Super Mario Bros

Story

In this game, you take the role of Mario or his brother Luigi, who must save Princess Toadstool from Bowser, the King of the Koopas. You have to get through eight different worlds and Bowser’s forces in order to save the Princess.

My summarized review of Super Mario Bros

The game that catapulted Mario into gamers’ eyes and helped reignite the video games industry. Super Mario Bros. is one of the most iconic video games of all time. The game has memorable music, great controls, and engaging gameplay. It’s one of the best video games that I have ever played, with famous enemies, power-ups, and music. After thirty-five years, I still find myself going back once in a while to replay the game. Super Mario Bros. is frustrating at times, but you will want to keep playing and finding different ways to beat the game on many playthroughs of the game.

Full Thoughts and Reactions after playing Super Mario Bros

To start, I have to confess I’ve never been able to complete Super Mario Bros. on either NES or any recent rereleases. I was finally able to beat the game on the Nintendo Switch online, free NES games you get when you sign up for Nintendo Switch online services. I’ll admit that I had to beat the game, with save states and the rewind feature. It doesn’t make me proud to say that. Some gamers would consider this a form of cheating. But be sure that I’m still trying, when I can, to beat it without the save states or emulation.

Getting that out of the way, I love Super Mario Bros. It’s a game that I can recall from the earliest days of my youth. When I got my NES, I sat in the basement, and played my Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt/ World Class Track Meet cart and played for hours. It’s the earliest memory I can recall from my gaming days. Thirty five years later, nothing much has changed in terms of gaming. Well, expect that I grew up and moved away. Now, I have video game consoles scattered everywhere in my house.

You control Mario or Luigi if you are playing with two players, as you trek through eight different worlds to save Princess Peach (aka Toadstool at the time) from the King of the Koopa’s Bowser. It’s a simple premise but effective and works. In itself, Super Mario Bros’ story has become an amusing cliche over the years. Still, it does provide a common purpose and familiar story to the player whenever they see or play a Mario game most of the time. 

Super Mario Bros, may not have been the start of Mario’s gaming career and infamy, but the game that catapulted Mario into video game stardom. He can run, jump on enemies, kick shells, and swim through each of the levels to get to the flag pole at the end of each level. There are eight worlds, and each has four levels, giving you a total of 32 stages in the game. These levels will have themes that are off the following; Underground, Athletic, Underwater, and Castle. Each level has a challenging aspect that ranges from avoiding enemies to leaping from platform to platform without falling into a pit. While Super Mario Bros is challenging, this isn’t difficult to play, and anyone should try and even beat a level with enough practice.  

The controls are fluent and responsive, even playing the game many times over on different consoles. When you jump, you feel it is if you have the right momentum to jump and run. I do have one gripe about the game, is that you can’t backtrack in a level. The screen is locking when you run right, so you can’t run back to the left. When I have to make jumps with long gaps, sometimes an enemy might stop the momentum that I’m trying to build to make a jump by getting in my way. Then I have no choice to die and continue back where I last got to a checkpoint, as I can’t go back and gain the momentum that I needed to make a jump. This problem isn’t in all of the levels but a couple. I couldn’t seem ever to make a successful jump that i needed to make. It only seemed this game had this, as the rest of the 2nd Mario games, released after this game, allowed you to backtrack to the left. Except for Super Mario Land on the Game boy and the sequel Super Mario Bros 2 (aka Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels) as far as I can remember.

Along Mario’s journey, he can get several different powers to help him. They are Super Mushrooms, Fire Flowers, Invincibility Star, and 1-up mushroom. Super Mushroom makes Mario into Super Mario. While Super Mario, if you get a Fire Flower, you become Fire Mario and throw fireballs. The Invincibility Star makes you invincible for a brief time. A 1-up mushroom gives you an extra life. There are coins scattered across the stage that can earn you a 1-up as well if you collect 100 of them. These iconic power-ups are the most popular in gaming and appeared in almost every future Mario game that came out after.

Another popular staple of the Mario Series is the enemies. The enemies you encounter are Goomba’s, Koopa Troopas, Hammer Bros, Piranha Plants, Bullet Bills, Cheep-Cheeps, are a few enemies that you can take down in this game. Despite being real simple in concept and attacks, they are useful in providing the player a challenge. Another icon to the Super Mario Series, these bad guys have made appearances in future Mario titles.

At the end of the world, you run through the castle level and face off against Bowser. The main villain of the game. There isn’t much of a battle as you can either hit him with fireballs as Fire Mario or jump behind him and hit the ax to collapse the bridge he is standing on and send him into the lava. It’s not that hard to do to defeat him as his only attacks are shooting fireballs from his mouth, and later after world 4, he tosses hammers at you. Each end level has a “false Bowser” or an enemy disguised as Bowser. You finally face the true Bowser at the end of world 8. Defeating him and you have resuced the princess.

The music is iconic as well. Koji Kondo composed a memorable musical score. There are several songs in the game, and they are as remarkable as anything I’ve heard. I sometimes find myself humming and whistling the Overworld song occasionally. The central theme provides overworld and athletics levels fun and energetic tone. Underground music gave me a feeling of mystery and intrigue. The Underwater theme gave a feel of an aquatic carousel when I swam around with Mario. The final tune, the castle music, gave a spooky and terror feel when you ran to face Bowser at the end of the level. Every song fits each level well. I do have to admit that I think a great deal of pride when I heard the victory fanfare after reaching the flag pole at the end of the level. It gave me a sense of pride and accomplishment, even though I may have had many more levels to go.

Thirty-five years since this game has come out, and there have many discoveries and more that keep getting found. Whether it’s an intentional glitch or secrets, many communities, fans, and videos showcase these features. There is the infamous -1 level glitch, where if you break a specific pattern of blocks above the pipe that leads out of world 1-2, you can jump through the wall and into the first pipe to reach the end of the level. Some people speed ran through this game and continue to do so to beat it in the shorts time possible. Try to beat the game in the shortest time possible. People are trying to get the highest score possible or trying to get the lowest score possible. There are many combinations of ways to play and challenges that extend the game for quite possibly, many years to come.

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