Super Mario Bros.
Description official descriptions
The Princess has been kidnapped by the evil Bowser, and it is up to Mario and brother Luigi to save the day.
The first-ever platform adventure for the Mario Brothers has the player exploring level after level, with Bowser to contend with as the end of level boss. Power-ups include the Super Mushroom, which increases Mario's size and power, the fire flower, allowing him to shoot fireballs at enemies, and the ever-important starman for a short burst of invincibility.
Each level includes a bonus section filled with coins plus a shortcut through the level, plenty of bad buys and obstacles to get past, and an end-of-level flag, in which the higher the player grabs it, the more points are awarded to them. Certain levels also include warp points, which take the player to higher levels.
Spellings
- ăčăŒăăŒăăȘăȘăă©ă¶ăŒăș - Japanese spelling
- è¶ çș§é©Źéć„„ć ćŒ - Chinese spelling (simplified)
- ìíŒ ë§ëŠŹì€ëžëŒëì€ - Korean spelling
Groups +
- Classic NES / Famicom Mini / NES Classics releases
- Game Center CX challenge games
- Games made into books
- Games made into comics
- Games made into movies
- Games made into stage productions
- Games made into TV series
- Genre: Hop and Bop Platformer
- Mario games
- Nintendo's Action series
- Super Mario series
- Video games turned into board / card games
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Credits (NES version)
7 People
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Original music by |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 88% (based on 57 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 458 ratings with 18 reviews)
BeholdâŠthe game that saved an industry!
The Good
The art direction on the first Super Mario Bros. (SMB) game was both memorable and adorable. Mushroom men, turtle troopers, fire flowers, breakable bricks, giant plumbing pipesâŠit all added up to something like a slightly industrial twist on âAlice in Wonderland.â And a twisted fairy tale is at the heart of this game, so that makes perfect sense. Mario was playing the role of animated anti-hero long before anyone even dreamed of Shrek!
Just as important as the art was the fabulous music. If you were to hum the overworld and underworld themes to SMB in public, the odds are good that somebody within earshot would recognize them. The sound effects were both realistic and satisfying. Smashing bricks really sounds like smashing bricks, and the happy-cool noises that accompany mushrooms, fire flowers, invincibility stars, and other goodies you find add to the simple joy of discovering them.
Of course, I would be remiss not to praise SMB for its elegant and incredibly innovative design. SMB was truly the harbinger of a new era in arcade games. Gone forever were the days of single-screen playing fields and their compressed, suffocating feel; from then on, arcade gamers would expect to scroll through an entire world of fun and fantasy. (Of course, big props must also go to David Craneâs landmark Pitfall games for pointing the industry in this direction.) Moreover, it showed that a video game world could benefit greatly by having destructible environments. Except for Asteroids and Lode Runner, I canât think of any early action-arcade title that let you smash things up as much as SMB did.
While mostly linear, SMB still gave the player considerable freedom within that linear structure. Most levels featured hidden areas and alternate paths to victory, and âwarp zoneâ pipes let you bypass entire worlds and advance much fasterâthe downside being that you couldnât gain the extra lives and other rewards in the bypassed areas. But those warp paths were just the tip of the iceberg as far as secrets and âeaster eggsâ were concerned. Just when you thought you had uncovered SMBâs secrets, youâd play the game with somebody else and theyâd show you something new. Magical stuff, and I canât recall playing anything like it that preceded it.
Younger gamers might have difficulty grasping how revolutionary all of this stuff seemed back in the day, but take my word for it: video games felt vastly different after Super Mario, and this surely played a big part in reviving the industry after the great Atari bust of the early 1980s.
The Bad
No game is flawless. Even the great SMB is no exception to this rule. For one thing, it can get repetitive. Thatâs not uncommon for arcade games, and SMB holds up better than almost any other game of its era, but itâs still a problem. How many times did we really need to hear that our princess is in another castle?
More seriously, it would have been nice if the action didnât always have you running in the same direction.
Even Link is a lefty, so how come Mario only gets to go right?
From the perspective of any mediocre platform gamer (thatâs me!), SMB was a bit hard. The early levels were rather unchallenging, but from World 5 on things get significantly harder. Iâve beaten the game without cheating, but believe me, it did not come easily. For most games Iâd probably say it wasnât worth the effort. If you are struggling with this one, then Iâd say that playing with a Game Genie might be a good idea. It would be sad for any dedicated retro gamer not to explore the later levels just because his reflexes arenât quite up to the task.
Finally, a word on multiplayer. I donât use multiplayer in most games, but I did use it quite a bit with SMB (my lucky cousins had this game long before I did). It was ok, but the sequential nature of it seemed a bit of a waste. You spent lots of time watching the other person playâespecially if they were goodâwhich could get boring fast. After the simultaneous multiplayer of Mario Bros., the IGO-HUGO of SMB seems like a bit of a step backwards. It probably wasnât at all practical at the time, but a cooperative play mode could have been a blast.
The Bottom Line
If Super Mario Bros. had not been made, would another game have come along to save the home video game industry? Probably. Still, SMB is the game that actually DID save the industry. It still holds up well today, and so it deserves all of the accolades it getsâand more.
NES · by PCGamer77 (3158) · 2008
The #1 game NES owners should play
The Good
I remember seeing Super Mario Bros. in a display store, and was amazed on how great it looked. When the game was released in 1985, the game sold 40,000 copies, making it the best selling game of all time. I knew that I couldnât buy a copy myself since it was exclusive to the NES and I had a Commodore 64. Later on, I was able to buy a copy off someone carrying the same title, and I bragged about my finding in a grade five Show and Tell session, where one of my classmates debated me on the legitimacy of my purchase. Indeed, it was a carbon copy of The Great Giana Sisters with a Mario skin attached to it.
The story goes something like this: the Kingdom of the Mushroom People was invaded by the Koopa tribe led by Bowser who ordered that the people be turned into mere stones, bricks, and even field horse-hair plants, and soon after the Kingdom fell into ruin. Realizing that Princess Toadstool, the daughter of the Mushroom King, is the only one who can lift the curse, she is locked up inside one of Bowserâs fortresses, and it is up to Mario (or Luigi, if the game is set to two-player mode) to rescue her so that the Kingdom is restored to its former glory.
In Super Mario Bros., the object of each level is to run through all 32 levels in a limited amount of time, defeating Koopaâs henchman, while being careful not to fall down the screen. There are boxes with question marks on them, and hitting these boxes will award you with a coin. Collect 100 of these and youâll receive an extra life. There are pipes you can go down that will lead to a bonus room, filled with coins that will help you reach that magic number. Touching a flagpole at the end of the level allows you to enter the next one.
What sets Super Mario Bros. apart is the way the central character can take three forms. You seem, you start the game as Little Mario, who is vulnerable and isn't able to do much damage apart from jumping on enemy's heads to kill them. Not every box you see has a coin hidden inside, since there is a chance that you will find a mushroom. Getting this mushroom will transform into Big Mario. As Big Mario, you are given another chance if you are hit by an enemy. Assuming you are still Big Mario, you can find a flower that will turn you into Fire Mario, where you are given the ability to launch fireballs at enemies. This sets a precedence in Super Mario Bros. 3, where Mario can take many forms.
The settings for most of the levels varies. In the early levels, for instance, you climb up mountains. Later on, you go underground, and eventually, you get to swim underwater where you get to deal with underwater-based enemies, one of them the Super Mario Bros. equivalent of an octopus. In these underwater levels, having Fire Mario swim up to the surface and bounce a fireball onto an enemy on the other side of a wall is a stroke of genius. There is even a chance that some pipes scattered around each level lead you to another level with a different setting, and these are even worth going down if you are sick of the same setting.
The âreal lifeâ physics in the game are amazing. Run right for a long time and donât expect to stop immediately. I have lost count on the number of times where I noticed the end of a platform while I was running. I slowed myself down, but I fell off anyway. In addition to this, if you want to perform a high jump, expect to get a running start first.
There are three soundtracks in the game, one for each setting. Of these, I enjoyed the underwater music as it is more relaxing than those you hear as you explore the mountains or venture underground, and the underwater music forms the basis for the theme in the US version of Super Mario Bros. 2. Regardless of the setting, each soundtrack increases in speed as you are running out of time.
One thing that I admired was the fact that there are alternate ways you can get through the game. Don't want to risk getting killed by Bowser? Simple, just hurl a fireball at him. Don't want to go to the castle at all? Enter warp pipes that take you to a different world. Happen to be running out of lives? Just bump into those â?â blocks along the way 100 times, or, better still, find a bonus room that has coins galore. It is alright for anyone to avoid these shortcuts if they are playing the game for the first time.
Super Mario Bros. is more than just a platform game, and I say this because there are a little bit of thinking involved in working out how to complete the later levels. Case in point: the final two worlds where you need to make sure you step on the right platforms or go down specific pipes so that the level doesnât loop. It is worth memorizing this path so that you don't have trouble if you decide to play the game later.
The Bad
I agree with other reviewers here. There is no password system, so Nintendo expects you to complete the game in one sitting
The Bottom Line
Super Mario Bros. served as a pack-in title for the NES, a smart move by Nintendo which contributed to its success. Pack-in titles are not possible today due to the high cost of putting machines together, and if companies included these pack-ins anyway, the machine would cost more than it should.
The game itself revolutionized platform gaming due to its crisp graphics, multiple paths, real-life physics, and support for two players. I agree that the game can be difficult since the player being forced to determine the correct path to take, especially in the later levels. So in conclusion, Super Mario Bros. is the game that NES owners should play, as it spawned a great series.
NES · by Katakis | ă«ăżăăč (43091) · 2019
Your princess is in another castle
The Good
It is the father of them all, little younger than I, and the first videogame I played. If I had to explain its appeal, I would put it down to colourful and tangible-looking graphics, catchy music (who can't hum the music of at least the first two levels?), great sound effects, but above all incredibly fast-paced and addictive gameplay. Whether you are climbing stairs, jumping to moving Meccano-like platforms in the underground, or swimming almost unrestricted in the underwater level, you will enjoy yourself. The mushrooms that make you grow and flowers that give you the power to shoot fireballs are nice touches.
The monsters are quite remarkable. Goombas, turtles (some with wings!), carnivorous plants... no wonder this game captivated me.
The castle levels are a treat in themselves. Bowser is pretty terrifying, there is lava, and, well, "Your princess is in another castle" has to be one of the most seminal videogame lines. Of course, everything about "Super Mario Bros." is seminal.
The learning curve is very good: the first level is simple, but in later levels, abysses and similar features increase the danger. Regularly timed platforms and monsters mean that the player needs strategic thinking as well as quick reflexes.
After winning, the player gets the option to play again from the start with slightly improved monsters, which is an excellent idea.
And of course, for me at least, this game has the indescribable glamour of being the first ever.
The Bad
Nothing is perfect, and the "Super Mario Bros." series had quite a few things to improve in subsequent issues. For example, the gameplay is very simple. The times when the player needs to think further than just "when is the right time to jump?" are thin on the ground.
The fact that you can't walk back is rather frustrating. Level design also gets a bit samey towards the end.
The Bottom Line
Chances are, if you started playing videogames in the late 1980s, you've played "Super Mario Bros." In that case, I don't need to convince you how good it is.
If you haven't, then what are you waiting for?
NES · by Christina Nordlander (24) · 2005
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
It seemed like a weird idea for Star Wars also... | Pseudo_Intellectual (66360) | Jan 31, 2008 |
Trivia
1001 Video Games
The NES version of Super Mario Bros. appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Cereal
Super Mario Bros. was popular enough to have a breakfast cereal based on the game called the "Nintendo Cereal System", and was co-packaged with Legend of Zelda cereal. The sweetened corn bits were in the shape of Mario, Koopa Troopa, Goomba, Bowser, and a Super Mushroom.
NES supplement
For a time, Super Mario Brothers was the game packaged with a new NES system, along with the Zapper Light Gun and the game Duck Hunt.
Parody
Joe Dixon released a spoof version of Super Mario Bros. in late 2002. It replaces Mario, Toadstool, and the enemies with characters from South Park.
Sales
According to the Guiness Book Of Records, as of 2003 Super Mario Bros. is the best-selling video game of all time, with a total of 40.23 million units sold worldwide, as of 1999. The whole Mario Bros. series has 26 games and sold over 152 million copies since 1983, according to Guiness.
It is widely believed that the billionth game unit sold by Nintendo was Super Mario Bros..
TV series
Super Mario Bros. was popular enough to have a TV cartoon based on it in the late 1980's-early 1990's. It starred "Captain" Lou Albano as Mario, and Danny Wells as Luigi in the live-action segments, and animated Mario cartoons Monday-Thursday (Friday was for cartoons based on Legend of Zelda).
Awards
- EGM
- November 1997 (Issue 100) - ranked #2 (Titles That Revolutionized Console Gaming) (NES version)
- February 2006 - #1 out of 200 Games of their Time
- FLUX
- Issue #4 - #66 in the "Top 100 Video Games of All-Time" list
- Game Informer
- August 2001 (Issue 100) - #2 in the "Top 100 Video Games of All-Time list"
- October 2005 (Issue 138) - one of the "Top 25 Most Influential Games of All Time"
- IGN
- #1 Game of All Time (or revolutionary graphics and gameplay at the time of its release)
- Official Nintendo Magazine
- Greatest Nintendo Game
- Power Play
- 1987 - Best NES Game '87
- Retro Gamer
- October 2004 (Issue #9) â #24 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)
- Issue 37 - #23 in the "Top 25 Platformers of All Time" poll
- The Strong National Museum of Play
- 2015 â Introduced into the World Video Game Hall of Fame
Information also contributed by Big John WV, Guy Chapman, Mat Neuteboom, Maw, Mumm-Ra, PCGamer77 and sgtcook
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Related Sites +
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Beat Super Mario Bros in 5 minutes!!!
YouTube video on completing the whole game in 5 minutes on the NES. -
Classic NES Series for the Game Boy Advance
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Mario Mania
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Mario's World
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OC ReMix Game Profile
Fan remixes of music from Super Mario Bros. -
Super Mario Bros.
A great article about the history of this classic. Includes information on how to get through World 1. -
The Mushroom Kingdom
Everything you'd ever want to know about all of the Super Mario Brothers Games -
Video review of NES accessories (WARNING: Laguage)
The Angry Video Game Nerd, James Rolfe, reviews some NES accessories and some associated games, including the U-Force and Super Mario Bros. on NES.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Kartanym.
Wii added by Corn Popper. Nintendo 3DS added by ResidentHazard. Wii U, Arcade added by Michael Cassidy. Game Boy Advance added by Guy Chapman. Nintendo Switch added by Kam1Kaz3NL77.
Additional contributors: PCGamer77, Jeanne, Guy Chapman, chirinea, Alaka, Vaelor, gamewarrior, LepricahnsGold, Patrick Bregger, sgtcook, Thomas Thompson, FatherJack, lightlands, SoMuchChaotix.
Game added September 28, 2002. Last modified March 16, 2024.