Super Mario Bros. (NES)

[A Black Falcon]

While a lot of my retro setup has gone little-used for some time, the NES is a system I've been using fairly regularly.  It's the system I have the most nostalgia for as a kid, though since I didn't own one myself my time with the games was somewhat limited.  I've owned a NES since 2007, but as the 'games I have finished' thread shows, I've only finished a relative few of those games.

Well, I decided yesterday to cross off the biggest missing title on that list.  Yes, I beat the original Super Mario Bros. today for what I'm pretty sure is the first time.  I finished the GBC version, SMBDX, back when that game released, but the fact that you have to restart the world you're currently on in the NES game had always caused me to give up and stop trying.  After all, I've beaten a version of the game before and I've beaten every level on the NES version except for 8-4, that's good enough, right?

But I decided, like, seriously, you should beat Mario 1.  I put the Mario 1 / Duck Hunt cart into my NES and started playing.  By the way, the NES dogbone controller is fantastic, it's the best NES controller for sure.  I quickly got to world 8, since I now know where the warp in world 4-2 is thanks to watching lots of Mario content on the internet, and... proceeded to struggle like usual.  The levels in world 8 are quite difficult!  They're long and have few powerups.  8-1 and 8-4 have no super mushrooms at all, so if you want to have an easy time at Bowser you'd better get through 8-4 without dying after playing through 8-3 and getting both of its powerups.   That's pretty tricky.  The challenge of these stages is fun, they are challenging in ways that frustrate but keep you coming back until you do better, but I do think that 8-1 really should have had a powerup in it.

Before that though, in my first run I blocked off the 4-2 warp, so I kept going... and got through the level 4-4 maze first try.  I died in world 5-1 and restarted (in order to take the 4-2 warp), but I guess I have that route memorized for some reason, I would not have guessed that since I don't think I remember any of the OTHER mazes... I certainly don't remember the 8-4 maze's solution.  Honestly, I had to go look it up.  The solution is perhaps disappointingly simple -- just take each first pipe after the lava pit -- but I'd forgotten it.  Once you know where to go this level's actually only a moderate challenge at most, so long as you haven't died at all and have that powerup from the previous level; otherwise it's very hard thanks to the Hammer Bros. and Bowser at the end's endless streams of thrown hammers. 

It took a little while, but today I eventually got it and beat Mario 1.  It feels pretty great!  I know it unlocks the second quest, but I'd honestly completely forgotten that it unlocks a level select after you beat it, how silly.  Why couldn't they have put that in as you go, why the "hold A when you press Start to start from the last world you reached" continue code?  Some elements of classic game design don't make much sense.

So, Super Mario 1 is a truly fantastic game.  It's the best game of the 1980s and it's still exceptionally great today.  But... those physics!  Gah, if there's one thing about this game that is hard to go back to as someone who has played many many hours of newer Mario games it's the physics of SMB1.  The way you run to build up speed, the sudden nature of your speed increases, how easy missing a jump can be if your speed at launch was just barely off, how dramatically different the game feels from the more refined NSMB style of physics all modern Mario games use... it's a big learning curve to get used to.  To anyone used to newer Mario games there is a sizable learning curve to this title, I won't deny that I got frustrated more than a few times because of this games' weird physics.  Once you get used to it it feels alright, but... yeah, I think I like new physics better. 

However, it is true that the physics increase the sense of danger in SMB1.  Every jump in this game is hazardous in a way that would never happen with the more precise controls of the newer games.  Even enemies are a significant threat, as in maybe the hardest thing to get used to in this game when compared to most any newer Mario games, you get only a VERY VERY small bounce off of enemies after jumping on a foe in SMB1.  Indeed, often I think that in this game it makes more sense to avoid enemies than to attack them!  Koopa Paratroopas particularly are dangerous, you get such a small bounce off of them after the first hit to knock their wings off that there's a high likelihood that you will die upon landing as they land just behind you and hit you.  The ending part of this game is dangerous and feels threatening in a way that the more friendly, refined newer games in the series have to put much harder-appearing level designs in to come close to.

That's not to say that I like the physics here or the lack of bounce off of enemies, though; honestly, I like the newer style more.  This game is frustrating and punishing, and it sometimes doesn't feel fair (though it is) due to how odd the physics rules are in SMB1.  But once I'd played this enough to start unlearning at least a bit of that Mario Maker / Mario Wonder / etc. physics and control style and having finished it for the first time, I can say that the original Super Mario Bros. is indeed still one of the greatest things this industry has ever produced.  Level 1-1 is gaming's greatest stage ever, and the rest of the game is all-time-great fantastic as well, with a very well done difficulty curve from beginning to end.