“Do you have what it takes to save the Mushroom Princess?”
Introduction
The word Classic is defined as “serving as a standard of excellence, recognized value, traditional and enduring over time”. Many books, films and other works of art that are classic masterpieces share a very common theme in them and that is the tall and handsome prince that saves the damsel in distress from the clutches of evil. SUPER MARIO BROS.is a “classic” video game from the NES library to also share this theme in it’s main story line, but with a brilliant variation from others. For the first time in video game history were introduced to MARIO. Instead of being the strong knight in shinning armor, Mario is short and chubby. Even PRINCESS TOADSTOOL is taller than him! Wait a minute…that may be his appearance, but maybe he is a millionaire or a famous movie star. Wrong. Mario is a simple and humble italian PLUMBER.
Yes, our hero is a small and humble plumber. Apart that there is not much more to say about him. So what kind of Hero is Mario then? Can he even be called a Hero? The own NES manual doubts for a moment that Mario is the hero of the story as you will read further below. Well, Mario might lack some of the aspects of your everyday hero, but has the most important thing that all heroes need and that is a HEART OF GOLD. This heart gives him the courage to face and stand against all of evil KING BOWSER’S forces, save PRINCESS TOADSTOOL and restore peace to the Mushroom kingdom.
STORY
One day the kingdom of the peaceful mushroom people was invaded by the Koopa, a tribe of turtles famous for their black magic. The quiet, peace-loving Mushroom People were turned into mere stones,bricks and even field horsehair plants, and the Mushroom Kingdom fell into ruin.
The only one who can undo the magic spell on the Mushroom People and return to their normal selves is the Princess Toadstool, the daughter of the Mushroom King. Unfortunately, she is presently in the hands of the great Koopa turtle king.
Mario, the hero of the story (maybe) hears about the Mushroom People’s plight and sets out on a quest to free the Mushroom Princess from the evil Koopa and restore the fallen kingdom of the Mushroom People.
You are Mario! It’s up to you to save the Mushroom People from the black magic of the Koopa!
GAMEPLAY 10 OF 10
“Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
It’s really incredible and amazing to think that SUPER MARIO BROS.introduced and set the standards in the game industry not only for other games of the Nintendo franchises, but to all the games in the industry to come in years ahead. Although simple concepts, but still used in modern gaming and very well known! I will highlight in red some of this important aspects. If i missed any, please let me know in the comments below and the end of the review!
Maybe you are starting to remember in your head your early childhood and your very first experiece as a gamer with SUPER MARIO BROS and THE NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM (NES). The very first time you held the NES controller and since you were not familiar with hand and eye cordination skill, you had to look at the controller and start to memorize where the A and B button were located on the pad.
SUPER MARIO BROS. is a two players alternate action adventure game. Player 1 controls Mario, while player 2 controls Luigi. Each player take separate turns to see who saves princess toadstool first! If a player makes a mistake, the other player will take over and viceversa. There is no differece between Mario and Luigi in gameplay, only the color pallete.
The game is divided into 8 worlds. Each world has four sections to complete in order to advance in the game for a total amount of 32 levels in order to save princess toadstool and complete the entire game. At the end of each world, there is a castle or fortres control by one of Bowsers henchmen. The screen scrolls from left to right as you make progress through the levels. Each level has a limited amount of time to complete. The TIMER is located at the top right of the screen so you can often check how much time you have left. If the Timer runs out you lose a life and will have to start over the level in an specific location the game decides. If you made a lot of progress you will be taken to the “HALF WAY” or “HALF LAND” of the level. If you didn’t make a lot of progress you will begin from the very start of the level. The game also keeps track of your score at the top left of the screen.
The Mushroom people help Mario along the way granting him POWER-UPS. These are:
Mushroom: you become Super Mario, meaning that you can take and additional hit from enemies without loosing a 1-UP. After taking this hit, Mario will begin to FLICKER and become invincible for a short period of time!
- Fire Flower: Grants Mario the ability to attack with fire and fry his enemies.
- Star man: Grants Mario TEMPORALY INVINCIBILITY for a short period of time.
- 1-UP mushroom: highly valued as it grants you and additional Mario to complete the game.
As you progress in the levels of the game, you COLLECT COINS along the way. If you manage to collect 100 of these you will earn a 1-UP.This concept as simply as it might be, to this day became a standard for future action adventure games, specially the plataform ones where you always have to collect some kind of stuff along the way to make progress.
For the first time in video game history were introduced to the START-PAUSE button. This is a brillant addition and a great consideration for many players. Before NINTENDO introduced this feature in SUPER MARIO BROS. older games just kept going and going with out never stopping. Now, Suppose that you are in an intense section of one of this games and maybe your Mom calls you for dinner, or perhaps someone is at the door and you need to answer, maybe your phone rings, etc. In SUPER MARIO BROS. you take control of gameplay and after you hit START, the game automatically freezes everything on screen. When you decide to go back to the action, you simply press START again. Thanks Nintendo for the START-PAUSE button!
You move from left to right using the D-pad. With button A you jump. The longer you hold the button,the higher Mario will jump. When on water, A is used for swimming. Regular Mario and Super Mario jump the same height. With button B you RUN or sprint. Running not only allows you to save time and complete levels faster, it also allows Mario to make higher and further jumps! This running-jumping technique is crucial for any player to master in order to complete the hardest levels in the game!
Apart from the fire flower, Mario can attack enemies using the koopa shells. After you stomp on a Koopa troopa, he will hide in his shell for a brief moment. During this time, if you decide to push the shell pressing right on the D-pad, the shell will start to advance rapdly in a straight line bashing over enemies on his way! This is called the bulldozer attack. If you decide to follow the shell and manage to run over 8 enemies in a row, you will be awarded with a 1-UP, but be careful as the shell can richochet back at you after hitting a solid wall or pipe!
If two or more enemies are stock in a row,you can use chain reaction stomp to take them down with one single jump.This will earn you greater score in the game.
The controls of SUPER MARIO BROS. are so well designed, that the same programmers at Nintendo never even imagined that years later there will be people doing SPEED RUNS on this game and having world records for it!
MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS 10 OF 10
Due to the 8-Bit limitations of it’s time, we can’t say that SUPER MARIO BROS. has huge and extense amount of OST. But the music from this game, specially the overworld tune is a true classic among gamers of all ages. Even if is the only OST available for the very first three sections of a world, you never get tired of hearing it. In fact, it makes the game more fun enjoyable for everyone. Even people who don’t play or like video games much will recognize it right away. This tune was composed by KOJI KONDO, and with out it, SUPER MARIO BROS. would have never been the success it is today.
INVINCIBILITY is great. It gives you the idea that you can fly and sour through the sky with no limits and absolute freedom!
LEVEL CLEAR. congrats! you made to the end of the trial! A feeling of achivement to the player.
UNDERGROUND. A lot of great hidden secrets a ready for Mario to be discovered!
UNDERWATER. it feels like a waltz in classic music. Very relaxing.
CASTLE. It describes a dangerous place filled with many enemies and perils along the way.
PRINCESS RESCUE. Our brave hero gets a kiss from the princess for his effort and braveness!
The sounds are really well made. For example when mario hits a brick wall, jumps,uses fire power, stomps on enemies, grabs a power up, pause button, loses a 1-up. These may be small details, but are present adding much to the quality fun of the game.
REPLAYABILITY 10 OF 10
Completing SUPER MARIO BROS. doesn’t take that much of time. It’s actually a game you can manage to finish in a couple of days. After your finish with the game and as always optional to the player is the chance to perform a NO DEATH RUN and SPEED RUN of the game. Now, the interesting part is that you can perform this type of run using warp zones or warpless. in the end is your choice. Currently, the world record is held at 4:56. Follow the link below for the run done by pro player darbian
*warping
*warpless
Now a great idea that some of the most skilled players are available to perform is what they call NO COINS NO ITEM NO KILLS RUN. Check the video Below.
GRAPHICS 9 OF 10
Mario’s classic sprite is very well made. The sprite was design and created by famous game designer SHIGERU MIYAMOTO. In previous reviews of retro games, he have mentioned the difficultys he had to create it, due to the limitations of the NES hardware. Miyamoto stated that creating a human anatomy of a persons face in small square of information represented by BITS is really challenging. Thats why, since the nose is a significant part of a persons face he decided to enlarge it. Doing Mario’s Hair was also difficult. So to save time and cut some work,he decided to give Mario his iconic Cap. Worth to mention also that this is the only Mario game where the color pallete is red overalls and brown shirt. After this, the overalls where changed to blue and the shirt to red to create a better contrast in the colors.
Now princess toadstool sprite…well, lets just say that is not what you will expect from well known princess at the time like snow white or sleeping beauty, but gives you the idea of a royal character and that is the most important thing. It’s really amazing to see how she has change over the years to the cute and charismatic character of today.
The level use the same desing constantly from start to finish, like for example, the overworlds section is your typical blue pallete to represent the sky with clouds and some bushes. The underground level uses a black palette to represent you are in a dark place. The water levels use coral sprites to represent sea elements. Finally, the castle is surrounded by withe brick walls and red color pallete to represent a sea of flames.
The game also offers a variety of enemy sprite. These are: goombas, koopa troopas ( two types,green and red), paratroopas,buzzy beatle, hammer brothers,spiny, lakitu, pirana plants, cheep-cheep, bullet bill, bloober, podoboo, Bowser king of the koopa. Interesting to mention that some enemies remain in moder mario games, while other are lone forgotten by Nintendo.
DIFFICULTY 8 OF 10
As we stated before,finishing this game is not hard at all, specially if you take good advantage of some hidden secrets in the game like THE WARP ZONE. Every player knows that using a warp zone is equal to using a short cut. This means, that you don’t need to play and finish every single one of the 32 levels in the game one after another. Next, will give you the locations of each warp zone in the game:
- World 1-2, you can warp to world 2,3 and 4. Just before entering the last pipe at the end of the level, stay on the elevator.Once it has reach the top make a jump on top of the brick area above the final pipe. You will discover a path that takes you the first warp zone in the game.
- World 4-2,you can warp to world 6,7 and 8. After you find the first pit in the level, step off the elevator. You will see a some bricks above you. Jump straight up to discover hidden blocks.Now use this blocks to hit the first brick block from left to right. You will discover a vine that leads you to the second warp in the game.
- Word 4-2,you can warp to world 5. After the last pirana plant of the level hides, Step on the highest pipe just before exiting the level. Use Super Mario’s ability to break the bricks blocks above you. Now follow the path and you got the third warp zone in the game.
- World 1-2, the famous minus world warp. Since it’s hard to describe the process to get to the minus world with just words, follow the link below to see the video on Youtube.
Now the best and one of the famous tricks in video game history. the 100 1-UPs. This is performed at the end of world 3-1. You will need to be Super Mario in order for the trick to work. In the final staircase just before the flagpole, you will see two green koopa troopas coming down towards you. Jump over the first one and ignore it. Now try to position yourself not at the edge, but at the exact center of one of the blocks in the staircase before the second koopa troopa reaches you. Now,make a vertical jump straight up. The second koopa troopa will hide in the shell as usual. Now jump over the shell. You will notice that Mario continously stomps on the shell getting higher and higher score. After you reached 8,000 points, every stomp after this will be counted as a 1-UP in the game.
Be warned, if you exceed the max capacity of 1-UPs in the game, you will return to one life and if you lose this life is GAME OVER.
Other secret ini the game is the FIREWORKS. After finishing a level sometimes fireworks will appear and sometimes they dont. The secret here is to end the level with the last digit being 3 or 6. If you finish it with 3 you will get three fireworks. If you finish it with 6, you will get six fireworks. Each firewok increases your score points.
Now the awesomest glitch in the game for me is the INVERTED FIREPOWER as we might call it here at HCG. The first person that ever showed us this great glitch back then is our friend RODRIGO GOMEZ (huge METROID fan), so we give credits to him on this one. This glitch can be hard to perform so be patience. To activate the glitch, you have to be Super Mario. Now, reach the end section of any castle and get through Bowser as usual. Place your self next to the golden hammer-axe Mario usually uses to break the bridge and send Bowser to his doom. Bowser will start to follow you and just before he reaches you make a straight jump all the way up. Now, as you start to fall, Just before you get damaged by Bowser, press forward so that one of Mario’s feet touches Bowser’s Nose and the other one the Golden hammer-axe. If done correctly Mario will begin to flicker due to the hit but will stay as Super Mario! Now the power up sequence is inverted. Super Mario is regular Mario and regular mario can become fire Mario. The advantage of this glitch is that you can have fire mario with a reduced hit box. Awesome! See the video Below.
SUPER MARIO BROS. has also been very popular for the difficulty of some of the levels in the game. In this review, we can surely recall world 8-3 as the hardest level of the entire game. This is due to the fact that it’s the level with most hammer brothers in the game. The hammer brothers are the most dangerous enemies in the game. They use their hammers and trow them at you from above. “Watch your head,Mario!”. Not only that, but after the mid section of the level, there is a straight way where the hammer brothers are blocking your path. Since there on the floor of the level and not above you as usual, the only option here is to have fire Mario and fry them, or in a bad case that you got hit and became regular Mario, make an exact timed jump in order to get through the hammers. Interesting to mention is that if you decide to stay still, after a short while, the hammer brothers will advance toward making things a lot worse.
Other aspect of difficulty of the game is that after world 3, the castles have a secret route that must be discoverd in order to get to the boss and finish the level. If you fail to discover the correct path, you will be going in circles until the timer reaches cero and you will lose a 1-UP.
After you beat the game, there is a second quest for Mario to complete. Here the Goombas are replaced with buzzy beattles and the koopa troopas are faster in movement, so we can say it’s tougher to complete.
OVER ALL SCORE
What do you do when you have a huge responsibility in your shoulders? You start to make bad decisions. You fall down the rabbit whole. Now you’re broke. Someone else comes and saves the day. Well, as we all know, this is what actually what happened to ATARI at the beginning of the 80’s decade. With the decisions they made back then they actually “killed” the video game industry. This went down in the pages of history as the VIDEO GAME CRASH OF 1983. After this disaster, no body was foolish enough to invest their hard earned money in video games anymore. Even as consumers, we really had a lot of serious doubts on video games. That was until SHIGERU MIYAMOTO step into Nintendo with some hand drawn graphite sketches of main characters in SUPER MARIO BROS. We can only imagine CEO president in charge back then HIROSHI YAMAUCHI saying something like “Son, your work looks really interesting for one of our main games”.
After this events, it’s incredible the reception that SUPER MARIO BROS. got from the public. Mario became almost as big and popular as MICKEY MOUSE! People started to belive again in video games thanks to SHIGERU MIYAMOTO and SUPER MARIO BROS.When the game lauched alongside the NES, there was hardly a kid that didn’t like Mario. Almost every knows Mario, even people who don’t play or like video games. The impact of this game on society is so big that it took not only America, but the entire world by storm and has became part of our culture. Now, in a house where a normal familiy has a TV set, there was also a NES console with SUPER MARIO BROS!
Where did the idea of Mario came from. The same MIYAMOTO stated that he once saw a plumber trying to repair somekind of pipe in a building. Miyamoto started to imagine that this pipe will take the plumber to a whole different world in another dimmension.
At the end of SUPER MARIO BROS. There are somethings that still remain a mistery. In the story found in the very first pages of the manual they mention that Princess Toadstool is the daughter of the Mushroom King.Who is this king? This is something that Nintendo has never explained. Other mistery is that the game and manual don’t explain how Mario actually arrives at the mushrooom kingdom to start his Quest. One final mistery: Is Princess “Toadstool” the same as Princess “Peach”? Did Nintendo just change her name, or toadstool is another princess that never got considerated by Nintendo for future Mario games?
Back in the 80s decade, a reporter started to ask people on the street “what is Nintendo”? “Who are the Mario Bros”? Most of the people as you might expect didn’t have clue what to answer. But after the hit and success the NES was alongside SUPER MARIO BROS. i love how at the end of the article he again askes “Who are the Mario Bros”?. but this time the reporter himself answers: “They represent the best in each and every one of us”.
Conclusion
You don’t need to be a knight in shinning armor to be a hero. Just be own self without pretending to be someone your not, but at the same time let the best in you shine like gold inside your heart and you will always be ready to be a hero and help the ones you love, just like MARIO.
THE FIRST GOOMBA IN SUPER MARIO BROS.HISTORY!
“THANK YOU MARIO! YOUR QUEST IS OVER. WE PRESENT A NEW QUEST. PUSH BUTTON B TO SELECT A WORLD.”
