick up a copy so that you can try this great game!

Final Score: 10.0

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/20/04, Updated 05/30/06