It may be a strait port, but Super Mario Bros is still worth owning, Mario fan or not!!
Now Super Mario Bros was THE game that changed gaming forever in the US after the gaming crash in 1983. Now after all these years, it's got a re-release on the GBA. So, does this game hold up well after all these years? Well, on with the review!! Note that this is a review of a port of the original game, there is a lot of copy pasting here but I will only change a few things so forgive me if I'am a bit lazy to you guys.
Does the story need any explanation?! Princess Peach gets kidnapped by Bowser and its up to Mario to save her!
The Controls are very straitforward! You use the D pad to move Mario, press A to jump and use B to run faster (or shoot fireballs if you have a fire flower). See? Easy to use controls!
The Graphics were beautiful back then and it looks amazing even today. The graphics are 8-bit sprites which are crisp and colourful. Mario and the enemies look great and the environments themselves look amazing and dastardly. No other game has done this back in it's day than Super Mario Bros. Brilliant but simple graphics overall.
The Gameplay is immensly addictive. The Game is a 2D sidescroller where you run all the way to the goal on the other side while avoiding Bowser's minions and cronies who patrol every turn. The Game introduced two power ups that are still in every (well not every.)Mario platform game to date. There is the Super Mushroom which grows Mario in size and gains him two hits before he sulks. The Fire Flower which allows Mario to shoot Fireballs, starman (rare) makes Mario invincible for a bit and 1up Mushrooms that give Mario an extra life. The Game also allowed you to control how high or long Mario can jump or by controlling how fast Mario can run. There are a lot of secret area in Super Mario Bros giving the game high replay value. It also introduced the ability for Mario to stomp on his enemies (that attack is still present in the latest Mario games) to defeat them. There also Warp zones which allows Mario to skip a few worlds ahead and finish the game faster than if you normally slugged through every single one of the eight worlds. This is a cool feature and players now try to hold the world record of finishing the game in the fastest time possible. Overall, excellent gameplay that hasn't lost it's charm in terms of transition!!
The Music is breathtaking and legendary. The instant you turn on the game and begin the first level you will have this nostalgic grin in your face from time to time. The SFX are good too, and some of them (believe it or not) have been reused or remaked for present Mario games. Just hearing the Boing from Mario's jump never gets old!
The only one downside I can think of is that, since there are so many good GBA games out there you might forget to play this game from time to time but that's really a minor point. Onto Verdict now!!
Classic NES: Super Mario Bros is a fantastic game and still holds up! You may forget to play it every now and then, but you have to be dumber than Patrick Star to miss this for your GBA collection! Let's overview the facts shall we?
The Good: Flawless controls, brilliant graphics, top notch level design, addictive gameplay, secret areas give game immense replay value, minus world is cool glitch, devishly difficult levels which I like, music and sound is amazing and legendary, warp zone are a cool feature, excellent game transition to the portable platform!
The Bad: Can forget to play it at times.
The Ugly: No ugly points here!!
Title: EPIC!!!