Genre: Platform
Year: 1985
Developed by: Nintendo R&D4
Published by: Nintendo
Platforms: NES, Arcade
#202
Feeling Like: The Alpha and the Omega
It all started here.
This is my bible, my non-Christian christening. There was nothing before it.
I’m so tied to Super Mario Bros. being my first game that I’m mildly offended when I find out it wasn’t everybody’s first game. I know I’m getting old when gaze upon Reddit threads with horror discovering that some fellow gamer initiations included Uncharted 2: Among Thieves or Halo: Combat Evolved.
No. No no. It simply won’t do.
This was it. The start of the video game revolution that is still ongoing. Super Mario Bros. is the spark that led Mario to be more recognizable than Mickey Mouse. It kickstarted an empire and resurrected an industry. It’s not only one of the most important games for me, it’s undeniably one of the most influential entertainment products ever.
It may sound like I’m hyperbolizing, but for just this once, I’m not.
I don’t even remember the first time I saw a Nintendo, or picked up a controller which is sort of a shame. Maybe it’s one of those things where you do it so often that you can’t possibly pinpoint where it started? I remember watching somebody else play it at a house that is so devoid of detail in my memory, it might as well be a dream. I can’t even say what part of the country I was in.
I do know that one time at my friend Ryan’s house in Halifax I dumped my stuff off in the kitchen, said hi to his mom, then yelling at him “PLAYING NINTENDO?” “YUP!” and bunkering down next to him for hours as we tried to rescue the Princess. If I had to point to the start of all this, I guess that was it. I can still smell their carpet, and recall the exact layout of their main floor. And I remember dying, a lot.
Did Ryan show me how to move forward and jump over the pit? The game is so cleverly designed that it teaches you without a tutorial. That slow, lonely goomba is the game’s first challenge. You’ll either die or succeed very quickly and from there on you’ll pick up on patterns, enemy movements, momentum and powerups in moments. What a first level!
Mario games would only get better from here on out, but 38 years later the original is still fun. You can see why it endured while hundreds of copycats have faded into the past. Back when it took a lot of imagination to accurately identify what was on a video game screen, here we had a game where the sprites and enemies were big, big enough to know exactly what the game was going for. Sure, it was weird (flying fish? plumbers? bullets with faces on them?) but it never delved into the abstract. Even the most jaded critic could admit that the package was adhesive and strongly put together.
The melodies are just as timeless as the game itself, likely moreso. Can you find a more iconic video game song than this? Or something more victorious sounding than this? There are only a handful of tracks in the game, but each one was so endearing that they’ve become part of the eternal cultural zeitgeist. Try looking up the wikipedia entry on my how many shows, movies and games have incorporated some tiny piece of Super Mario Bros. minutia and tell me millions of people didn’t grow up with this game by their side.
Look at that beauty. I regret selling my original Nintendo System – I did it decades ago, as I’d move onto the Super Nintendo and N64 so what did I need an old system for? I suppose there are emulators, and Switch eShop versions of the classics, but there’s something to holding a physical cartridge. You’ll never get it with CDs, or digital downloads (obviously). I can still feel the unnecessary ridges, how it felt blowing into the cartridge directly to remove dust and likely damage the product long-term but hey, it wasn’t working so we blew in it!
I always used the warps, as often as I could. I didn’t have the dedication or the motivation to plunder through each and every level. It was my first game and I was content to just dip my toes in the figurative waters. I wouldn’t get my stripes until years later in terms of mastering game mechanics or fully understanding what a video game could be, but I cannot think of a better game to start with. It was released shortly after I was born, it took Japan and North America by storm and if I had to, had to, pick a single franchise that I’d label as my all time favorite, it’s Mario. Mainline entries are an automatic buy. I’ve come this far, why stop now?
The 500 