Box for the original Super Mario Bros NES game cartage

This game is also one of the most revolutionary. Instead of any plat-formers previous to this game, Super Mario Bros is a side scroller, allowing players to move freely around the world they have found themselves in with hardly any limitations. The only problem I really felt with the game was that you can scroll to the right but not to the left, meaning if you pass something you want like a 1up mushroom, fireflower or a chance to harvest infinite 1ups, you can’t go back to it. Personally though, I see this as a good part of the game play that newer games in the series don’t have. It means you have to explore the levels as much as you can in the time limit on each play though to improve, instead of just learning every secret on one level by just running back and forth.

I have always viewed the original Super Mario as a kind of obstacle course instead of an adventure like the rest of the games in the series. You start at level 1, and you go to level 2. You don’t go backwards, only forwards.

You start off with 3 lives, and you can earn more by either finding hidden 1up mushrooms in blocks hidden around the levels, or by collecting 100 coins. Both of these are quite difficult to do, so maintaining your lives is essential. With the lack of back tracking involved, if you miss an opportunity to get a 1up it will be quite difficult to find another one to replace it.

Super Mario Bros. also has a very nice feature that tends to go unnoticed, and that’s the fact that Mario slides when he stops moving. It may seem like a very simple thing today, but nothing like it had been done before. If your character on screen stopped, they just stopped still. You can also affect your speed and direction while in the air, which is useful for jumping along tight platforms.

The story in Mario games has never been it’s main focus, or at least people have always seemed to think that. In the early days of video games the stories were never told though cut scenes or dialogue in the game, you could find it in the instruction booklet. When you look at the story of the game, you realise that there is quite a big back story to this. Sure there’s no real plot but it’s worth seeing if you can buy the instruction manual to find out stuff about the game that you never would have known originally. The instruction manuals can sometimes cost a few quid more though, so if you’re on a tight budget, look it up on the internet as it’s nice to know these little things about the game.

Of course though, you don’t care about the story when playing a platformer as good as this, you care about the level design.

Unfortunately, graphically, the levels all look the same. You have water levels, ice levels, night based levels, castle levels and under ground levels. But all the underground levels basically look the same, as do the rest of the level types. It’s all a bit samey! And as for the night based levels, they are really just the over ground levels only with a black sky, so they are basically the same. On the subject of graphics though, for the time these were amazing. Yes they’ve lost their wow factor now but they have the unmistakable charm of early 8bit Nintendo games.

At the end of the day, this game is superb and a must play for anyone that has ever loved a video game. It can be bought fairly affordably on both the NES and the Wii’s virtual console, and is also available to play on Super Mario All Stars on both the SNES and Wii with enhanced 16bit graphics. However you play this game, it is one to add to your game library, and no NES gamer should be without it.