I just popped in the first Super Mario Bros into my NES and became addicted. I forgot how great this game is. This is the kind of title you buy, no matter what system its on. Including the All-Stars port. I actually got farther than I've ever gone this time, World 5-4.
A Plumber Saves an Industry - Mario Mania #1
Matt takes an extensive look at Mario’s first console outing, Super Mario Bros.
SNES All-Stars remake and GBC port
In 1993, Nintendo saw fit to re-release the three NES Mario games (including the infamous Lost Levels, known as SMB2 in Japan) on the SNES with a 16-bit makeover. Now, this is not exactly a bad thing. Compared to the basic graphics the first Super Mario Bros. offered on the NES, the SNES version is absolutely vibrant and colorful. Gone are the one color backgrounds and in are parallax scrolling backgrounds the SNES wonderfully put out in this era, and re-done music too! However, if there was one thing the SNES remake fudged up massively, it's the game’s platforming physics; SMB1 All-Stars is stiff. There have been numerous times I have played through the game and the physics have led to my downfall. Losing in a Mario game should be the fault of the player’s skills, not the game.
What the GBC port makes up for in reduced screen size is a boat load of Game Boy Printer features, high score tracking, a Challenge mode, a ghost race mode and the Lost Levels as an unlockable. I can’t for the life of me understand why Nintendo couldn’t just go with the Super Mario Land look when porting this game, instead of keeping the in-game sprites the same size on a tiny Game Boy Color screen. Why?
Thank god that the one thing that remains intact is the game’s infectious theme song. Admit it, you can hum the song anywhere without prompt, and you have no one else to thank but Mr. Koji Kondo for that.
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