It’s time for another Durpthrough, but this time it is something I wanted to do for a long time. I like Mario games, enough to do in-depth reviews of them years ago, so I thought to myself “hey, why don’t you do video playthroughs of them?”
Granted, it isn’t the most original idea on the planet, almost everyone has done a video playthrough of every damn mainline Mario title. My idea isn’t original, but hey, at least I am not e-begging for Nintendo advertising money. So, without further ado, here is the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros., the Mario game that started it all and celebrated it’s 30th anniversary last year.
Matto, what the fuck? Where is the subtitle commentary? You did it for Star Fox!
Good observation! Here is the thing; Super Mario Bros. has received more re-releases from Nintendo then Star Fox has. Counting the All-Stars version, there have been two different NES pack-in cartridges,, a re-released on the Japan only Famicom Disk System, a release in the NES GBA line, the GBC version, and it has released on all major Nintendo Virtual Console services. Everyone, and I do mean everyone has played the original Super Mario Bros. at one point or another, so it’s kind of silly to do in-depth commentary on Super Mario Bros.
So instead, I will write my thoughts here. First, here is the actual story from the original NES instruction manual, taken from the awesome site Legends of Localization:
One day the kingdom of the peaceful mushroom people was invaded by the Koopa, a tribe of turtles famous for their black magic. The quiet, peace-loving Mushroom People were turned into mere stones, bricks and even field horse-hair plants, and the Mushroom Kingdom fell into ruin.
The only one who can undo the magic spell on the Mushroom People and return them to their normal selves is the Princess Toadstool, the daughter of the Mushroom King. Unfortunately, she is presently in the hands of the great Koopa turtle king.
Mario, the hero of the story (maybe) hears about the Mushroom People’s plight and sets out on a quest to free the Mushroom Princess from the evil Koopa and restore the fallen kingdom of the Mushroom People.
You are Mario! It’s up to you to save the Mushroom People from the black magic of the Koopa!
Yes, the obvious joke comes up that you are killing Toads en-mass by breaking all those bricks.
Gameplay-wise, Super Mario Bros. was pretty innovative for being one of the first NES games to have an impressive in-game engine, mostly thanks to Satoru Iwata’s work on Balloon Fight and getting that game to work. However, to be honest the game engine definitely shows it’s age when compared to today’s Mario side-scrollers. Mario falls like a rock when jumping on enemies and exploration is limited. Want to know why I avoided most of the bonus rooms? Sometimes taking a pipe will lead you through two-thirds of the level and you cannot go backwards through the level. Missed something? You are out of luck.
Also, why the All-Stars version? While I find Mario controls a bit more stiffly than on the NES, I am actually partial to the SNES version graphics and music arrangements. I just love the twinkling stars in the night backgrounds and the parallax scrolling is pretty impressive for what is essentially the first ever game remaster on a console (to my knowledge anyway).
Stay tuned, Pietriots readers, the rest of the Mario games will be coming soon…
Pietriots 
Interesting to see the Super Mario Bros. story summarised like that. It’s something I’ve never really thought about. A note about Iwata’s Balloon Fight expertise though, it was used for the underwater swimming mechanics and not the core of the game engine. Still very cool and you can feel the influence.
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