And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for… Nostalgia Un-Filter’s first video game review! *applause*
As I said on Monday, the first video game review will be focused on the title that almost single-handedly saved video games from extinction, Super Mario Bros.
For its time, Super Mario Bros was an amazing game. Its theme tune is arguably the most iconic video game music of all time, and its gameplay has survived well into the 21st century. So, how does it hold up now?
Graphics: Given that this is an old video game, it does a pretty decent job with the resources at hand. Everything looks decent, it’s fairly easy to tell the difference between various objects, and the background is more than just a solid color (Interestingly enough, the Goomba’s seem to share their palette with the ground in each level).
Rating: 4/5
Music and Sound: What can I say? The music is great, and it’s easily the most widely recognized video game music in existence. Also, none of the music grates on the nerves when you first start hearing it, which is a definite plus for NES era video games. As for the sound effects, everything sounds appropriate.
Rating: 5/5
Gameplay: Pretty straightforward gameplay, you simply run from left to right, jump on enemies, and get to the end of the level. Good fun. This video game’s play style has survived well into the 21st century. Now, the one thing it didn’t have was the ability to save your game; however, what it did have was the warp pipe. The warp pipe was a relatively easy to find hidden object that could warp you to any world you wanted. Given how rare game saving was on the NES, it was a pretty decent workaround. Plus, this would give gamers a chance to reacquaint themselves with the play control on a low stress level.
Rating: 5/5
Plot: Clichéd as it now, Bowser kidnapping the princess and Mario coming to her rescue was fairly fresh at the time. Also, this game actually gives a reason for Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach. According to the manual, the Koopas are famous for their black magic, and they turned the people of the Mushroom Kingdom into stones, bricks, and field horsehair plants. Princess Peach (Toadstool at the time) was the only one who could reverse this magic, so Bowser kidnapped her to prevent her from doing so. As for why Mario’s the one trying to save her, I guess it’s because he and Luigi are the only bad enough dudes to rescue the princess (sorry =P).
Rating: 4/5
Play Control: This is where the game slips up. 2D Mario games haven’t exactly been known for tight play control, but this game’s control is just bad. Mario takes too long to start running and too long to stop, and don’t get me started on how hard it is to control Mario in the air. Also, for some strange reason, once something’s been moved off-screen by you moving forward, you can’t move back and get to it. This tends to get annoying when a mushroom goes off-screen, or when you’re running and you hit a block with a fire flower and scroll it off-screen because Mario doesn’t slow down fast enough. The game is still playable, but these make it hard to go back to after playing Mario games with better play control.
Rating: 2/5
Difficulty: The early levels aren’t horribly difficult, which is good, but later on, the game starts to get really hard (around the point where hammer bros. and lakitus are introduced). With Mario’s sloppy footwork, it’s rather difficult to avoid the hammers and spiny shells when they’re being spammed. Also, someone thought it would be a good idea to give jumping section where you have to jump on platforms one block wide >_> (heaven help you if you decide to stop on one of these platforms because if the next platform is too far away, you won’t be able to build up enough momentum to make the jump).
Rating: 4/5 (frustrating)*
Overall: Whatever way you look at it, Super Mario Bros. is definitely a video game classic. The play control wasn’t the greatest, but it was a pretty darn good video game for its time (certainly better than the last generation’s E.T.), and it still holds up well now. It’s pretty impressive that it’s still one of the bestselling video games on the Virtual Console.
Final Rating: 4/5 (average of all scores other than difficulty)
*3/5 would be considered normal difficulty, 1/5 would be ridiculously easy, and 5/5 would be insane.
