PixlBit

 Number 25

Super Mario Bros. This game needs no introduction to anyone who has ever played games. It's been lauded as the most influential game of all time, and rightfully so. It's the game that revitalized the video game industry as well as the game that popularized the side-scrolling platformer. It's also the game that's usually on the top of a top games of all time list.                                           

Every new Mario game brings new ideas to the genre. Super Mario Bros. 2 isn't considered a Mario game by everyone else, but you can't deny the influenze it had on future installments. Super Mario Bros. 3 is everyone's favorite of the 2D Mario games, it even had a debut in theaters that boosted Mario's already worldwide impact even more. But today, I'm here to talk about the very first game I ever played: Super Mario Bros.

                                      

To everyone, Super Mario Bros. was the first Nintendo game they ever played, since it was bundled with the NES. It was the very first game I ever played when I was 2 and there's a very interesting story behind how I got to try it out. I think I may have told this one at 1up, but I'm going to tell it to new readers who haven't read it before.

It was 1992 and I was 2 years old at the time, we as in my mom and dad lived in a smal 1 room apartment back then. It was christmas morning and we had a tree, but no presents. I woke up and my dad opened the door, and to his surprise, he found some presents at our doorstep, one for each of us. The biggest one was for me and I opened it, and it was an NES. My dad hooked it on to our tv, he gave me the controller and the game on the NES was Super Mario Bros. I know it was SMB because the music from the first level has been stuck in my head since. I think it was the bundle that came with the Duck Hunt pack too because my dad was holding a gun, which I think was the NES Zapper and he was playing on tv.

To this day, I still don't know who left the presents there. I like to think it might have been Santa Claus since it was christmas day. It's a big mystery and I know couldn't have been my dad since he was still in bed when I got up that morning. I even asked my mom and dad about it, and they are surprised I even remember that far back, and they said that they remember that too, and they don't know who left the presents there either. Perhaps I'll never know, but I think it's for the best, and whoever left the presents there, whether it was Santa or not, thanks for getting me into games and Nintendo at such an early age.

I didn't play Super Mario Bros. again till I got Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on the GameBoy Color years later, and this is the version I remember the most playing. I think this actually might be my favorite version of the game since it added alot of features and improved a very old game. It's the original game at at first glance, but they added alot of new things to it. For starters, there's a map screen before you enter a level, and you can switch between Mario or Luigi at that screen. It even has the Lost Levels included in it, and the tagline for it says, for Super Players Only.

                              

They also added new content to it too, like you can also find red coins hidden through a level as well as looking for a hidden block that has a Yoshi egg in it. They even added a time attack mode of sorts, where you race a Boo in levels. Plus, the Boo get's faster if you defeat the previous one in that stage. The game even has images you can unlock by doing various things in the game, like defeating Bowser with Fireballs in each castle nets you a new image. You can even print them out with the Gameboy Printer if you want, and you can also make and print your own messages using special templates you can print out. It even has a 2-player mode where two people play on a Link Cable and race to the finish, just like in the boo mode.

                                      

The game is just packed with content to an already great game. There's even the Super Mario All-Stars version which is a collection of all the previous Super Mario Bros. games, except that they redid the graphics and the mechanics in the game to match it's 16-bit counterpart, Super Mario World. So, any version works really.                                                       

But if I was to choose my definitive version, I go with Deluxe due to the nostalgia I had with it, and all the new features and content they packed, this improving an already legendary game. This game also paved the way for the Super Mario Advanced series. I will say that it does feel dated compared to the All-Stars version since it's a port of the original game, but it's on the 3DS eShop right now in case you're curious about Deluxe. And that's about all I can say on SMB, there's nothing more to say since it's a game everyone has played.

                                    

So have you ever played Super Mario Bros? I know everyone here has, but what do you think of it? Thanks for reading and later.