I was surprised by how much I remembered from 40 years ago. Even remembered a couple vine locations! = o (Which I since seem to have forgotten again. ; D)
I like how Mario’s kinda blue in that one frame there.
Is the golden axe for dropping Bowser into the lava the inspiration for Sega’s 1989 arcade title? (Bonus question: when is SMB1 Bowser not Bowser?)
And me about to blow past the “infinite lives trick” in 3-1. That turned out to be sort of less hard than I’d thought. But I’ll get to that next time, when I start to save scum. ; D
I wasn’t allowed to have a Nintendo when I was a kid* so I’d play Super Mario Bros. in the arcade every chance I got. That version was more difficult than the home version so when I finally got my NES in high school, I was able to beat the game the first night. (I tried it again not too long ago and I’m not as good at it as I once was.)
One funny thing about the timing of my NES purchase is that it was during one of those periods when video games carried a social stigma. Very few people my age played them anymore, or at least admitted to playing them. I don’t know that these cycles really occur anymore.
* I had a C64 so I don’t want to give the impression that I was deprived.
When I first completed it (relatively recently, like a few years ago), I was struck by how fun the final world actually is as a learnable gauntlet. I’ve always preferred gauntlet style levels where you have to carefully judge jumps and patterns rather than secrets and optional routes.
Ooh I saw it in the arcade back in the day but I don’t know if I played that version much, if at all. My family had a C64 TOO AND they weren’t interested in getting my brother and I an NES EITHER, so we did this rather despicable thing of befriending a couple other brothers from our soccer team–they were cool and all, we just hadn’t like gone full friends and hung out with just them outside of school / soccer before really–who had an NES, so we could play THEIR NES–like, we would get to their house and charge straight up to the NES and just sit there and play it and ignore everything else. What cads! So desperate for Mario, so terrible to people.
Also if you’re running the game and try to type commands in their Discord to create an account, it makes your typing come out like backwards so my username ended up like half backwards and oh confusing times.
Anyway yes I’m going to try not to play that anymore, it seems like what I’ve seen of actual Mario Maker except also mostly in Spanish and with maybe even more aggravating levels, I don’t know. Technically impressive re-creation I must say and there do seem to be a lot of levels people are making for it?
It hasn’t aged as well as the first Zelda and Metroid IMO. It’s harder to see what sort of unique experience it still has to offer in exchange for the jank.
He’s not Bowser in Worlds 1-7 (he’s an imposter and if you kill him with fireballs he turns into a different enemy before falling into the lava, but stays as Bowser in world 8)
A thought experiment that regularly enters my mind is “what flight power-up from the series would fit in best with the design of SMB1?”
The raccoon tail and cape provide too much verticality and general ability to coast over levels. The propeller cap is too slow horizontally, and I’m not a big fan of the initial double jump of the flying squirrel suit. Ignoring the stuff from the 3D games, that leaves up with the bunny ears from SML2… which I think kinda fits — it’s not excessively vertical, doesn’t fully trivialize obstacles, and allows you to maintain your speed. The irony here though is that SML2’s design ethos is otherwise quite far from SMB1 in most other respects.
(…now that I think of it though, I have no idea what mobility power-ups there are in Mario Wonder. I still haven’t played that one.)
Kept losing all my lives falling down holes in World 6. Thank goodness for save states. ^ )^
Forgot you have to keep pressing Jump for the 1Ups. ^ _^
Other stuff I never knew about or um forgot!
Continue: Hold A while pressing start to start game and you’ll continue at stage 1 of the world in which your last game ended
Level Select: Clear the game, then press the B button on the title screen to cycle the starting world number at the top of the screen
Hard Mode: When you start a new game after having cleared the game, Koopa Troopas are replaced–oh, I was wrong, I guess it’s Goombas that are replaced by Buzzy Beetles (the black-domed fireproof enemies) “and the levels are more difficult” (GameFAQs)–well, it also sure seemed like the enemies were all moving faster, too (oh yeah, enemies ARE faster TMK | Reference | Super Mario Bros. Complete Guide ).
TMK | Reference | Cheats/Codes | Super Mario Bros. (NES) : “Killing Bowser in 3-4 with fireballs reveals that he was really a Buzzy Beetle”–so when I killed 5-4 Bowser w/ fireballs and he died as Lakitu (the cloud-rider), that means that was actually Lakitu in disguise? And as Blooper in 6-4? ‘p’)
i think being able to brake in midair but not fully turn around feels the most awkward to me
edit: oh, and the jerky speed gradient
“aged” might mean a different thing to different people but i could interpret it as saying SMB1 is more directly superseded by SMB3 than the other titles are by their successors
i dont think any of the classic Marios obviate eachother, 1 & 3 & world are all doing such different shit with relatively the same mechanics (and even 2j/lost levels has the proto-romhack/kaizo thing going for it)
smb3 is like smb1 microgames even the physics are different to accommodate more vertical & small-scale challenges. smb1 is a game of forward momentum, the ratchet scrolling really does inflect it differently. i think only super mario land and new super mario bros have directly copied its approach
this was my first videogame and i vividly remember my parents teaching me how to play it and its probably the single game ive played thru start-to-finish the most times i think i can no-warp it in like a half-hour
At one time I was able to run through the whole game non-warp in under 20 minutes. I don’t know what the world record is for a regular non-tool assisted speed run because Google is shit now and only talks about TAS even when I ask it not to so maybe under 20 is impressive or maybe it’s average who knows. I’d probably have to play it for a few evenings to get that muscle memory back.
But anyway, Super Mario Bros. NES was one of the first (non-PC) games I played extensively as a kid. I was probably 5 or so when we got it. Special game for me though I go back to 3 or World or Super Mario Land more often when I’m in the mood for Marioing.
Really love the music and sound effects. They’re just perfect for the game.
