Mario, Mario, Mario. God, he's been everywhere. From cereal boxes, to cartoon shows, to countless amounts of merchandise. Mario is without a doubt the definitive video game character. He may be weak plot wise, but he's one of the only video game characters to remain good since his debut. Now, personally, I'm a bigger Sonic fan than a Mario fan, but I can't deny the quality of his games. They're good. Really good.
Super Mario Bros. is a 2D side scroller that plays as Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom where a giant turtle named Bowser, or King Koopa in Japan, has kidnapped Princess Toadstool, or Princess Peach. Not only that, but he also turned all of the kingdom's inhabitants into blocks using his "black magic", as referred to in the manual. Wait... does that mean Mario commits murder every time he breaks a block?... Whatever. Anyway, the plot is incredibly simple, and for a game like this back in the day, it wasn't really important. As Mario, it's up to you to travel through 8 different worlds and defeat Bowser himself in order to save the day. You control Mario with the d-pad, and holding down left or right will cause Mario to move in said direction. Holding down when you're Super Mario will cause him to duck under certain projectiles if you don't feel like jumping over them. Speaking of jumping, you do that by pressing the A button. The B button allows Mario to run faster when you're moving him with the d-pad and also allows him to build more momentum for jumps. Just about every adult I saw playing the game acted like the B button didn't exist, and it tears me up inside seeing someone playing the game so slowly for some reason. Come on guys, was it so hard to hold down the B button while moving? Anyway, through out your travels, you can collect coins, which besides adding points to your meaningless score, they can grant you an extra life if you get 100. Scattered through out each world are glowing boxes with question marks. By jumping under them, you can release what's inside. Most of the time, they have coins, but other times, they can have power-ups. Now, Mario himself may run fast and jump high, especially for a fat guy, but his endurance sucks. If you run into anything hazardous, your dead. Just one hit, and your dead. With power-ups, you can make your journey a little easier. When you get a mushroom, you not only get bigger, but you can also take an extra hit. While Super Mario, you can also get the Fire Flower, which is awesome. You can shoot fireballs and nuke almost anything in your path. You can also get a star, which grants you temporary invincibility. You glow many colors and teach enemies the misery of touch damage. In hidden blocks, there can be green mushrooms, which give you a 1-up, but like I said, they're hidden, so you have to dig deep to find one. Sometimes, you can travel through pipes that lead you to bonus areas that reward you with coins. There's also the rare vine that takes you high into the air and again rewards you with coins. COINS, COINS, COINS! They're EVERYWHERE! So anyway, Super Mario Bros. is mainly a single player game, but if you have a friend with you, there's a two-player mode, where player two controls Luigi. You don't play at the same time, but rather, you alternate. Besides different colors, they play exactly the same. The farther you get, the more difficult it gets. Most of the time, you're traveling on foot, where you just have to maneuver through obstacles and stomp on enemies. A couple of times, you'll be in a water level, swimming to the end. The castle levels are the most dangerous. Fireballs and lava pits everywhere, and little to no power-ups available. Some of the are like mazes. Take the wrong path, and the stage loops until you get it right. The level design is really linear. There isn't really any multiple pathways, and there's only one exit. If you like speed running, you can find warp zones, which take you further in the game. In fact, if you know where to find the right warp zones, you can beat the game in about 5 minutes, no joke. For enemy types, you have Goombas, which are pathetic, Koopa Troopas, which you jump on them and pick them up to use them as projectiles, Lakitus, which drop Spinys, which Mario can't jump on, and more. At the end of a world, you have to concour one of the castles by either defeating a Bowser clone with the Fire Flower, or run below him (or if you're fast enough, you can jump over him) and touch the axe at the end. Then you find out Peach is in another castle. You hear that 7 times total. At the final castle you face the real Bowser, which has the same capabilities as the clones (jumping, shooting fire, throwing hammers). Take care of him and you save Peach. When you do so, you get a second quest, which really, is just a hard mode. Goombas are replaced with Buzzy Beetles, another enemy (just like Koopa Troopas, except immune to the Fire Flower), and they and Koopa Troopas move a little faster. You also get a level select. That's nice. Graphicly speaking, in the 80's, this game probably looked amazing. Colorful, everything is distinguishable, and it's never too hard on the eyes. Today, I wouldn't say it's amazing, but it still looks pretty nice. And the music... come on, show me one person that doesn't at least know the overworld theme. Other than the overworld theme though, the music is short. Really short. But they never get annoying to me. I can't really explain it. But that might be my nostalgia kicking in. Honestly though, how many times has the overworld theme been remixed, re-arranged, and reused for other games? It's probably impossible to count, but again, I never get sick of it.
Though Super Mario Bros. has aged well, I do have problems with it. For one, I think the control can be a bit finicky when you're moving too fast. When he goes at top speed, he carries a lot of momentum, so even when I let go of the d-pad, he will still move a bit of distance, so I find myself losing control and falling of platforms. Also, the jump isn't always as responsive as I want it to be. It's not that big of a deal, but when it does happen, it can be annoying. Finally, when there are enemies close together but still have some space, when you think you'll hit the enemies, you fall in the space and get hit. And that's annoying.
Super Mario Bros. isn't very long and shouldn't take more than an hour to beat. Being an NES game in the 80's, the difficulty can catch you off guard at times. It isn't too hard, but it certainly isn't easy either. But difficulty is usually depending on the player, so I'll let you decide how hard the game is. Just play your best, and you should be fine. That, or you can use the 1-up trick. And I love doing that.
Super Mario Bros. is one of the best selling games of all time, with over 40,000,000 copies sold. It used to be THE best selling game of all time, but it was topped by Wii Sports of all games. Wii Sports? Really? Well anyway, Super Mario Bros. is a game that pretty much anyone can pick up and play. If you're just getting into video games and are looking for a place to start, try playing Super Mario Bros. It's simplicity makes it simple to pick up and play. There's a reason it sold a lot of copies. Besides being sold with the NES, but you get the point. I'll give it a 7.5 out of 10, but because I can't officially rate it like that, it will appear as 7, but it's 7.5. This is something I'll go out of my way to play all of the time. In fact, I can say that for a lot of Mario games. But that's for another time. For more of Darkness Reviews, follow my profile (ripjaw5260). 'Til next time, goodbye everyone!
-Darkness