Super Mario Bros. influence cannot be denied, but the game just can't hold up well nowadays to its superb successors
GRAPHICS:
The 8-bit graphics are really simple, but apropriate for the time, so it is something I can't complain. Now I have played the 16-bit version, and that game uped the visuals quite a lot, and they look faithfull to the original, though it could have been more inspired, since it was released after Mario World. 5/5 (8-bit) 4/5 (16-bit)
SOUND:
As everyone knows, the music is very limited but incredibly catchy. World 1-1 tune, the classic Mario tune, is incredible, as are the 3 other tracks in the game. But, as you may think, there number is really small, though it again cannot be complained, since it was 8-bit, and the 16-bit version had to be faithfull. A bit more variety could be nice, but it still is incredibly strong. 5/5
GAMEPLAY:
The game is a 2D plataformer. You play as Mario (or his brother Luigi) and go though the Mushroom Kingdom so you can beat Bowser and rescue Princess Peach. The story is basicaly non existent, and really doesn't matter. What matters in the gameplay, mainly the level design.
There are 8 world in total, each with 4 levels, so there are 32 levels in total, which is a fair amount. Back then, this was not only a big game, but also different from everything else, but this review will talk about the game as it is nowadays.
(THIS NEXT PART REGARDS ABOUT THE 16-BIT VERSION, SINCE IS THE ONE I PLAYED)
The level design is very repetitive, in that the worlds can only be: underground, up-ground, underwater or a castle. And they have very little differences from each other. The SNES version mixed up things a bit, adding night and snow levels, but their structure is very repetitive.
You have to go from the left to the right of the screen, stomping on enemies and jumping from plataforms. There are 3 power ups in the game: the mushroom, which makes you big; the fire flower, which makes you throw fireballs to kill enemies and the starman, which makes you invincible for a short period of time. They mix things in the levels, and are quite fun to use. Since the level design is fluent, plataforming and stomping is normaly fun, but the game is marred by a big problem, which renders it very annoying to play, and that is control.
The controls are very simple. You have to hold forward to keep walking, press A to jump and hold B to run, or press it to throw fireballs. The problem of it comes in Mario's momentum. When you stop pressing forward, Mario doesn't stop moving instanely; instead, he goes a bit forward still, then stopping. This is a big problem in the game, since it constantly causes you to touch enemies you didn't want to or fall into pits. This really sucks, and makes playing the game in precise platform moments a pain. That is where the main dificulty of the game comes from, and why it took me so long to finish it.
Now, to tell the truth, it is a matter of getting used to them, but they are sloopy as hel*, and can be incredibly frustrating at first and take a long time to get used to.
VEREDICT:
Despite some neat level design, the original SMB controls too poorly and is too simple to be compared to SMB3 or World, which are much superior games. As I said multiple times, the game's influence cannot be denied, but nowadays, it feels too simple and rougth. Play it too experience a classic piece of media, but other games for some geniunely great time. There is fun to be had with this game, but not on the same degree.
The good:
-Graphics are neat (for the time)
-Music still is adictive to this day
-Most level design is really good
-Come on, is Mario 1. The classic of classics that saved the video game industry
The bad:
-Incredibly sloopy controls make plataforming infuriating at times.
-Newer Mario games are superior (in control, level design and power ups), making this irrelevant nowadays