Super Mario Bros Video Game Review

      The original Super Mario Bros game for the Nintendo Entertainment System was a monumental achievement in video game history and its influence can't be understated. It revolutionized gaming especially in the platformer genre and likely singlehandedly saved the video game industry in the west. 

        Largely caused by the flood of subpar games released on Atari due to lack of quality control,  most notably the disastrous ET game, the video game industry especially in North America was in a huge slump that started in 1983. 

        But one heroic mustachioed Italian plumber brought that slump to an end in 1986 with his landmark game, Super Mario Bros. The game was bundled with the NES and was a huge system seller as it lead to the sell of millions of Nintendo consoles during the 1980s and early 1990s.

       Besides its considerable historic accomplishment, Super Mario Bros is one fun game with tight controls and great level design. The graphics are simple by today's standards, of course, as this is a game that released in 1986 in North America. Yet everything looks distinct and is clearly recognizable especially when compared with the pixelly blobs that were often the norm in many Atari games people might have been familiar with during the 1980s. 

       Mario could jump, move right and left, and if he got a flower power-up he could even shoot fireballs. The game was broken up into levels, of which there are 8, each broken into 4 stages. In each stage you moved from right to left. That in itself was quite revolutionary at the time as many of the games people were used to, such as Pacman or Donkey Kong, consisted of one unscrollable stage that varied in difficulty and perhaps obstacles/enemies as they advanced in level. 

     In contrast, Super Mario Bros offered a much more involving and engaging adventure as the scenery scrolled by. A new stage would not just offer new obstacles and enemies but completely new terrain each with different music that perfectly  captured the new atmosphere.  There would be subterranean caverns to delve into, treacherous castles to explore, and even underwater levels.

      Even today, Super Mario Bros is a platforming masterpiece with a fair but challenging difficulty. Some players used to modern graphics might not be able to appreciate the extremely simple graphics. While I think the challenge of the game is fair, there are particularly frustrating parts especially the mazes in some of the castles. In these, Mario has to follow the right path or the scenery repeats. There was a particular fight with Bowser where he was throwing a bunch of hammers and it caused slowdown. 

     Overall, I would give Super Mario Bros a 9.5 out of 10.

I played on Switch. I did use save states and rewind feature some as this is more convenient for purposes of reviewing the game.

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