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
- スーパーマリオブラザーズ - Japanese spelling
- 超级马里奥兄弟 - Chinese spelling (simplified)
- 슈퍼 마리오브라더스 - 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 franchise
- 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 58 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 496 ratings with 19 reviews)
Friday 18 October 1985: the Messiah of the console industry is born!
The Good
Where do I begin?
The game immediately hit with audiences, something impressive in 1985, with the video game crash of 1983-1984 still a raw wound for the business. The aforementioned crash was caused by an incredibly high rate of crappy games-- 90+% of games released in '83-'84 are EXTREMELY bad. This game's graphics, sounds and music are almost as good as contemporary Commodore 64 and other PC games. The game play is just awesome, the controls are very specific and friendly. B is jump, A fires weapons when tapped, if held, you can run, and the gameplay is simple but fun: You go from point A to point B on every stage, jump over koopas and goombas, hit coin boxes, and bash other obstacles that get in your way, and jump up the flag for points at the end. Quite often one of the coin boxes reveals a mushroom that allows you to grow to a big Mario, or a flower that makes you shoot fireballs. There are 8 worlds, each with four stages (the last stage has a boss on each world).
The music is just awesome and makes want to hum-along and keep you playing. Even the game-over music is amusing to hear. You won't feel any frustration or disappointments with this game.
The Bad
The level designs get a bit repetitive at times and gets incredibly hard towards the end, but other than that, I have no complaints.
The Bottom Line
Behold, this is the game that pulled the console video game industry out of life support in 1985 and eventually make an impressive recovery. No other game since the early Atari ones has made an enormous impact as this one!
One for your library, and is every cent's worth of your money!
NES · by Stsung (30) · 2008
A plumber in a kingdom full of talking mushrooms
The Good
What can you say about this game that has not been already said. But i will review this game anyway because i love this game anyway.
The story is very very simple: You play as a plumber named Mario who is in a kingdom called the mushroom kingdom. In this kingdom he has to rescue princess Peach from the evil koopa king Bowser. That is it for the story. Everyone how it goes and every other mario game has the same story anyway so we can talk about the gameplay.
The gameplay is just perfect. the a button is for jumping. the d-pad is for the direction mario is walking. the b button is only there for running if you hold down or if you have the fireflower, you can shoot fireballs at enemies. The controls are simple and easy to understand. Jumping in this game is the most important thing. If you don't jump, you won't come very far. If you run, holding down the b button, you can jump higher and wider which is also very important if you want to jump over huge gaps. During your play, you are going to come across three power-ups . There is the power mushroom which turns mario in super mario. He can take one more hit than usual. Usually if he gets hit as normal mario, he dies. So it is a good thing this mushroom exists. There is also the fire flower. With this you can shoot fireballs at enemies which makes your progress much easier. Occasionally you come across a star in one of the question blocks. This star makes invincible for a short time. The enemies very simple to beat most of the time. The enemies you encounter are for example goombas, koopa troopas, hammer bros. and a few more. Some enemies are easy to beat but some can be annoying especially the hammer bros., which come in pairs sometimes and throwing hammers at you.
The graphics have aged surely but they hold up pretty well even over 30 years later. I really like the simple design and the level design is pretty good as well. My favourite level is still the very first level because is the perfect introduction for a game to get used to the controls.
The soundtrack is legendary. Koji Kondo, the composer for most of the mario games, composed a soundtrack which i will always remember and does not know the music that plays during this game. The overworld theme is probably the most well known video game theme of all time and the rest of these tracks memorable as well although this tracks are very short but the music does not annoy me in this.
The Bad
There are only small problems i have. The jumping is not responsive as it should be. If you are running and you want to jump, the jumping does not always respond and you can fall to death which is annoying but it is only occasionally. The other thing is that those bowser fights are always the same. in the first worlds spits fire at you and later he is throwing hammers at you. I really wished there would be a little more variety in those fights. But other than that i do not have any problems.
The Bottom Line
This game is a classic, i can stress this enough. If you know anything about video games than you have to play this game. It was released in 1985 on the NES and it was released on many other platforms so if you have time in your life, than play this game. You will probably can beat this game in one or two hours. Ho and play it now.
NES · by Lisa Müller (28) · 2018
The Good
It's gameplay is fantastic, you can really enjoy it even now, I am playing SMB once per week and I know one thing, it's diamond of games. The simple idea make a real great gameplay experience that is really near to some highest level of purest gaming ever, this game don't have a graphics that will blind you, the mechanics of game are not big and fascinating but playing this game make you feel like playing REAL gaming masterpiece. When you are playing Metal Gear Solid you are enormously excited by it's storyline but Super Mario Bros make you feel that the game itself don't have to have even storyline (cause you can't say that Super Mario Bros have REALLY storyline) or fascinating graphics to be ONE OF THE GREATEST GAMES EVER.
The Bad
Maybe graphics are not 100% of NES, maybe there is not many sound effects (but music is really good) but I can't say that I didn't like it in this game because it's not making any difference, the gameplay is so perfect that all this things are marginal.
The Bottom Line
As I said in the title, the game that's changing my life, every time I play it I feel the same, great amount of pure gameplay.
NES · by Mejs (8) · 2007
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
It seemed like a weird idea for Star Wars also... | Pseudo_Intellectual (67564) | 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) – #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 – 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 +
-
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
Covers the line-up of the new Game Boy Advance series of NES Classics. -
Mario Mania
Nintendoland's shrine to Mario including his history and many interesting facts and files -
Mario's World
Has info on most of Mario's games. -
OC ReMix Game Profile
Fan remixes of music from Super Mario Bros. -
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.
Identifiers +
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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 December 28, 2024.