When people talk about what the most "Important" or, "Influential" game of all time is, to me, I feel nothing compares to the original Super Mario. After the game crash in 83, Mario was the game that brought back the love people had lost for games. My rating of this game won't be influenced by it's impact, though I thought I should mention it anyway.
Design wise, I'm not sure how they got so much right on their first go. The levels are fun, intelligent, great to look at, and have a lot of challange. My favorite levels were probably just the first world, as they are pretty much perfect, though I also really love the look of World 3's levels. Some levels were too challenging to the point of it felt like BS. When I say "some", I really just mean 8-2, that shit was dumb. Other than that, very little complaints.
I remember when I started to look at Mario games a bit differently, where I started to think about why Mario was jumping. It sounds dumb but I'll try to explain. I watched videogamedunky's video on "Super Mario Bros. Wonder", and something he said changed my perspective a bit. He said "A lot of people confuse the plot of Mario with it's stroy. The Plot of Mario is Bowser Kidnaps Peach, the Story is the Journey you take to get to Bowser". For some reason, I never saw it that way, I only saw the platforms as something to jump on, but never considered why Mario was doing it in the first place. When you start thinking of the gameplay apart of the narrative itself, I began to see Mario as more of an Adventure than just a game where I jump because it's fun. It's sounds dumb and it probably is, but idk, it made me appreciete the great story Nintendo tells, not by dialouge, but by the gameplay and levels themselves.
Moving on, the OST for this game is legendary. It only has like 4 main songs, but they all work so well, and set such a great atmosphere. My favorite is probably the Cave theme. It's just so eerie, and it makes the expericence that much more immersive to me. The main theme is also legendary, and just a great tune. The Castle and Water themes are also great as well.
Gotta mention real quick how good I think the Pixel art is. It has a "Dark Fantasy" look to it that I hadn't seen in any other Mario. It has a much more midevil feel to it, and I really liked it.
I mentioned it before, but the diffculty can be a very aggrevating. Usually it's fine, but in the later levels it feels really challanging. I will say that Mario's jump deffinitely gets way better as the series went on, and though it's alright here, Mario's jump can be a little unpredictable. Sometimes he just goes to high up when you wanted him to have a smaller arc on his leap. It's usually fine, but the problem came up more often then I wanted it to. I do think that it was a bad choice to have Mario go small after one hit even if he had a fire flower, and thought it was also dumb he didn't get the flower power if he was small. I also hate that you can't go back to where you just left, something they didn't fix in the Mario Allstars remake for some reason. Just some dumb stuff that hurts the game, but all and all it really isn't that bad.
So, something that helps my ranking a bit, was the way I beat it. I had died a few times in the last Castle, and had 2 lives. I made it all the way to Bowser, I was doing alright, but a visual glitch happened with Bowser's fire, and it went invisible and killed me. I thought I was done, I thought I was fuckin dead and would have to reset. I make my way back barley dodging some bullshit along the way, and after like 30 seconds of waiting, he jumps and I hit the axe. I had one fuckin life left, if I got hit I was dead for good, and I lived. It was just awesome to me, and such a relief to kill that fucker.
In past reviews of other Mario games, I've said that some Marios were "Unique" compared to the other games. But looking back, that statement doesn't make much sense. We've gotten so use to Mario, that the slightest difference in a game, gives it the lable "Unique". All of these games are "Unique", and this game shows it. The idea of an Italian Plumber traveling through the "Mushroom Kingdom" stomping on Turtles, walking Mushrooms, and fighting a big spikey monster while trying to save a Kingdom full of Mushroom People and their Princess who is a Human, is something so creative that it's a weird thing to even think about because we've gotten so use to it. Super Mario Bros. is the start of something incredible, not just for Nintendo but for everything to come after. It set the standard for design and in some ways, story telling in the videogame medium. I feel that this game is a mandatory must play for anyone, even if it's not your favorite genre, this is the game of all the games, and to me a great game in its own right, one that will be talked about for the next century. If you like Platformers or games in general, I'd recomend for everyone to at least give it a try.
Score: 4.1/5
Letter Grade: A-
Design wise, I'm not sure how they got so much right on their first go. The levels are fun, intelligent, great to look at, and have a lot of challange. My favorite levels were probably just the first world, as they are pretty much perfect, though I also really love the look of World 3's levels. Some levels were too challenging to the point of it felt like BS. When I say "some", I really just mean 8-2, that shit was dumb. Other than that, very little complaints.
I remember when I started to look at Mario games a bit differently, where I started to think about why Mario was jumping. It sounds dumb but I'll try to explain. I watched videogamedunky's video on "Super Mario Bros. Wonder", and something he said changed my perspective a bit. He said "A lot of people confuse the plot of Mario with it's stroy. The Plot of Mario is Bowser Kidnaps Peach, the Story is the Journey you take to get to Bowser". For some reason, I never saw it that way, I only saw the platforms as something to jump on, but never considered why Mario was doing it in the first place. When you start thinking of the gameplay apart of the narrative itself, I began to see Mario as more of an Adventure than just a game where I jump because it's fun. It's sounds dumb and it probably is, but idk, it made me appreciete the great story Nintendo tells, not by dialouge, but by the gameplay and levels themselves.
Moving on, the OST for this game is legendary. It only has like 4 main songs, but they all work so well, and set such a great atmosphere. My favorite is probably the Cave theme. It's just so eerie, and it makes the expericence that much more immersive to me. The main theme is also legendary, and just a great tune. The Castle and Water themes are also great as well.
Gotta mention real quick how good I think the Pixel art is. It has a "Dark Fantasy" look to it that I hadn't seen in any other Mario. It has a much more midevil feel to it, and I really liked it.
I mentioned it before, but the diffculty can be a very aggrevating. Usually it's fine, but in the later levels it feels really challanging. I will say that Mario's jump deffinitely gets way better as the series went on, and though it's alright here, Mario's jump can be a little unpredictable. Sometimes he just goes to high up when you wanted him to have a smaller arc on his leap. It's usually fine, but the problem came up more often then I wanted it to. I do think that it was a bad choice to have Mario go small after one hit even if he had a fire flower, and thought it was also dumb he didn't get the flower power if he was small. I also hate that you can't go back to where you just left, something they didn't fix in the Mario Allstars remake for some reason. Just some dumb stuff that hurts the game, but all and all it really isn't that bad.
So, something that helps my ranking a bit, was the way I beat it. I had died a few times in the last Castle, and had 2 lives. I made it all the way to Bowser, I was doing alright, but a visual glitch happened with Bowser's fire, and it went invisible and killed me. I thought I was done, I thought I was fuckin dead and would have to reset. I make my way back barley dodging some bullshit along the way, and after like 30 seconds of waiting, he jumps and I hit the axe. I had one fuckin life left, if I got hit I was dead for good, and I lived. It was just awesome to me, and such a relief to kill that fucker.
In past reviews of other Mario games, I've said that some Marios were "Unique" compared to the other games. But looking back, that statement doesn't make much sense. We've gotten so use to Mario, that the slightest difference in a game, gives it the lable "Unique". All of these games are "Unique", and this game shows it. The idea of an Italian Plumber traveling through the "Mushroom Kingdom" stomping on Turtles, walking Mushrooms, and fighting a big spikey monster while trying to save a Kingdom full of Mushroom People and their Princess who is a Human, is something so creative that it's a weird thing to even think about because we've gotten so use to it. Super Mario Bros. is the start of something incredible, not just for Nintendo but for everything to come after. It set the standard for design and in some ways, story telling in the videogame medium. I feel that this game is a mandatory must play for anyone, even if it's not your favorite genre, this is the game of all the games, and to me a great game in its own right, one that will be talked about for the next century. If you like Platformers or games in general, I'd recomend for everyone to at least give it a try.
Score: 4.1/5
Letter Grade: A-