SUPER MARIO BROS. GAME PLAY

Super Mario Bros. is a platform game in which the player controls the titular protagonist Mario, who is tasked with exploring the Mushroom Kingdom to defeat Bowser and rescue Princess Toadstool. His brother, Luigi, is controlled by the second player in multiplayer mode and assumes the same plot role and functionality as Mario. The game takes place through a side-scrolling perspective where the player moves to the right to reach the flagpole at the end of each level.

The Mushroom Kingdom includes coins for Mario to collect and special bricks marked with a question mark (?), which when hit from below by Mario may reveal more coins or a special item. Other “secret”, often invisible, bricks may contain more coins or rare items. If the player gains a Super Mushroom, Mario grows to double his size and gains the ability to break bricks above him. The item protects Mario from a single enemy or hazard. Players start with a certain number of lives and may gain extra lives by picking up green spotted 1-Up Mushrooms hidden in bricks, collecting 100 coins, defeating several enemies in a row with a Koopa shell, or bouncing on enemies successively without touching the ground. The player may also spawn hidden bricks with lives by collecting every coin in the previous world’s third level, or by warping there. Mario loses a life if he takes damage while small, falls off the screen, or runs out of time. The game ends when the player runs out of lives, although holding the “A” button can be used on the game over screen to respawn from the first level of the world in which the player died.

Mario’s primary attack is jumping onto enemies, though many enemies have differing responses to this. For example, a Goomba will flatten and be defeated, while a Koopa Troopa will temporarily retract into its shell, allowing Mario to use it as a projectile. These shells may be deflected off a wall to defeat other enemies, though they can also bounce back against Mario, which will damage him. Other enemies, such as underwater foes and enemies with spiked tops, cannot be jumped on and damage the player instead. Mario can also defeat enemies above him by jumping to hit the brick that the enemy is standing on. Mario may also acquire the Fire Flower from certain “?” blocks that when picked up changes the color of Super Mario’s outfit and allows him to throw fireballs. A less common item is the Starman, which often appears when Mario hits certain concealed or otherwise invisible blocks. This item grants Mario temporary invincibility from all minor dangers.

The game consists of eight worlds, each with four sub-levels or stages. Underwater stages contain unique aquatic enemies. Bonuses and secret areas include more coins, or warp pipes that allow Mario to skip directly to later worlds. The final stage of each world is in a fiery underground castle where Bowser is fought on a suspension bridge above lava; the first seven of these Bowsers are actually minions disguised as him, and the real Bowser is in the eighth world. Bowser and his decoys are defeated by jumping over them or running under them while they are jumping and reaching the axe on the end of the bridge, or with fireballs. After completing the game once, the player is rewarded with the ability to replay with increased difficulty, such as all Goombas replaced with Buzzy Beetles, enemies similar to Koopa Troopas who cannot be defeated using the Fire Flower.

Following the events of Mario Bros., the game is set in the fantasy land of the Mushroom Kingdom after Mario and Luigi had arrived through a clay pipe from New York City.^[7]

In the Mushroom Kingdom, a tribe of turtle-like Koopa Troopas invade the kingdom and uses the magic of their king Bowser to turn the Mushroom People into inanimate objects such as bricks, stones, and horsehair plants. Bowser and his army also kidnap Princess Toadstool of the Mushroom Kingdom, the only one with the ability to reverse Bowser’s spell. After hearing the news, the brothers set out to save the princess and free the kingdom from Bowser. They fight Bowser’s forces while traversing the Mushroom Kingdom. After each defeat of a decoy Bowser, a Toad retainer proclaims, “Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!”. Finally, they reach Bowser’s true stronghold, where they defeat him by throwing fireballs or by dropping him into lava, freeing the princess and saving the Mushroom Kingdom.

Super Mario Bros. was first released in Japan on September 13, 1985, for the Family Computer (Famicom). It was released later that year in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Its exact North American release date is debated; though most sources report it was released in October 1985 as a launch game, when the NES had a limited release in the US, several sources suggest it was released between November 1985 and early 1986.

The arcade port for the Nintendo VS. System debuted in London in January 1986, and was released in other countries in February 1986. It is the first version of Super Mario Bros. to receive a wide international release, and many outside of Japan were introduced to the game through the arcade version. The NES version received a wide North American release later that year, followed by Europe on May 15, 1987.

In 1988, Super Mario Bros. was re-released along with the light gun shooting range game Duck Hunt as part of a single ROM cartridge, which came packaged with the NES as a pack-in game, as part of the console’s Action Set bundle. Millions of copies of this version of the game were manufactured and sold in the United States. In 1990, another cartridge, touting those two games and World Class Track Meet, was released in North America as part of the NES Power Set bundle. It was released on May 15, 1987, in Europe, and during that year in Australia. In 1988, the game was re-released in Europe in a cartridge containing the game plus Tetris and Nintendo World Cup. The compilation was sold alone or bundled with the revised version of the NES.

RECEPTION

Super Mario Bros. was immensely successful, both commercially and critically. It helped popularize the side-scrolling platform game genre, and served as a killer app for the NES. Upon release in Japan, 1.2 million copies were sold during its September 1985 release month.  Within four months, about 3 million copies were sold in Japan, grossing more than ¥12.2 billion, equivalent to $72 million at the time (which is inflation-adjusted to $210 million in 2024). The success of Super Mario Bros. helped increase Famicom sales to 6.2 million units by January 1986. By 1987, 5 million copies of the game had been sold for the Famicom. Outside of Japan, many were introduced to the game through the arcade version, which became the bestselling Nintendo VS. System release with 20,000 arcade units sold within a few months in early 1986. In the United States, more than 1 million copies of the NES version were sold in 1986, more than 4 million by 1988, 9.1 million by mid-1989, more than 18.7 million by early 1990, nearly 19 million by April 1990, and more than 20 million by 1991. More than 40 million copies of the original NES version had been sold worldwide by 1994, and 40.23 million by April 2000, for which it was awarded the Guinness World Record for the best-selling video game of all time.

Altogether, excluding ports and re-releases, 40.24 million copies of the original NES release have been sold worldwide, with 29 million copies sold in North America. Including ports and re-releases, more than 58 million units had been sold worldwide. The game was the all-time bestselling game for more than 20 years until its lifetime sales were ultimately surpassed by Wii Sports (2006). The game’s Wii Virtual Console release was also successful, reaching number 1 by mid-2007, and at an estimated 660,000 units for $3.2 million outside of Japan and Korea in 2009. In August 2021, an anonymous buyer paid $2 million for a never-opened copy of Super Mario Bros., according to collectibles site Rally, surpassing the $1.56 million sales record set by Super Mario 64 the previous month.

*Some of the content information above was provided by Wikipedia and KLOV (Killer List of Video Games).

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