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Super Mario Bros. Game Review

Super Mario Bros. is a 1985 platform video game published by Nintendo for Nintendo Entertainment System. It is justifiably regarded as a genuine classic.

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“Thank you Mario,

but our queen is in another castle“

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The plot is simple, but it works for this franchise. Set in the Mushroom Kingdom, Bowser kidnaps Princess Toadstool and it is up to Mario to save her and free the entire kingdom. Mario here doesn’t have his usual look due to the limitations of that period’s hardware, so the usual red and blue outfit is nowhere to be found here. Instead, we get orange and white. Still, for such an early game, his design is incredible.

Even more revolutionary was the decision to give Mario two power-ups. When you collect an orange mushroom by destroying certain bricks, you get the first power-up. Mario then is bigger and basically has an extra life. When an enemy hits him, he will reverse to the much smaller original form. The second power-up is the Fire Flower, which gets Mario the ability to shoot fire at his enemies. It is very difficult to obtain this highest form for too long due to the high difficulty of the overall game, but the choice is there and the hierarchy in these power-ups was truly groundbreaking for the mid eighties.

The enemies are uniformly fantastic. The Piranha Plants appear from the worlds’ pipes and they cannot be killed, but simply avoided. They are an instantly memorable, integral part of this creative world. The same goes for the turtles called the Koopa Troopa. The gameplay mechanic with these turtle enemies is outstanding and widely creative. They can walk or fly, but regardless of their form, you can jump on its head, it will then retract into its shell and then you can kick it toward other enemies or a hole. This can backfire if it goes back toward you, but it remains a powerful, essential tool in your survival tactics for this game.

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The Goomba can be jumped on and flattened to death, but those black beetles were simply too black and not interesting enough. They are the only enemies who did not fit in this colorful world. The Starman power-up does grant you superpowers, but it appears exceedingly rarely in the levels. I did like the variety of the game’s worlds for the eighties, but for nowadays it is too limited as we only get the land, underwater and castle backgrounds. The underwater levels are some of the hardest in terms of enemies as they cannot be killed (those jellyfish are particularly nasty in their fast swimming), but their shortness was a good choice to make them easier.

The game is divided into eight worlds consisting of four levels each. Every world ends with the boss fight where you fight first minions disguised as the big turtle and at the end a real Bowser. He can be defeated using a Fire Flower, but I personally never arrived there with the fully-equipped, powered-up Mario, so I ended up defeating him by jumping over him or sliding underneath him, and then pulling the axe that pulls the suspension bridge and makes him fall to the lava at the bottom. It is not too difficult to do this, but timing is of the essence. More difficult, to me at least, were those Hammer Bros. They toss hammers so quickly toward you that you really need to be fast and time your jumps cleverly in order to get past them.

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Let’s talk about the worlds. The first world is famous for its first level that introduces the player incredibly well to this world, the gameplay mechanics and the enemies. It’s such a perfect tutorial level that many would mimic years after its release. The underground level is the most memorable one here. The second world is memorable for its inclusion not just of aquatic, but also aerial levels, thus making it very varied and rich.

The third world has a distinctly darker, entirely black background, which differentiated it well from other worlds. It’s still a bit too easy in terms of difficulty. The fourth world introduces this guy in the cloud who throws these spike animals from the sky. They are impossible to kill, thus making the evasion process crucial. The third level with the big mushroom platforms was visually very appealing and this is where you really need to use the B button to run and thus make longer jumps. This is the moment where the game becomes much harder.

The fourth level and some other levels later down the line introduce this puzzle where you need to find the right path, but it’s impossible to find it without the help of the Internet. It is by far my biggest gripe with this game and the one thing that really should have been discarded. The fifth world is truly excellent with the cannonballs being a rather difficult and interesting addition. This is the best designed world with the most appropriate difficulty.

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The sixth world is also amazing with the added platforms making bigger jumps crucial in order to finish the levels. The seventh world was the messiest one with the levels that are all over the place in terms of difficulty level. It felt disparate throughout. But the eighth world is terrific, especially hard in the small platforms that should be jumped on very accurately. It’s the hardest world, but still the most entertaining one.

Super Mario Bros. is at its most revolutionary in the warp pipes. Some of these pipes inhabited by Piranha Plants can transport you to a further level (literally warping you in advance to a future world) or to a bonus level. Some can even get you back to an earlier point in the level, which was super frustrating, but undeniably fascinating. The world building in this game is truly incredible.

The controls are easy and intuitive to use, the level design is usually among the best in the entire platforming genre while the difficulty level is mostly just right. It requires you to replay many times, but it is rewarding when you beat it as there is a high level of learning and luck playing out every time. Graphically speaking, it looks astonishing for its time. The colors are rich for this period and the backgrounds are super polished for the mid eighties. It is a groundbreaking game how amazing it looks, but also sounds. The sound is iconic, especially of Mario jumping, but the score is something else. It is one of the best scores in gaming history with the signature Mario tune of the first levels being instantly catchy and so charming.

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