Super Mario Bros. (NES) review "Are your skills up to the task of saving the Mushroom Kingdom?"

Just what is there to talk about for the game that defined everything we’ve come to expect from what is now a genre? I’m no gaming history buff. There are others who can tell you who-made-what-when. All I’ve got is my experience, so let’s go with that.

What the average gamer might understand is that this title came along after the console craze and crash of the 1980s. While there were several competing platforms, the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), was the market leader, mostly thanks to market saturation. There were few, if any, standards and the untamed west of software and hardware did not much resemble the well defined genres and archetypal consoles we take for granted in modern gaming.

Atari wasn’t much helping us figure that out, either, but they’re not known for setting trends. When the gaming bubble burst in the early 1980s, everyone’s favourite hobby was left up in the air. That’s when Nintendo came along and did their level best to establish a new standard for gaming. Something recognizable, dependable and trustworthy. It was also a fantastic time to collect licensing fees, but that’s another kettle of fish, even though it’s still boiling with a different recipe.

By defining categories for their games, they hoped to give players a quick reference system. Not sure what to play? This one is Action. How about Adventure? And so forth. We were tepid on Role Playing Games for quite a long time, which wouldn’t take off until the mid 1990s with their next bit of kit, the Super Nintendo.

But who really cares about categories, anyway? The advent of the Nintendo Entertainment System gave you the option of that Robot fella and the more affordable console package that included Super Mario Bros. So, being the cheaper option, and leagues better than the beleaguered Atari 7800 (look it up, it was a powerful machine), it quickly became the new benchmark.

Who knew smooth scrolling would make such a splash? A few guys, to be sure, and though Commander Keen would never appear on NES, the developers had the right idea. So did the creators of the Giana Sisters, being an outright copy of our overalled Bros. Leaping out of the pipes of the arcade hit Mario Bros, our mustachioed siblings are fated to rescue Princess Peach and free the Mushroom Kingdom from the tyrannical grasp of Bowser Koopa.

Though admittedly we didn’t really understand much of that and it didn’t much matter. How many of us actually read the manual, anyway? It was a unique adventure. Smashing floating bricks, which were apparently what the toad (as in toadstool) people were turned into. Yikes! Anyway...we figured out how to obtain growth mushrooms, and how to lose them quickly afterward. We learned that the glowing flower gave us the ability to throw fireballs at the little mushroom dudes and turtles that charged slowly (walked?) toward us.

We learned not to touch them with anything other than our feet as we fell gracefully from the sky, like a bulldozer chasing a butterfly. We learned that the game was suitable for speedrunning and its eight times four levels (32 total) could be beaten in short order. Oh, and then we discovered there was a whole other version of the game to play with new visuals. Haven’t heard about that?

The thing we’ve mostly forgotten is that Super Mario Bros is actually not an easy game. It is in no way forgiving. There is no save state. No code to enter. Just three extra lives plus whatever you find as you traverse the levels to find out your “Princess is in another castle.” The structure is simple and doesn’t vary much except for some differing level types. Each series of levels constitutes a “World” followed by its designated 1 to 4. The first three of these are basic survival runs, wherein you have a fixed path where a flagpole indicates the end. You jump on this and then walk into a little building that takes you to the next level.

Nintendo keeps things interesting. Most *-1 levels begin as a land platforming section, but *-2 can be an underwater level, an extremely long bridge, an underground section, and...that’s it. The third part will sometimes bring you up to ground level again, but there’s always some kind of shift to keep you on your toes. The fourth level is always a castle stage, and far more perilous and has its own hazards to evade.

Spinning fire traps, floating elevator platforms, smaller quick moving platforms on rails, pipes that warp you to different locations in the level, and when you get close to the final enemy of the level, fireballs to evade. At the very end you’ll encounter a dragon looking boss with a spiky shell on his back on a bridge. There’s an axe behind him you’ll have to reach to send him into the lava pit below.

Mario is a delicate little flower, but Nintendo tells you exactly what condition he’s in without any health bars or numbers to track. When you first start the game you’re a smol boi, half as tall as you’ll be when you find a mushroom, which will afford you one hit before you lose a life. Picking up a fire flower will not give you another hit to take. Losing that will shrink you right down, and if you stumble into an enemy or fall into a pit, well, that’s either a life lost or game over.

Oh, and of course the star power up, which turns you into something of a rainbow warrior that destroys everything he touches and can't be killed for its brief duration. That's just how it works. I didn't make the rules.

Getting a game over means starting from the very beginning, level 1-1. This was a terrible feeling, but with nothing else to play except Duck Hunt, you’ve got to go back and figure out what comes next. You’re the hunter and...you know what I mean. Super Mario Bros doesn’t give you any easy out because you need to ‘git gud’. No, you’ve got to keep trying until you polish your reflexes to a fine high gloss. You could eat off of those skills!

But who would want to? Streamers, apparently. Mind you, that’s a long time in the future. When Super Mario Bros was shipped as a pack-in for the console that would rule them all, it was the only way to play. Yes, there were other games, but the pick up and play game mechanics left every other title in the dust. You didn’t have to know why you were always running right, because at the end your goal waited, ready to send you along or reward you with game completion.

Before Mario and Luigi were ubiquitously stomping on koopas and defeating Bowsers (and Koopalings), beating Super Mario Bros was a major achievement. Discovering its secrets was even more impressive, since very few knew about them and sharing that knowledge meant sitting down with a friend and showing them, or talking them through it. Super Mario Bros was the Dark Souls of its day, giving you two strikes and three lives to lose across its plethora of now iconic level designs.

We didn’t have the echo chamber of social media to reinforce our complaints and give us an out to building up the skills we needed to complete the title. Either you wanted to or you didn’t. Those of us who did connected with others who also had the same achievement under their belt. Super Mario Bros is a tough title for modern players to get into, but you might just give it a try.

Are your skills up to the task of saving the Mushroom Kingdom?

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Community review by hastypixels (September 23, 2025) Retro, and moreso all the time.