Super Mario Bros.: Platforming perfection

There's no better place to start reviewing classic Nintendo games than with the original Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). My wife got me the new Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch for Christmas, and the first thing I did with it was play through all 32 levels of Super Mario Bros. I've played this game so many times that it's a breeze now, pure muscle-memory. Super Mario Bros. is the first NES game I ever played, around the age of 5. Four decades later, it's lost nothing of its original splendor and joy. 

Super Mario Bros., designed by the legendary Shigero Miyamoto, is almost flawless. The other NES launch titles, like Tennis, feel primitive by comparison. That's because they were made in 1983 and early '84 for the Japanese Family Computer (Famicom). In contrast, SMB was state-of-the-art, having hit the Famicom just weeks before the NES launched in October 1985.

In my view, four main elements make Super Mario Bros. a timeless classic: tight controls, superb level design, fun power-ups, and secrets. The controls are so smooth you have almost complete control over how Mario moves (or his brother Luigi, if you are second player). Jumping, stomping enemies, and pounding blocks is a pleasure. This control contrasts sharply with all previous platformers, like its own predecessor arcade game, Mario Bros. Even good games like Castlevania feel really clunky next to Mario's butter-smoothness.

But this agile handling would matter little if the level design weren't also impeccable. Every level is well designed, and they progress steadily in complexity. The variation between above-ground, underground, platforming, underwater, and castle levels keeps play from getting stale and repetitive.

The fourth level of each world is always a castle guarded by Bowser (or what appears to be Bowser: if Mario defeats him with fireballs, he is revealed to be a disguised enemy). Bowser is King of the Koopas, a race of turtles in the Mushroom Kingdom. He has spikes on his shell and shoots fire out of his mouth. In the last three worlds, he also throws hammers.

Beware the King of the Koopas!

Super Mario Bros. introduces the three power-up items that have defined the series ever since: the Super Mushroom, Fire Flower, and Starman. The Super Mushroom is what puts the "Super" in Super Mario Bros. When he gets it, Mario (or Luigi) grows twice as large. Not only does this enable him to hit blocks 16-pixels higher (all game elements can be broken down into 16x16-pixel squares), it means enemies can't instantly kill him. If he gets touched while Super, Mario or Luigi shrinks back to normal size. While Super, he can pick up a Fire Flower to gain the ability to shoot fireballs (press B, which is also the run button). These can destroy all enemies except Buzzy Beetles, who have a protective shell. Finally, the Starman makes Mario or Luigi invincible for about ten seconds. While in this state, the music speeds up and he flashes. So much of the fun of Super Mario Bros. is built around getting these items. While three may not seem like many today, it was plenty in the mid-80s!

Super Mario Bros. contains so many secrets, including three warp zones, which let Mario or Luigi skip ahead up to three worlds. Using the first warp zone in the second level and another in 4-2, experienced players can quickly skip to whichever world they want to play, including the last. This was key, given the lack of save system in a game with 8 worlds of 4 levels each. In addition to the warp zones, there are many invisible blocks with coins, pipes that go to bonus areas with coins, and vines hidden in blocks, which take Mario or Luigi to Coin Heaven. Some non-descript brick blocks also contain power-ups or just a bunch of coins. Every 100 coins earns the brother an extra life.

The Turtle Empire???

The simple enemy designs, together with catchy, light-hearted music, give the game a superior aesthetic by the standards of the 80's. The iconic Goombas and Koopa Troops must be the most famous video-game enemies today.

The game's sole flaw may be that the designers padded out the game's length by duplicating five of the 32 levels with only minor changes. 5-3 is just 1-3 with narrower platforms and Bullet Bills at the end, 5-4 and 6-4 are 2-4 and 1-4, respectively, only with more Bubbles (jumping lava) and Fire Sticks, 7-2 is 2-2 with more Bloopers (squids), and 7-3 is 2-3 with Koopa Troopas.

When you beat the game and saved Princess Peach (whom Americans knew as Princess Toadstool until 1996), you unlock a Second Quest with faster enemies, narrower moving platforms, Buzzy Beetles in place of Goombas, and those five harder versions of duplicate stages appearing both times around. Even without the Second Quest, though, the game is plenty of fun to replay even today.

Although there are many great NES games, there are few that are as easy to pick up and play for just a few minutes as Super Mario Bros.

I will award each game a grade based on a rubric. In this case, it's an easy A+. I will ding it a point on graphics because it doesn't look as great when compared to later NES games. For graphics and audio, NES games will be compared only to other NES games, SNES games to other SNES games, and so forth. Any other way would be ridiculous, given the progressive nature of technology. For things like gameplay and theme, however, the scale is absolute because these depend on human players, who have not changed much. Admittedly, nostalgic bias is an issue, but I will try not to let it overwhelm my judgment.

Grade: A+

Linked reviews

"Super Mario Bros. is one of those rare games that has never really gone away. There's always more to discover, and always one more reason to return to the Mushroom Kingdom."

— Philip J. Reed, Nintendo Life, 9/10

"Although the game itself takes a good amount of skill to master, Super Mario Bros has a mysterious quality that makes it appealing to even the most inexperienced players."
— IGN, #3 of Top 100

"This was a new frontier for gamers, as most had never seen a game with this deep a story and accompanying gameplay elements."

— Pat Contri, Ultimate Nintendo: Guide to the NES Library, 5/5

"Super Mario Bros. laid the basis for the workings of video games in general. It defined how entire swaths of the medium should work. It’s absolutely one of the true all-time great video games, and it helped catapult the NES to global domination."

— Jeremy Parish, NES Works