Played on Wii Virtual Console

Originally written June 25, 2007

Ah, Super Mario Bros. Just saying the name makes so much nostalgia run through my veins. I remember playing this game so much on my GameBoy Color (yeah, I never played it on NES…). Just thinking about it makes me happy inside. This is why, when I saw the game appear on the Wii’s Virtual Console, I knew I had to download it so I could play it again.

You see, Super Mario Bros. is just one of those games that should be played by everyone. Even if you have the slightest interest in video games, you should play this. It’s an absolute classic game and was a huge building block for video games today. The game had bright, colorful levels that changed the way games were created. Originally released on the NES in 1985, Super Mario Bros. made a huge impact on anyone who played it. Over 20 years later, it’s still played and enjoyed by many and dubbed one of the classics. It is one of the first great side-scrolling games and it was even received by some critics as one of the greatest games ever created.

It’s no wonder Super Mario Bros. was such a success, as it is the best-selling video game of all time, at least to my knowledge. This was the game that most NES owners had, and it’s partially the reason why the NES was such a success. This was one of Shigeru Miyamoto’s greatest successes, and from this game Mario went on to become Nintendo’s most well-known mascot.

As with most games that are huge successes, Super Mario Bros. has been re-released many times for different systems and games. Just to name a few, Super Mario Bros. was re-released on the SNES game Super Mario All-Stars, on the GameBoy Color as Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, and on the GameBoy Advance as part of the Classic NES Series, a series of games that brought classic NES games such as Super Mario Bros. to the GameBoy Advance. Now, once again, the game has been re-released, this time on Nintendo’s newest console, the Nintendo Wii, as part of its Virtual Console. It was released on the Virtual Console on Christmas Day 2006 in North America and Japan, and on January 5, 2007, in Europe and Australia. Now, once again, you can play Super Mario Bros. for the small cost of 500 points, the equivalent of five U.S. dollars and experience this great game all over again.

Alright, well I’ve said enough about how much of a success this game is, but now that brings us to the question; Why is it such a success? What makes this game so good?

Well, as always, let’s talk about the gameplay of this game first. You take on the role of Mario, or if you’re playing 2 Player, Player 2 is Luigi, Mario’s brother (although in this game he looks exactly like Mario, except that he wears green instead of red). The game has 8 worlds, and each world has 4 levels in them, making the game 32 levels long. Each world is unique, however there are some basic similarities between the levels…the easiest example to see is that the fourth level of each world (World 1-4, 2-4, 3-4, etc.) takes place inside a fortress, where you need to make your way to the end to defeat “King Koopa”, who is named Bowser in later Mario games. However, in the first seven worlds, you don’t face the real King Koopa. Only in World 8 do you take on the real one. The other seven ones are fakes. You defeat King Koopa by jumping over him and landing on a hammer, which removes the bridge from under his feet and sends him into a pit of lava. Pretty badass, huh? However, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are obstacles preventing you from defeating him, such as fireballs and blocks that limit your jumping. In fact, in later worlds, King Koopa starts throwing hammers at you, and believe me, that isn’t fun. Once you defeat King Koopa, you think you saved Princess Peach, which is the object of the game, as she has been kidnapped by King Koopa, but instead in Worlds 1-7, you are greeted by Toad, who is one of the princess’s servants, and he says a quote which is popular among people who play this game. “Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!”

What else will happen during the course of your adventure to save the princess? Well, not only does King Koopa stand in your way, but also so do many other enemies. You see, King Koopa has many minions who will try to halt your quest to rescue your damsel in distress. Two of the most popular enemies who you will see during the game are the Goombas and the Koopa Troopas. Let me attempt to describe these guys for you. Well…Goombas are kind of hard to describe. They’re little brown dudes who I assume are some sort of mushroom…at least that’s what they look like to me. Meh, they’re not too bad. To put it simply, Koopa Troopas are turtles. Yeah, that’s it. Thankfully, these aren’t the only enemies in the game. You’ll see quite a few other enemies, including everything from flying fish to some guy who rides in a cloud that tries to throw stuff at you. Oh, one last thing before I get off the topic of the enemies in the game. How do you kill them? Well, Mario and Luigi’s primary attack is just stomping on the enemies, which to put it very simple, is just jumping on them. Jumping on MOST enemies kills them. However, there are some enemies who don’t go down that easily.

How are the items/power-ups? Well, pretty damn good, I guess. First up, is the 1-Up. These are pretty rare (I myself have only managed to find three of them in the entire game, although there are probably a few more), and what they do is give you an extra life. You start out the game with three lives, and some of the levels (especially the later ones) are pretty hard, so you’ll likely need to get these. Thankfully, this isn’t the only way to get an extra life. You can also get them by collecting coins, which is a well-known “item” in the Mario series. Collecting 100 of these coins gets you an extra life. Don’t worry; it’s not as hard as it sounds. When I play, I already have over 100 coins by the end of the third level (World 1-3), so they’re not that hard to come by. Now, the next two items are helpful. When you touch an enemy, you die. So, the Super Mushroom was put in the game to help you with that. When you get a Super Mushroom, Mario grows bigger. This also lets him do things such as break blocks when he hits them. When you’re Super Mario, you don’t die when you hit an enemy. Instead, you return back to regular Mario, where the same rules will apply…you die if you hit an enemy. The next item is the Fire Flower, which you’ll only be able to receive when you’re Super Mario. The Fire Flower allows Mario to shoot fireballs at enemies. Cool! Some of the enemies that can’t be killed by jumping on can instead be killed by shooting fireballs at them. Sadly, when you’re hit by an enemy while being Fire Mario, you don’t return to Super Mario, but instead regular Mario. Oh well. The final item in the game is the Star, which you can collect no matter what type of Mario you are. The Star allows Mario to become invincible for a short time, so he can run into enemies without dying, and instead kill them. However, you can still die while you’re invincible, as touching an enemy isn’t the only way to die. You can also die in two other ways: falling into a pit or if time runs out. Yeah, be careful not to fall when there isn’t solid ground under you, and also make sure you beat the level before the time limit is up. Both of these will kill you no matter what.

One final thing I want to discuss before I get into the other aspects of the game is what happens after you beat the game. When you beat the game for the first time, you unlock what is known as one of two things: “Hard Mode” or “Second Quest”. Call it whatever you want, but they’re both the same thing. You basically start the game over again, but it’s harder. How? Well, the most obvious thing is the enemies. Some of the easier enemies such as the Goombas have been replaced with harder ones, and also the amount and speed of the enemies have increased. Another thing that some people like to do when they beat the game is try to speed-run through it. The record is a little over five minutes. How do you go through 32 levels in that time? You can’t. However, there’s a way to skip 3/4 of the game. Should I tell you how? Nah. I’ll let you find that out for yourself. It’s more fun that way. One last thing I want to talk about is the glitches, though. If you owned the original NES version of this game, you may remember such glitches as “Minus World” and jumping over the flagpole at the end of the level. Glitches such as these were removed from versions like Super Mario Bros. Deluxe and Super Mario Bros. All-Stars. However, the Virtual Console version of the game still has all of these glitches still in, so it’s an exact port of the original game. Glitches like these are fun to experiment with, and now you can do it all over again on the Wii.

Now that I thoroughly explained the gameplay in this game, it’s time to talk about something else. Let’s start with the graphics. I must say…I was impressed. The graphics in this game are beautiful for their time, and still look pretty decent today. Everything in the game can be easily distinguished. I don’t think there was any point in the game where I saw something and said, “What the hell was that?” The levels are all bright, colorful, and all around nicely done. They’re fairly detailed. One thing I had problems with was at certain points in the game I noticed some frame rate issues. Maybe it’s just my copy of the game, or maybe it was emulation issues or something. But I did notice that some of the sprites for the characters and enemies were “blinking” at some points, almost as if they were half there. It didn’t bother me too much, though, and it was only apparent in a few levels, so it’s not that big of a deal.

Next up is the story. Meh, this is my least favorite part of the game. Mario has to save Princess Peach from King Koopa. It wouldn’t be so bad if this wasn’t done in every single Mario game. Still, this is the first “true” game of the series, so I’ll give credit where credit is due. Oh, and let’s not forget…back in the NES era, story wasn’t really important, and in most games, Super Mario Bros. included, a storyline wasn’t really apparent. So, it’s okay that no real story was apparent while playing the game. Still, you’re saving a princess. This has been done a lot of times, so it’s not like it’s something we’ve never seen before.

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo…DOO! No, I haven’t gone off my rocker mid-review. I’m merely thinking about the fantastic music that is in this game. Seriously, it’s brilliant. In fact, it’s so amazing that it is recognized worldwide, even by people who haven’t played the game. Not to mention, Mario music just plain kicks ass. This was probably my favorite aspect of the game, as the music just adds to the extreme fun of the game. While playing the game, you’ll hear the music so much that it will be implanted in your head…FOREVER! And thankfully, that’s a good thing. Oh yeah, and the sound effects in Super Mario Bros. are also done fantastic. I just love hearing Mario sliding down the flagpole…over, and over, and over again. Finally, to wrap up the sounds, I have to say that there are no voices in this game. Don’t fret, though, I’m not about to take off points from the game because of this. I don’t think they even started having voice acting in games until the SNES era. So yeah, to cover this up, no voices, cool sound effects, and brilliant music to boot.

Wow, I didn’t think I’d ever get to this part of the review. I’ve just been playing the game WAY too much. Oh, did I forget to mention? The replay value of this game is amazing. You’ll find yourself playing this game for hours. Not only because it’s fun, but it also takes a while to beat. Yeah, it took me quite a while to finally be able to kick Bowser’s ass in World 8-4. When I finally did, it felt great, though. I’ve literally spent hours on this game, and enjoyed it all the way through. It’s just such an addicting game. If you’re looking for a Virtual Console game that’ll last you a long time, Super Mario Bros. is one of my top recommendations. Sadly, I can’t give the replay value aspect of the game a perfect 10, though. Sure, it lasts a while, but when you finally become an expert at it, it’s really easy and you might find yourself not playing it as much anymore. To beat the game the actual way (no warping), it takes almost an hour. Still, despite it becoming easy after you’ve beaten it a few times, the replay value of Super Mario Bros. is still great, and hopefully you’ll enjoy every minute of it just like I did.

Well, that’s it, folks. That’s all I have to say about the game. Now it’s time to give it its score.

Gameplay: 9

+Extremely fun and addicting.

-Almost perfect, but not quite.

Graphics: 9

+Bright, colorful, and highly detailed.

-I experienced a couple issues with “disappearing sprites”

Story: 6

+First “true” Mario game, so rescuing the princess wasn’t that common yet.

-Not very unique, and it’s a typical Mario storyline.

Sounds: 10

+Very memorable music.

-Nothing!

Replay Value: 9

+Will last you hours and will keep you playing.

-Pretty easy once you’ve played it for a long time.

Well, that’s all I have to say about Super Mario Bros. It’s a great game, and if you sacrifice 500 of your Wii Points, this classic will instantly be yours. And let’s face it…for $5, this is a great bargain. Super Mario Bros. is a great game and you should get it immediately.

4.5/5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Okay, I just re-read my review of Super Mario Bros. before posting it, and…wow. I’m happy to be the first to admit that this is a TERRIBLE review. The way I wrote, the extraneous details, just…wow. However, this is one of the first reviews I ever wrote, and I wrote it when I was 14, so…I guess that’s to be expected. So, trust me, I’m aware this is terribly written. Despite this, I chose to post this review in its original form for a few different reasons. For one thing, I think it’s a funny time capsule for myself. This hopefully shows how far my writing has come. I think it’s worth a laugh to look at some of my earliest work. But the other big reason is because despite how poorly the review is written, I still agree with my original assessment. All I’d be doing in a revision is essentially editing, because I still agree that Super Mario Bros. is a fantastic game, and I did make that point in the review, even if it’s buried among useless gibberish. So, I wanted to leave the disclaimer that while I’ll fully agree that the review is badly written, I still agree with my assessment on it. This sort of thing happens when posting old reviews of mine, so thanks for understanding. 🙂