Quester Vs. Super Mario Bros. (NES)

(Super Mario Bros, October 1985, Nintendo)

Perfection. That is perhaps the only proper word created to describe Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi "Ten Ten" Tezuka, and Koji Kondo's realized vision of a sequel to the original worldwide hit Mario Bros. When it comes to the original "Black Box" titles, none come close to this magical tale that whisked many a young mind far off into a land unlike any we had ever seen before. Super Mario Bros. Perfection.

Hail to the king, baby.

One intresting factoid of note is that SMB (as I will refer to it henceforth) was actually created as kind of a "goodbye" to the original Famicom system to make way for the Famicom Disk System, this huge motherfucker of a contraption that fit in underneath the original Famicom. The Famicom (FAMIly COMputer), for the uninitiated, is the Japanese version of the NES with little differences such as controllers hard-wired into the console and different sized cartidges. Little did they know that this platform/shooter they were working on (yes, a freakin' shooter!) would become the landmark of a generation. Thankfully, we were spared "CoD Mario" as the A button could only be mapped to either jump or shoot. Alas, cooler heads prevailed and a-jumping we all went!

Then again...so...close...

As for the story, when you say it out loud, it sounds like you may have just left the Guggenheim with Tim Leary on enough LSD to actually meet God. At the base level, it's two dudes saving a princess from an evil dragon. That's where the conventional game logic ends and the kick-assery hits full throttle. Those aforementioned "dudes" turn out to be two plumbers who starred in the previous title (Mario Bros, 'natch) who eat magic mushrooms, jump like Lebron on a sugar high and throw fireballs without incinerating their gloves. There were power-ups in games before but one that doubled your size to where it affected gameplay? Another that shot fire out of your hands? How about one that transforms you into an invincible Goomba destroying machine? Never before had anyone seen anything like this and it captivated us all.

"Why does it smell like Burger King in here all of a sudden?"

Each of the 8 worlds is split into 4 stages, with the fourth being a castle controlled by a fake version of Bowser until World 8 when it is go time against the true King of Koopas. The stages are greatly varied with only two of the 32 total stages being re-hashes of previous ones. My personal favorite as a young 'un is what I called "The Void" because it was a creepy greyscale version of 1-3 and was a self-reward for not warping. It was the perfect adventure for young gamers, you ran full speed through grassy plains, battled your way through dark, atmospheric caves, taught yourself how to swim Nintendo-style and tried not to have a heart attack while avoiding flying fish and shit-kicking beetles the whole way.

Enter The Void. Enter 6-3.

Let's not forget the music. Holy mother of all things holy, the music. Everyone, and I mean everyone knows the Mario 1-1 tune (officially named "Ground Theme") created by Mr. Kondo. When you consider the fact that his ringtone royalties for that one theme have him set for life, it is staggering, considering he also did work on an obscure, known-to-very-few project titled The Legend of Zelda. No bullshit and with all seriousness, I've done this and feel free to try yourself, you can walk practically anywhere, start whistling the Mario Theme and someone, somewhere will follow suit. It is akin to a gamer handshake. We only know it for what it is and if you had informed me as a kid "Hey, that's a Calypso beat with steel drums!", you would've received a glare as if you had just hangover puked on my feet while I was wearing flip-flops. Calypso my super-sized, happy ass, that's the Mario Theme, plain and simple.

 'Ey! I made-a my face!

The controls couldn't be more of a dream. When you die, and you will on your first rodeo, pick your head up little soldier and try, try again, because it was totally your own fault. Stages requiring you to swim have somewhat of a learning curve admittedly, but aren't overly frustrating to pick up on. The truly awe inspiring part of it is that, at the time, this team was creating the mold as they went and did so in ways that would re-define gaming forever. Sure, you had Metroid, Zelda and Contra among others that were just as great in their own regards, but there is just something about Mario that can't be definitively described, but I'll give it the old school try...

FUN FACT: Both development teams over the years have confirmed that Balloon Fight's flight and SMB's swimming controls are exactly the same.

You are CONSTANTLY doing something in Super Mario Bros. Take World 1-1 alone, you meet the Goombas, Koopas, Mushrooms, 1-Up, Fire Flower, Star Man, break blocks for hidden goodies, keep watch on your coin counter, make sure you beat the timer, duck down atop of every pipe in existence with hope and try to figure out how in the sharkshit you just caused fireworks to appear after grabbing the end level flag. THE FIRST FUCKING LEVEL! That doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of unlocking the rest of the secrets and rumors that I tested immediately after school via playground scuttlebutt due to no internet in the early '80s. Most of these hot topics were hogwash, but a few turned out to be fact. Secrets that turned out to be real include the -1 World, an infinite water stage loop that I never thought was real until Nintendo Power proved me wrong. One of the funniest things I've read on the subject was an interview with Mr. Miyamoto about an Infinite 1-Up trick at the end of 3-1. When asked about the glitch, he replied that there wasn't one. It was purposefully inserted and when it started popping up in magazines, he couldn't believe that people had figured it out.

The Hammer Brothers of 8-3 are one of the earlier reasons for my ongoing insanity.

The only negative I can even remotely find with this masterpiece is the way two player is set up. When beginning the game, if you are playing as Luigi, it is required to wait patiently while casting spells in your mind for Mario to die. To put it in a more clear way, if the person playing Mario was good, feel free to go to your favorite store, take a shit, balance your checkbook, develop a written language with your highly evolved Sea Monkeys, make a fully functioning house out of LEGOs and THEN it MIGHT be your turn. In one of those weird "I'd never think anyone else would do this but me" type of deals, I used to boot up 2 player, immediately feed Mario to an eager Goomba, and rock the whole game as Luigi. Recently, I spoke to two other people who admitted to doing the same. Tremendous.

"Fuck waiting"

Super Mario Bros is the definitive benchmark of the early Nintendo titles and still must be conquered by yours truly a few times a year. In an era where acheivements were real trophys on your dresser, noone cared which voice actors were used and "X Box" was more likely to be the name of a seedy porn store on Westheimer, Super Mario Bros was the king. It has been ported and thrown on more Nintendo systems than just about any other game besides Tetris and shows no signs of ever slowing in its popularity among both retro gamers and the new and curious alike.

The first round of many between these foes of legend.

FINAL VERDICT
10/10
No other way this one was going. Playing Super Mario Bros is mandatory.

One day, we'll go over Super Mario Bros. 2 Japan, a.k.a. Suicide Watch, a.k.a. Satan's Asshole, a.k.a. Fuck This Shit, I Quit. Strictly for the sadists.

Picture credits:
"Gun Mario", courtesy of Nin-Styles
"Zombie Luigi", courtesy of GameRanx
"Fire Glove", courtesy of magic52.com

Special Thanks to:
Joey Schmidt
NibMuk