You will have to think fast and move even faster to complete this classic quest! The Mushroom Princess is being held captive by the evil Koopa tribe of turtles. It's up to you to rescue her from the clutches of the Koopa King before time runs out. But it won't be easy. To get to the princess, you will have to climb mountains, cross seas, avoid bottomless pits, fight off turtle soldiers and a host of nasty traps that only a Koopa King can devise. It is another adventure from the SUPER MARIO BROS.!
Super Mario Bros was the first game ever to be released for the NES in 1985. It was the first game to deliver effective smooth scrolling levels with a well made map. Super Mario Brothers is currently the best selling video game of all time. You can play it on the NES, Famicom, SNES, GBA, and recently the Wii. Trust me everyone, this game is a true blast from the past, and still entertains today. Mario was the first true video gaming character and he will stand up and fireball away any others that try to take his place. He will always be big in the video game industry because of this games huge impact.
The Games Story:
Many say the story of this game is horrible and it is a big downfall of the game. I mean it is just like every other game where a princess gets captured and you need to save her. The real basic plot of the game is that Bowser has unleashed a wicked spell over Mushroom Kingdom. The only ones who can save the Princess and break this evil spell are Mario and Luigi.
Well, this game was pretty much the first game to start those generic plots. But honestly, what is there not to love about the classic Mario saving Princess Peach from Bowser story? NOTHING, it is simple and a compelling story. I am sure the story does not deserve a high rank because at the time when the game came out the story was very unfamiliar and probably sounded a bit corny. But today, we all know of our friendly plumber hero, MARIO.
Gameplay:
This game is unbelievably fun to play. The objective of the game is complete each level by running to the end of the level and jumping has high as possible towards the flag. You will encounter many famous enemies such as Goombas, Koopas, Piranha Plants and many more. There are coins spread throughout the game in random areas and hidden in blocks that you must bust. Once you get 100 coins you get an extra life.
You get a score for how many enemies you kill, how many coins you snatch, and for other various reasons. Each level is unique and has different obstacles in each and is a blast to play. There are 8 worlds with usually 4 stages in each world. The game is great because it has multiple hidden secrets throughout the game that keeps the fun coming. There are even secret minus worlds and warp pipes that give the game a great twist.
The game also mixes in a few mazes to give it a little challenge. You can also play 2 players where you can play as Mario and Luigi and defeat the evil Koopa King. The few downfalls are that the game is not very long, screen scrolling, and it gets frustrating. If you play it quick enough you could beat every level in around 30 minutes.
You can not backtrack once you move forward in a level. The game is frustrating because you can not even save and there are no continues (you can use a code to start from the world you lost on). The game screen only scrolls in the right direction. I would easily give the gameplay of Super Mario Bros a 10/10 if there were at least more levels per world.
Of course, you can't just take on those levels as just you and yourself, so you have got a few things that you can find out there to help you. First of all there's the powerups you can find in blocks all through the game. The first one you will get is the Super Mushroom, and by getting this Mario will grow to double size (Super Mario!) and be able to take one extra hit from an enemy (and revert to normal Mario) before losing a life.
As Super Mario, you also get the ability to break normal brick blocks you come across this can prove to be extremely useful in several ways, be it finding a secret block or just taking a safe route. If you uncover a powerup while being Super Mario, it will be a fire flower, which won't allow you to take any more hits but grants you the extremely useful power of fireball throwing. Fireballs can kill enemies in one hit, and while the same can be achieved by jumping on most enemies heads, it's just much easier to release a fireball from a distance and knock out the enemies from a safe distance. As long as you can manage to keep the fire ability, you will be pretty overpowered.
In addition to that, you can also pick up 1Up mushrooms, which will grant you an extra life, and coins. The coins are collectibles that will give you an extra life when gathering 100 of them, then the counter will revert so you can collect an additional 100, and so forth. All things in the game; coins, powerups, completing a level, defeating an enemy are added to a points score.
This score is a leftover from arcade games, and won't really be used for anything since the high score is deleted when you turn off your console there won't be any competition about it. Not having a save feature might sound bad, but as mentioned the levels can be completed pretty quickly and there's always someone around who will know about the secret warp zones.
Speaking of secrets, that's one thing that is great about this game. While many other NES games show you pretty much everything, here there are a lot of invisible blocks with powerups or coins, pipes you can enter to get to underground coin collections and sometimes a vine will shoot out of a hit block that you can climb to get up to "coin heaven". A fun thing with all these secrets is that some of them are in plain view, some are in a brick block you have just never thought to hit.
There are so many blocks scattered in each level, with only the question mark blocks being sure to contain something, that you would never have time to actually try to destroy all normal brick blocks. What is so nice about all this is that you can play through the game so many times and still discover something you did not know about. The amount of secret stuff is a very likely factor to why the game has great replayability.
Graphics:
The graphics in this game are wonderful for the time. To tell you the truth I'm still fully satisfied with the games graphics today. Even though Mario and Luigi have a tad discoloration and it is a bit blocky, it gives you the authentic and warm welcoming in knowing it is the first Mario game ever.
The backgrounds might only be a blue sky with the occasional green bush or a cloud, but that is all that was needed. It means it is very easy to see the foreground objects like the bricks you can hit or the enemies you are up against.รข€‹There is nothing you can complain about with these graphics and especially when the game came out they were great.
Sound:
The sound is terrific. I mean it is not annoying like most NES games and it was the start of the classic "do do do do do do-do... " music! The game has different music for each different type of level, like dungeons, underwater levels, and land levels. All if it is enjoyable and makes the game even better. Only slight downfall is the sound effects are a bit lame, but I really should not complain. Overall it is the classy theme song that gets me to like the music of the game so much.
One other neat thing is that the music is a bit context sensitive meaning if you let the time get down to under 100 remaining seconds left, the music will speed up to let you know that you need to hurry. Also, if you pick up a star (invincibility item) the music will change to another theme that will last almost exactly until the power runs out, a great audio cue to when to start worrying about your enemies again. The sound effects in the game are good too, they are not overly complicated, and the jingles that play are great for making you feel satisfied when completing a task or picking up a powerup.
Controls:
This game is basically a pick up and play game. The control layout is so simple yet so great. The game registers every movement in it perfectly. You press forward and Mario definitely goes forward. Many NES games could not perfect this, but this game definitely did. You can run and jump and you will learn the tricks on how to get the farthest jumping distance and the basic skills in no time. The simple and sweet NES controller played great with this game and the game did every command perfectly.
The NES control pad is not really the most advanced piece of hardware out there, but in this game you will never feel it's lacking anything. The D-pad is used to move left and right, and with a press down on it you can duck, which also results in going down pipes if they are "open".
The A button is used for jumping, and it is pretty sensitive; a short press results in a low jump and a longer press results in a higher jump. The B button has two purposes - throwing fireballs if you have got that power up, and in addition to that it's the run button. It works better than you might think, since if you're running and want to throw a fireball you can just quickly release the button then hold it again to fire one off, without losing much speed.
Replay Value:
This is the games strong point. I can not even count how many times I have beaten this amazing classic. It keeps you coming back for more. It is a simple game that is just flat out fun to play. You can try to beat your previous score. You can play 2 players to spice it up with a friend or you can try a time trail and try for the record. Or if you like me you can just beat it again just for the great feeling of beating the endless classic. This game is the one that started it all. That right there makes the game so much more satisfying to play.
Difficulty:
It is really pretty tough without warping and with using the cartridge so you can not save. I mean my friends were like, yeah it's Super Mario Bros I have beaten it a thousand times. And they came over and lost on world 5. It is nothing impossible, but I mean it does get a challenge across. I would say it has a perfect difficulty. Not to hard that it makes you never want to try and beat it, but just easy enough to make it enjoyable which is a very good balance.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I love the Super Mario Bros game. A true classic NES game that has stood the test of time, it may not be the greatest game in the entire world simply for how it plays as a game in itself, but the fact that it revolutionised the home gaming scene at the time it came out, as well as that it maintains a great popularity amongst any retro gamer and is even enjoyed to a great degree by gamers of the current generation explains why I find this game to be still so enjoyable.
Every aspect is crafted to near, if not complete perfection. It demonstrates how well Nintendo worked with the capabilities of the NES to make a game that was fun, simple, memorable, played well and offered a good challenge, had a variety of different stages that were tackled in different manners, yet was not so long as that it could not be beaten in a single setting. It's classic side scrolling gaming at its best, and the influence on future platformers of not just the same genre, the same console, or even the same series has been evident throughout the ages.
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