Super Mario Bros. Deluxe

"Thank you, Mario! But our princess is in another system."

Back in the early 80’s the videogame industry was hurting in America. Thanks to uninspired me-too games and a series of bad marketing decisions by Atari, retailers could barely give games away. Some resorted to selling their stock for as low a 10 cents a game. The millions of carts that couldn’t be sold for that price were shipped to landfills. Because of this, retailers swore they’d never stock another videogame in their stores. Most people were calling videogames a fad whose time had come. It was a dark day indeed.

On the other side of the world, things were going great. Nintendo had just released its Famicom (Family Computer) videogame system to the Japanese people, and it was selling better than they could have hoped. Giddy with this success, Nintendo decided to launch the Famicom in the United States. They knew the state of the videogame industry here, so they knew they had to make some changes. First of all, they changed the name from “Famicom” to “Nintendo Entertainment System”. They hoped this would make people think of their system as a high-tech piece of equipment like a VCR, rather than a toy. They also changed the design of the system to go along with the new name. They even included a little robot name R.O.B. that could interact with certain games, adding to the “high-tech” image. This was good enough to fool retailers, but the NES still wasn’t selling. It didn’t have a killer app yet; a game so good that people would go and buy the system just to play it. Then along came two brothers, Mario and Luigi. The Mario Brothers. The SUPER MARIO BROTHERS!

14 years and dozens of games later, Super Mario Bros. has become a killer app once more, this time for the tiny wonder known as the Gameboy Color. But how did the transition work out? Did Nintendo screw up it's most famous game ever? Put your fears to rest my friends, all is well in Mushroom Kingdom.

Mario Brothers, eh? Never heard of ‘em.
For those one or two people that have been living under a rock for the past two decades, the here’s the scoop. The princess has been kidnapped by the evil King Bowser and taken away to one of his many castles. Playing as either Mario or Luigi, you have to travel through Mushroom Kingdom to each of Bowser’s eight castles to see if the princess is there. HINT: She’s in the last castle! Go to the 8th castle first, Mario! *ahem*

Controlling Mario
Controlling Mario is easy because there aren’t many functions (there’s only two buttons on the NES/GBC, after all). You have a button for run and a button for jump. Running is good for…well, running. Jumping is good for jumping, but it can also be used as an attack and to activate “?” blocks and break bricks. To use the jump as an attack, simply jump on top of an enemy’s head. To break a brick or activate a “?” block, all you have to do is jump up and hit it with your head. “?” blocks often contain power-ups and coins that are useful on your quest, but sometimes regular bricks will contain hidden items as well.

Types of Levels
Mario is a 2D, side-scrolling platformer, but it does have several distinct and varied types of stages, listed here.

Standard - This is the level you’ll see most often. A standard level has a brown rock ground, and lots of breakable bricks. Typical enemies for this level include Goombas, Paratroopers, Piranha Plants, Hammer Bros., and Bullet Bills.

Underground - Like the standard level only everything is blue, including the enemies. Underground levels have creepier sounding music, as well. Typical enemies are usually the same as the standard level.

Underwater - Just like it sounds, you’re underwater. In these levels, Mario has to swim around seaweed while avoiding aquatic enemies. Breakable blocks are few and far between; coins are usually found floating in the water. Watch out for holes that will suck you in! Typical enemies include Cheep-Cheeps (fish), and Bloopers (squids).

Bridge - In these levels you have to run across a long bridge (with numerous pieces missing) to get to the end. Flying Cheep-Cheeps fly from under the bridge to try to hit. Out of all the levels, these were the most frustrating for me. Luckily there wasn’t very many of them.

Trees - At least I think they’re trees. Actually they look like giant mushrooms. Anyway, Mario has to jump from tree-top to tree-top to complete these levels. Typical enemies include Goombas and Paratroopers (Bullet Bills also populate some the later levels).

Bowser’s Castle - Bowser doesn’t like guests so he’s filled his castles with tons of nasty fire pits and rotating fire traps. If you can survive to the end, you’ll face Bowser himself. Scary stuff!

Super Mario Bros. has a total of 32 levels, with 8 Bowser’s Castles. The levels are listed as 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4, with Bowser’s castle being 1-4. After you beat Bowser’s Castle, you go to level 2-1 with the next castle being 2-4. You go on like this until 8-4, where you have the final showdown with Bowser.

Items
No Raccoon Tail or Wing Cap to be found here; Mario was keeping it simple in the original. There’s really only 4 items to be found in Super Mario Bros.

The Coin - Official currency of Mushroom Kingdom. 100 of these bad boys will net you a 1-Up (that’s an extra life in old-school lingo).

The Mushroom - This turns Midget Mario into Large and In-Charge Mario. With the Mushroom you can take a hit without dying (but you lose your bigness), and you can bust bricks with your head.

The Fire Flower - Great Balls of Fire….are coming out of Mario’s nose! Finding this special Flower lets you blow fire out of your nose.

The 1-Up Mushroom - Forget finding 100 coins, this mushroom gives you an extra life automatically. Kewl!

Yeah, yeah, I know all that stuff. So what’s new?
So far I’ve just been talking about Super Mario Bros. as it was seen on the NES. But how does it stack up now that it’s on the Gameboy Color? Pretty darn good. First of all, Nintendo has done a pixel-perfect port of the original SMB, with everything in it’s original size ratio. That alone would be enough to buy this cart, but Nintendo has gone the extra mile and included extras so good, your momma will slap herself.

The coolest extra in the cart is the inclusion of Super Mario Bros. 2. Wha? You mean that game with Turnips and Shy Guys and no Bowser? Nope, this is the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2. It’s basically the same as Super Mario Bros. 1, but the challenge level is increased tremendously. I guess Nintendo wasn’t kidding when they dubbed it “Super Mario Bros. for Super Players” in America. If you’re man enough to take on this challenge, make sure you watch out for poisonous mushrooms that take away your power instead of giving it to you.

Another cool extra is the Boo Race mode. In this mode, you race through all the original levels against Boo (the ghost). Instead of having enemies, blocks are scattered around to slow you down. It’s fun for a few minutes at the least.

If these new game play modes don’t sound appetizing, how about a built in calendar or picture album with hi-res shots of all your friends and enemies? There’s all that and more to be found in the Toy Box. It’s even got a fortuneteller of sorts for you to play around with.

There are also a few minor changes that have been made to the original game itself, but nothing too major. The first thing you’ll notice is the addition of an overworld map, like Super Mario World 3 and Super Mario World had. It’s totally useless here because you can’t backtrack or choose a different path like you could in those too games, but it’s there anyway and it has a vague coolness about it. You also have the ability to switch between Mario and Luigi at anytime on the overworld map by pressing the “Select” button. Again, useless but cool.

There was one little ''extra'', however, that I think I could have done without. Because of the difference in size between the GBC and the TV, everything from the NES version wouldn’t fit on the GBC’s screen. The screen now scrolls up a down to accommodate for this, but sometimes that results in unnecessary deaths. Still, it’s a small price to pay to have this classic game in a portable size.

The Bottom Line
This is the same great Super Mario Bros. that you’ve known and loved for years, and I don’t think you needed this review to convince you of that. If you don’t have this game, buy it now, unless you have an objection to playing fun games. There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t own this, unless you don’t have a GBC. In that case, go buy a Gameboy Advance and then buy Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. Come on, Nintendo just wants you to be happy. : )

Does this game go to 11?
This game went to 11 over 16 years ago, and it’s still there.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/13/01, Updated 07/13/01