Mario, Mario, Mario. From video games, a ton of merchandise, its own failed movie, cartoons, to cereals! Mario surely is the most definite video game character. And that's saying a lot too. He has the personality of a cardboard box and he always finds himself rescuing an airhead princess. For over 25 years, Mario has seemed to appear in the best video games of all time. They're good. Really good. So, why don't we look into the heart of video games? Super Mario Brothers for the Nintendo Entertainment System, released in 1985. Here is my review for this game...

So, about Mario. Since we're reviewing one of his first games, why don't I tell you about the origin of Mario? (If you've been living under a rock for the past +20 years). In 1982-1983, Nintendo released a game known as Donkey Kong. This game is fairly simple, but back then, it was huge. Every console at the time had the port of the game. In the game, you take control of the main hero, Jump Man. Jump Man needs to save his girlfriend, Paulene, from the main man himself, Donkey Kong. Later, the director of Donkey Kong, Shigeru Miyamoto decided to name Jump Man Mario after his office landlord, Mario Segale. (SEGAle...That isn't suspicious at all). Later on, Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to experiment more with Mario, so two more Donkey Kong games were made, one of which Mario is the villain himself. In 1983, the game Mario Bros was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game revealed that Mario has a younger brother named Luigi, and that they're both Italian-American plumbers from Brooklyn. The Mario cartoons go into much more detail about this. And let me just state that this is one of the only two Mario plumbing games out so far..unless there's another I'm not aware of. So what did Nintendo do with the next installment? Created a legend in video game history. Mario may be weak plot-wise, but overall, the Mario franchise is HUGE. In the 80's, there was NOTHING like Super Mario Brothers (1985). Well, let's start with this game's story.

Story: 5/10

This plot is recycled and re-used in almost EVERY Mario game later on. This plot is also not very amusing, although this game is a 1985 game port. In a land known as the Mushroom Kingdom, there exists a princess known as Princess Peach/Princess Toadstool. A villain known as Bowser, a gargantuan turtle known as King Koopa in Japan, kidnaps Princess Peach with no resistance. Mario's goal is to bypass Bowser's turtle army, which are known as Koopas, his other minions, and finally defeat Bowser. Mario must bypass eight castles, which are basically just like the Temples in Adventure of Link. And that's all...this game has to offer plot-wise. Well that's a pity. Sadly, this is all I can say about the plot. Well, let's just get to the good part of this game. Its depth.

Depth: 3/10

In case you don't know, this game is a 2-D side-scrolling game. This game has a total of 32 levels, split into eight worlds. On the fourth level of each world, is the Temple, er, I mean, castle. Castles sure are the deadliest levels. Fire, bottomless pits a plenty, and even more fire. At the end of each castle, is Bowser himself. But if you kill him with fire, then it's reveal that it's just a miserable clone. Then you walk forward to reveal a Toad, that tells you that the Princess is not here. And you get to hear that SIX MORE TIMES. Let's start with this game's controls. You press A to jump, which you NEED to do. If you don't jump, you're not getting very far. If you hold B while walking, you can sprint. When I first played this game, every kid I've seen that played this game acted like the B button never existed, and it tor me up to see them play the game so SLOWLY. Come on, was it so hard to hold B while moving? This ability is practically MANDATORY if you plan on beating this game. In fact, I think it is. Anyways, throughout this adventure, you'll notice there's a lot of blocks in your path. Bowser has turned the kingdom's residents into blocks with his black magic. Well, that's what the manual said but- wait, wouldn't that mean Mario commits murder each time he breaks a block? But anyways, not only do blocks only add up to your pointless score counter, but in a lot of them you will find coins. If you collect 100 of them, you earn one life. Lose three lives, and it's Game Over. In blocks, you can also find power-ups. The Mushroom allows you to take an extra hit from an enemy, makes you bigger, and allows you to crouch which is executed by pressing Down on the Directional Pad. If you're still Super Mario with the Mushroom, Mushrooms will appear as Fire Flowers. Fore Flowers allow you to spit fireballs at enemies by pressing B. This is certainly a useful power-up. But how are these best used? Well, you can kill Bowser by using the Fire Flower. And twice in this game, you will come across water levels. There's Bloopers, Cheep Cheep, and Whirl Pools. Bloopers and Cheep Cheeps can easily be bypassed using the Fire Flower. Oh, yeah, you can use fire underwater. Heh. What? In a world where a fat man jumps high, Mushrooms make you larger, and turtles have a vendetta against you, did you at least expect this game to scientifically accurate? I can go on for hours about this, and I sometimes ignore this logic, but this FIRE UNDERWATER BUSINESS? NO!! Last but not least, we have the Power Star. You become temporarily invincible to enemies, and you can kill them by touching them. Now, Mario does jump high and run fast for a fat man, but his endurance is horrible. One hit and you're dead. Just dead. And sometimes when the one pixel of your foot touches an enemy, you're dead. The types of levels you encounter in this game that I have not explained are Underground levels and Over-world levels. Underground levels are dark blue, the same color as the Eagle Labyrinth from Zelda 1, and have bottomless pits, a ton of Piranha Plants, and can be cheated in so many ways. Two Underground levels in this game contain warp zones. These warp zones allow you to warp to a choice of the three levels in front of you. And if you use the 1-2 and 4-2 warps, you can beat this game in less than five minutes. I'm not even kidding. As if this game wasn't short enough. This game may have 32 levels, but this game is incredibly short. And if you want to make this game a lot easier, just use the continue cheat. Since when you get a Game Over, you restart at 1-1, the developers added this cheat that lets you re-spawn to the level you got a Game Over at. This game may be short, but Mario's control, and enemies you encounter make this game a little challenging. When Mario is running, he carries a ton of momentum, so when you let go of B, you're still moving at a fast pace temporarily. And about the enemies. Mario kills enemies by jumping on them or killing them with the Fire Flower. There's Goombas, Koopas, Cheep Cheep and Bloopers, which swim in water levels, Piranha Plants that pop out of most pipes, but don't come out if you stand next to the pipe or on top of them, which I'm not about to complain about, Bullet Bills, which come out of Bullet Bill Cannons, and come towards you at a fast pace, but has the weakness of a Piranha Plants, Fire Bars which are sticks of fire you can duck under or jump past, Buzzy Beetles, which are Koopas that are immortal to the Fire Flower, and last but not least, we have HAMMER BROTHERS. These guys will usually come in pairs and they throw hammers at you, jump up and down, and jump up or down layers of blocks. Now normally, these guys are a pushover. Usually, you can run right past them, but this one in 8-4 pulls no punches! He guards where Bowser is, and he's VERY hard to bypass. Do you know how hard it is to kill a Hammer Brother by jumping on it? Well, after bypassing that desolateness Hammer Brother..oh and Bowser too, the game is finally over when you re-unite Mario with Peach. Well actually, there's a second quest you can tackle, which replaces Goombas with Buzzy Beetles and those and Koopas move faster. But taking this quest is extremely pointless. I'd rather just move on to the next game at this point. And you also get a world select. That's nice. Well, with what I've talked about, it seems like this game offers a lot of depth. Well yes...and no. I know I've spent a considerably long amount of time summarizing how much depth this game offers, but overall, this game doesn't really offer much. But this is still a good game, but doesn't offer as much as something like The Legend of Zelda.

Difficulty: 4/10

A lot of people complain about how hard this game is, but honestly, this game is a total pushover. Mario's controls an enemy placement can let you down at times, but come on, you have to admit this game is NOT that difficult at all. Especially, when you use the NES Game Genie, the Warp Zones, let alone no cheats. The only part that's really difficult is that Hammer Brother I mentioned before. Overall, you shouldn't deal with much in this game.

Graphics: 6/10

For 1985, this game's graphics were huge. And I do admit I have to agree. I wouldn't say this game's graphics is SPECTACULAR, but the graphics in this game bring out the game very well. The atmosphere is colorful, I especially enjoy the gray color of the Castle levels, and this game is very bright. I can't think of anything else that hasn't been said about this game's graphics. Overall, this game's graphics are not great, but not bad.

Sound: 5/10

Musically speaking, I mean COME ON. Name one person who doesn't know the over-world theme. And I know a LOT of people who have never played video games, but know the over-world theme anyways. And this soundtrack doesn't really offer much, and the songs are short. Well I guess that's what happens when you play an 80's port, ladies and gentlemen. The whole soundtrack of this game:

Over-world 
Underground
Underwater
End of level
Castle
End of game
Game Over Theme
Power Star Theme
Death Theme

Hm, saying this out loud makes me think, yeah, this game offers a lot in term of soundtrack for a 1985 port.

Replay-ability: 7/10

Since this game has decent music, good graphics, and this is an arcade game, this game can be pretty addicting. What makes this game even more addicting is that if you have a buddy along with you, you can play a 2-player game. Player 2 would be Luigi. You don't play at the same time, but alternate when one player dies. This was a very famous mechanic for 1-2 player Nintendo Entertainment System games. This co-op mode isn't what I'd call grand, but it is still very fun.

Overall: 8.5/10

Overall, I think this game is a masterpiece. This game has its flaws, but Nintendo did a great job on this game, and I do keep my word on that. This game is bright, addicting, has good music, and, well come on, it's Mario. To this day, I still play it on my Nintendo Entertainment System. (Or Famicom Disk Player, when I'm too lazy to get my NES out). If you're getting into video games, start right here. This is the average starting point of a gamer, and this is a good choice for a start. I cannot deny that. Well, this has been my review for...Super Mario Brothers.

Those who might want to read this:

mohammedroxx3 :
Razor-987 :
tgags123 :
Eniitan :

Honestly, I think that you might want to consider the concept of 'less is more'. I think that this review dragged on a LOT. For example, you really steered off topic of the game in the beginning. I was wanting to read a review of the game, not get a lengthy history of the creation of the Mario character. That has really nothing to do with the game itself.

I think there was WAY too much focus on the Depth side of the review. A review is, by implication, more of a sum up and opinion. The depth section of this made it less of a review, and more like the instruction booklets that used to come with games. Literally picked out ever last detail and enemy and explained every single one of them. Not only that, you included strategy and tips for a LOT of them. Again, that kind of makes this more of a guide than a review.

For story, it isn't just 'Koopa kidnapped the Princess'. He also turned the people of Mushroom Kingdom into bricks, which he used to build his castle. But that isn't a critique. More of a peeve of mine.

Overall, it just feels that there was way too much unnecessary detail. Not saying that you did do this, but it just gives the impression that all the super detailed explanations, history lessons, and even guides/tips/strategy was added to make this as long as possible. Again, less is more a lot of the time.

AHHH!!! Is too much words in it. It makes my brain hurt. I bet that is a good review for a Mario game but I don't have the guts to read all of them.

As rcarter2 was saying, it is about quality not quantity. When there is not much depth in the game it'self I don't think it should be the biggest section of your review. Some of my older reviews dragged on at the beginning about the backstory of the game and I stopped most of that because I felt it was a review so I should actually be reviewing the game. I enjoy a bit of a intro, but you went all the way back to Donkey Kong and why Mario was named Mario! You really only needed the first paragraph to your intro.
I guess most of it was written well, there are some good sections in this review. You have a unique typing style and it is generally fun to read. Of course there were bits that were a bit of a bore to read, but overall it was nice.
So take that in mind. Next time you make a review, I recommend around 1500 words at the most. Just think about what you are typing and don't get yourself off topic, I know it is easy to do.

PixelBrick : Very nice review! You had so much info and you told about the past and the other Mario games! Very nice review and it is greatly worded and I understand your point of view. Keep up these great reviews!