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Super Mario Bros. is a 1985 side-scrolling platform video game developed by and published by Nintendo as a sequel to 1983's Mario Bros. The story follows two brothers, Mario and Luigi, as they venture to save the Mushroom Kingdom and rescue Princess Toadstool from the evil Bowser, who has taken over the land. Players must guide Mario or Luigi through a series of levels; the characters must reach the the end of a stage, while dodging obstacles and collecting power-ups such as magic mushrooms and projectile flowers.

First released in Japan on September 13, 1985 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Super Mario Bros. was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, who led a team of seven individuals to create the title. It was conceived as a swan song for the console, as Nintendo was planning on shifting its focus to the Famicom Disk System add-on. Development began as a more straightforward, shoot 'em up-style game, before the team realized this made the game too easy and changed the controls. The game's soundtrack was composed by Koji Kondo, who sought to make the music an integral and participatory part the game. It has since been ported to a wide variety of systems, such as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and Game Boy Color.

The title has been described as a masterpiece, and among the greatest video games of all-time. Reviewers hailed Super Mario Bros. as one of the first modern video games, praising its precise controls and originality. The title is credited with helping resurrect the video game industry from the 1983 crash, and with further popularizing the platform genre. The game would be followed by an expansive series of sequels, spawned a successful franchise, and has been adapted in numerous forms of media.

Gameplay

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Super Mario Bros. is a side-scrolling, action-platform game. Players control Mario (or his brother Luigi in a two player mode), whose objective is to save Princess Toadstool and free the Mushroom Kingdom from the reign of Bowser and his henchmen, the Koopa. Mario moves on the ground at a moderate pace; his speed can be increased by pushing a button. He can also crouch, and jump to avoid obstacles, stomp on enemies, or hit bricks from below to collect power-ups such as magic mushrooms that cause him to grow, flowers that allow him to throw fireballs, and stars that grant the player temporary invincibility.

The game takes place over thirty-two levels split into eight worlds; each world consists of four levels. There are five different level themes: overworld, underground, underwater, athletic, and castle. Mario must be guided to the end of each level in order to proceed. Scattered around levels are Bowser's minions, golden coins, and secrets such as shortcuts and warps that allow the player to progress further in the game. The first three levels end with Mario reaching a flagpole. The fourth culminates with a boss fight against Bowser or one of his imposters, and when defeated, Mario saves a Toad (or the Princess in the final level). Mario starts the game with a limited number of lives, which are lost when the player suffers damage without a power-up, falls into a pit, or does not complete the level within the time limit; losing all lives results in a game over. Lives can be replenished by collecting special 1-up mushrooms or 100 coins.

Development

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(From left to right) Takashi Tezuka, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Koji Kondo, in 2015

Nintendo was planning on shifting development on titles from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to the floppy disk-based Famicom Disk System add-on. Wanting to give the system a swan song and further progress the evolution of so-called "athletic games", Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka began designing Super Mario Bros. The two led a team of seven programmers to create the title.[1] According to Tezuka, the first version initially was not a side-scrolling game, and the player controlled a 16 by 32 pixel square. Tezuka only suggested the use of Mario after seeing the sales figures of Mario Bros. (1983), which was still selling well throughout the previous year since its release.[2] Development began as a more straightforward, shoot 'em up-based game, with different controls and gameplay mechanics. These controls were kept for much of the development period.[3] However, the team eventually determined this gave players too much of an advantage and merged the shooting button (A) into the dash button (B) to balance the gameplay; the jump button was later re-assigned from the top arrow on the D-pad to the A button.[4]

In Mario Bros., players were required to defeat enemies by hitting them from beneath to flip them over and kick them. Miyamoto realized this method was illogical, admitting that "it made no sense that you could get killed in Mario Bros. when you jumped on a turtle's back." Thus, the mechanic of killing an enemy by stomping was implemented.[3] The first prototype version of the game "wasn't very good" since players could not see very far ahead of them. Not wanting to make Mario any smaller, the team built the level design around the smaller Mario but introduced the ability to make him grow by collecting a mushroom.[4] Using mushrooms to change size was influenced by folktales in which people wander into forests and eat magical mushrooms. This led to the creation of the Mushroom Kingdom, which in turn led to the setup of the plot.[5] The game's first level, World 1-1, was designed so players would be forced to explore the mechanics of the game to be able to advance.[6]

During development, the team planned to include a "run-and-gun" level in the sky; however, this was dropped to maintain the game's focus on jumping action. The cloud-based bonus stages are remnants of this, and the concept was eventually used in the Game Boy title Super Mario Land (1989).[3][4] Miyamoto also conceived the idea of Mario having a dinosaur companion he could ride, but could not implement such a character due to the hardware limitations of the NES. This concept would later serve as the basis for Yoshi, introduced in 1990's Super Mario World.[7] The development of Super Mario Bros. was an early example of specialization in the video game industry, made possible and necessary by the capabilities of the NES.[1] Development was aimed at keeping things simple, in order to have a new game available for the end-of-year shopping season.[8]

Music

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Further information: Super Mario Bros. theme

Nintendo sound designer Koji Kondo wrote the six-track musical score for Super Mario Bros., as well as all of the game's sound effects.[9] At the time he was composing, video game music was not used to enhance or conform to the game. Kondo's work on Super Mario Bros. was one of the major forces in the shift towards music becoming an integral and participatory part of video games.[10] Kondo had two specific goals for his music: "to convey an unambiguous sonic image of the game world", and "to enhance the emotional and physical experience of the gamer".[10] The music of Super Mario Bros. is coordinated with the onscreen animations of the various sprites, which was one way he created a sense of greater immersion.[10]

Unusual for the time, Kondo was part of the team almost from the beginning, working in tandem with them. According to him, "the [Super Mario Bros.] music is inspired by the game controls, and its purpose is to heighten the feeling of how the game controls".[10] Before composition began, a prototype was presented to Kondo for the game so that he could get an idea of Mario's general environment. Kondo wrote the score with the help of small pianos for an appropriate melody of this scene. After the development of the game showed progress, he realized that his music did not quite fit the pace of the game, so he changed it by increasing the tempo.[11][12]

Re-releases

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Alternate versions

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A number of alternate versions of Super Mario Bros. were released after the original, featuring various changes. The first of these was Super Mario Bros. Special, a Japan-exclusive port of the game released for NEC PX-8801 and Sharp X1 personal computers in 1986. While similar in controls and gameplay, it features different level layouts and screen-scrolling. Ars Technica called Special the worst version of Super Mario Bros., describing its visuals as "disgusting dithered" and scrolling as "jerky".[13] An arcade version of the game, Vs. Super Mario Bros., was released the same year as part of the Nintendo VS. System of arcade games.[14] This version is noted as being more difficult, with harder level designs.[13] Several of Vs. Super Mario Bros.' levels would be re-used in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (1986).[7] A version of the game was also released as part of Nintendo's Game & Watch series of LCD games.[15]

An limited edition, officially licensed ROM hack of the game, All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros., was also released. All Night Nippon features graphics altered to resemble celebrities from the Japanese radio show All Night Nippon, and also includes additional stages from Vs. Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels. It was only released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System, and is very rare.[16] A number of unofficial variants of the game exist as well, such as the open-source HTML5 conversion Full Screen Mario[17] and the fan-made crossover Super Mario Bros. Crossover.[18]

Ports

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In addition to the NES version, a Famicom Disk System version of Super Mario Bros. was released shortly after the add-on's launch.[19] A port of the game was developed and released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) as part of the 1993 compilation Super Mario All-Stars.[20] The game was restructured to take advantage of the SNES system's capabilities, featuring more detailed graphics,[21] enhanced sound, and the option to save player progress.[20] In 1999, a port for the Game Boy Color, titled Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, was released. While it does not retain the graphical updates seen in All-Stars, it features additions such as an overworld map, challenge and time attack modes, bug fixes, compatibility with the Game Boy Printer peripheral, and the first eight worlds from The Lost Levels as bonuses. The view distance of the player is also reduced.[22][23] Emulated versions of the game are available for the GameCube as part of Animal Crossing (2001)[24] and the Game Boy Advance as part of the Classic NES Series.[25]

Super Mario Bros. has been released on each version of Nintendo's Virtual Console service for classic video games. The game was released on December 2, 2006 in Japan, December 25, 2006 in North America and January 5, 2007 in PAL regions for Wii's Virtual Console.[26][27] It is also one of the trial games available in the "Masterpieces" section in the Super Smash Bros. series of fighting games.[28] The game was released on the Nintendo 3DS in September 2011 for members of Nintendo's 3DS Ambassador Program, and a general release came through in Japan on January 5, 2012, in North America on February 16, 2012 and in Europe on March 1, 2012. The game was released for the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan on June 5, 2012, followed by Europe on September 12, 2012, and in North America on September 19, 2012.[29] It is also available on Nintendo's NES Classic Edition micro-console.[30]

Reception

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Sales

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The NES version of Super Mario Bros. has sold approximately 40.24 million copies. It was the best-selling video game of all-time until the late-2000s, when it was surpassed by Nintendo's Wii Sports (2007),[31] and is the best-selling platform game of all-time.[15] According to the NPD Group, the Game Boy Advance version was the system's best-selling title in June 2004 to December 2004;[32] it has since sold over one million copies.[33] The Wii Virtual Console version was the best-selling title on the service at its launch.[34]

Critical response

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When it was first released, Super Mario Bros. only received one review from Computer Entertainer / Video Game Update; video game magazines were not common at the time, as the video game crash of 1983 had rendered the industry nearly obsolete. The magazine wrote that the game was worthy of "a spot in the hall of fame reserved for truly addictive action games", praising its "cute and comical" graphics and its lively music. It stated that the title was a must-have for the system, and considered its greatest strength to be its depth of play.[35]

In retrospect, the game has received consistent praise from critics; according to AllGame, Super Mario Bros. "screams quality with a thick Italian accent".[36] On review aggregating website GameRankings, the game holds a score of 85.50%, based on six reviews.[37] IGN summarized Super Mario Bros. as Nintendo's first "killer app" and the greatest, most important game the company ever made.[38][39] The website hailed the title for its precise controls and rewarding level designs.[38] Along with Nintendo Life, they noted the game's design was frequently imitated, but never perfectly duplicated.[38][40] GameSpot voiced similar approval, and wrote that the music "stands out" and believed it to seem very modern for a decades-old game.[26] Nintendo Life said Super Mario Bros. demonstrated how games are "supposed to be; original and fun".[40] Nintendo Power described the title as the first modern-era video game and a masterpiece.[41]

1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die wrote that, unlike many other platform games, Super Mario Bros. had "a sense of believable physics", and described the "venerable" title as "a simple delight".[42] In 2015, VentureBeat stated that it "made gaming what it is today". It described its graphics as outdated yet charming, and wrote that countless games—such as Castlevania (1986), Mega Man (1987), and Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)—still draw inspiration from it.[43] Eurogamer called the game accessible to everyone, describing it as a masterpiece and writing that its influence "still lingers on".[44] Time stated that Super Mario Bros. was the most important game of all-time, stating that it helped save the failing video game industry.[45] Time, IGN, Game Informer, and Electronic Gaming Monthly have declared the title to be among the greatest video games of all-time.[45][46][47][48]

Legacy

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The commercial success of Super Mario Bros. was a major contributing factor in resurrecting the crashed video game industry.[7] It, along with the success of other titles such as The Legend of Zelda (1986) and Metroid (1987), helped establish Nintendo as the leading company in the industry. It would maintain this position until January 1992, when the company was briefly surpassed by Sega and their 16-bit Sega Genesis console.[49] The game also helped popularize the platform genre, and established many gameplay elements common today.[43]

Super Mario Bros. is the first game in the Super Mario series;[50] as of 2015, the series is the best-selling video game franchise, with more than 310 million units sold.

References

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  1. ^ a b O'Donnell, Casey (2012). "This Is Not A Software Industry". In Zackariasson, Peter; Wilson, Timothy L. (eds.). The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future. Routledge.
  2. ^ Satoru Iwata (2009). "Iwata Asks: New Super Mario Bros (Volume 2- It Started With a Square Object Moving)". Archived from the original on December 15, 2009. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  3. ^ a b c Goldman, Tom. "Miyamoto Reveals Super Mario Bros. Development Secrets". The Escapist. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  4. ^ a b c Miggels, Brian; Claiborn, Samuel. "The Mario You Never Knew". IGN. Ziff Davis. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  5. ^ "Super Mario Bros.' 25th: Miyamoto Reveals All". UGO. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  6. ^ Kerr, Chris. "How Miyamoto built Super Mario Bros.' legendary World 1-1". Gamsutra. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  7. ^ a b c McLaughlin, Rus. "IGN Presents: The History of Super Mario Bros". IGN. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  8. ^ "Keeping It Simple". Iwata Asks: Super Mario Bros. 25th Anniversary. Nintendo. Archived from the original on June 29, 2012. Retrieved October 25, 2010.
  9. ^ "Behind the Mario Maestro's Music". Wired News. March 15, 2007. Retrieved June 26, 2010.
  10. ^ a b c d Schartmann, Andrew (2015). Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack. New York: Bloomsbury. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-62892-853-2.
  11. ^ "Super Mario Bros. Composer Koji Kondo Interview". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on 30 May 2012. Retrieved April 21, 2012.
  12. ^ Iwata, Satoru. "Iwata Asks: Super Mario All-Stars : Music Follows Function". Nintendo. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
  13. ^ a b Orland, Kyle. "30 years, 30 memorable facts about Super Mario Bros". Ars Technica. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  14. ^ "Vs. Super Mario Bros. - Videogame by Nintendo". Killer List of Video Games. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  15. ^ a b Guinness World Records 2011: Gamer's Edition (4 ed.). Dorling Kindersley. 2011. ISBN 9781405365468.
  16. ^ Fletcher, JC. "Virtually Overlooked: All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros". Engadget. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  17. ^ Peterson, Andrea. "The guy behind 'Full Screen Mario' thinks Nintendo's 'Mario Maker' looks suspiciously familiar". The Washington Post. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  18. ^ Kohler, Chris (2010-04-28). "Super Mario Crossover a Surprisingly Thoughtful 8-Bit Mashup". Wired. Retrieved 2010-06-25.
  19. ^ "Super Mario Bros.: Miscellaneous". Legends of Localization. Retrieved 15 October 2017.
  20. ^ a b "Super Mario All-Stars (SNES / Super Nintendo) News, Reviews, Trailer & Screenshots". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  21. ^ Z. "Review - The Good and the Bad of Super Mario All Stars 25th Anniversary Edition". Wired. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  22. ^ van Duyn, Marcel. "Super Mario Bros. Deluxe Review". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  23. ^ Harris, Craig. "Super Mario Bros. Deluxe". IGN. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  24. ^ Davidson, Joey. "Animal Crossing on Gamecube let you play full NES games for free, and it was amazing". Techno Buffalo. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  25. ^ Gerstmann, Jeff. "Classic NES Series: Super Mario Bros. Review". GameSpot. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  26. ^ a b Gerstmann, Jeff. "Super Mario Bros. Review". GameSpot. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  27. ^ Birnbaum, Mark (March 6, 2007). "Super Mario Bros. VC Review". IGN. Retrieved November 30, 2008.
  28. ^ "Super Smash Bros. (for Nintendo Wii U)". PC Mag UK. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  29. ^ "Super Mario Bros. (NES) News, Reviews, Trailer & Screenshots". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  30. ^ Buckley, Sean. "NES Classic Edition review". Engadget. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
  31. ^ Stuart, Keith. "Super Mario Bros: 25 Mario facts for the 25th anniversary". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  32. ^ Thorsen, Tor (November 21, 2005). "ChartSpot: June 2004". GameSpot. Retrieved August 27, 2008.
  33. ^ Jenkins, David (October 7, 2005). "Japanese Sales Charts, Week Ending October 2". Gamasutra. Retrieved August 27, 2008.
  34. ^ Kuchera, Ben. "Nintendo announces 4.7 million Virtual Console games sold, Mario rules the top five list". Ars Technica. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  35. ^ Hamilton, Kirk. "​The First and Only English-Language Review of Super Mario Bros". Kotaku. Retrieved 17 October 2017. {{cite web}}: zero width space character in |title= at position 1 (help)
  36. ^ Smith, Geoffrey Douglas. "Super Mario Bros. - Review". AllGame. Archived from the original on 14 November 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  37. ^ "Super Mario Bros. for NES". GameRankings. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  38. ^ a b c Birnbaum, Mark. "Super Mario Bros. VC Review". IGN. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  39. ^ Otero, Jose. "The Top 125 Nintendo Games of All Time". IGN. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  40. ^ a b Calvert, Darren. "Super Mario Bros. Review". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  41. ^ "Nintendo Power – The 20th Anniversary Issue!" (Magazine). Nintendo Power. 231 (231). San Francisco, California: Future US. August 2008: 71. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  42. ^ Donlan, Christian (2010). 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die. Universe Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7893-2090-2.
  43. ^ a b Minotti, Mike. "Super Mario Bros. is 30 years old today and deserves our thanks". VentureBeat. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  44. ^ Reed, Kristan. "Virtual Console: NES Review". Eurogamer. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  45. ^ a b Fitzpatrick, Alex; Aneja, Arpita. "Super Mario Bros.: The Most Important Game Ever". Time. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  46. ^ "IGN's Top 100 Games". IGN. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  47. ^ "The Greatest 200 Videogames of Their Time". Electronic Gaming Monthly. Archived from the original on 11 February 2015. Retrieved August 27, 2008. {{cite magazine}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 11 May 2013 suggested (help)
  48. ^ The Game Informer staff (December 2009). "The Top 200 Games of All Time". Game Informer. No. 200. pp. 44–79. ISSN 1067-6392. OCLC 27315596.
  49. ^ "This Month in Gaming History". Game Informer. Vol. 12, no. 105. January 2002. p. 117.
  50. ^ Hayner, Chris. "Every Super Mario Game, Ranked". Metacritic. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
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