Forums > Submission Feedback > Fiddlesticks's Super Mario Bros. review

I'm glad you like to go against the grain and think for yourself. But I would prefer that if you review a game you spend more time elaborating on why you think a game deserves a score you give it based on the merits (or lack thereof) of the game itself...it seems like you spent more time writing about how your opinion diverges from the majority rather than WHY your opinion diverges from the majority.

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Jimmy crack corn and I don't care.

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Hmm. Well, I played the original Super Mario Bros back in 1985 or 1986. It's an intelligently-assembled game, although I'd hardly call it the greatest. Not even close. There are tons of games I'd rather play. I've never been motivated to buy any of the GBA or Virtual Console re-releases of SMB1. Just not interested.

That being said, Super Mario Bros was influential. Anything can be dismissed with statements like "If Mario didn’t bring it, some other game would have, whether it was made by Nintendo or not". Anything in this world could have hypothetically been done by someone else, if the people who really did it first hadn't actually done it first. I mean hell, if Lucas hadn't made Star Wars, someone else would have made an influential sci-fi movie. It's very easy to downplay something's importance when you dismiss reality.

So I guess what I'm saying is -- even though I think we might agree on the surface -- your opinion appears to be wrong because it appears to be unsupported.

It's too bad you don't care. If you did care, then you might have actually written a good review.

//Zig

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That fine.

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One of the best pieces I've seen on this site in a long time. Wonderful work, Fiddle.

You come off as very defensive in this review, and I'm used to you being more brutally honest.

Hmm...I'm of two minds about this review. Personally ( speaking as someone who was born at the dawn of the ps1 era) I agree that SMB 1 is no longer the great game it was due to the sequels surpassing it, that's just what happens with innovation and progress. That said the game was important and was influential. The idea that a similar game would have been released is a null argument. The game was released and it did something important, that can't be taken away from it.

I'm not trying to knock you ( it takes a lot of courage to say that you don't care for this game) you don't come across as trying to explain why you dislike the game and more like you are trying to defend that you dislike it.

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SMB may be simple, but I still really enjoy it. I find the controls a little drifty, but it's a very satisfying game that still kicks my ass to this day. That's my mini review.

Onto yours! Knocking SMB feels a little sophmoric (not to put too fine a point on it) if only because it's a little bit like knocking Citizen Kane or Breathless or Easy Rider. I think I'd be more interested if you actually analyzed the game's design and pointed out where it falls apart for you. But I think you'd have a difficult time doing that, because technically the game is almost perfect. Everything from level construction to the placement of enemies is done with a high and deliberate level of understanding of the gamer who will be playing it. Stylistically it may be outdated, but it would be difficult to actually lay out the parts of SMB and call any of them cheaply made. I would've enjoyed reading your take on that, though!

Regardless, you've stirred up some activity in the comments, and that's cool! Also, I like that you have balls. Keep writing!

If that last bit sounds condescending and/or patronizing, it's not meant to be. I really do want to see more Fiddlesticks reviews...

This web site wouldn't exist if Super Mario Bros hadn't been made. It's not that someone couldn't have figured out how to make platform games or side-scrolling games or whatever. It's that Venter and the people that contributed to build this site probably wouldn't have cared.

Super Mario Bros created the 1st generation of gamers that gave a shit. (Final Fantasy VII probably created the 2nd generation)

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