NSO Retro: Super Mario Brothers (SNES)

For my first Nintendo Switch Online Retro Review I decided to start with a classic – the original Super Mario Brothers. Well . . . sort of. Rather than play the NES (1985) version I decided to play the SNES (1993) version released as part of the Super Mario All-Stars collection.

I did play a few levels of the NES version and whilst the original visuals do have their charm, I’d still recommend the more colourful SNES version for new players. And I am very much a new player to Super Mario Brothers. I’m not entirely sure if this is the first time I’ve played the game at all – because it’s likely I’ve played a little of one version or another down the years – but this is certainly the first time I’ve played the game through to completion.

So . . . did I like it? Well, yeah. It’s still a pretty solid and fun little adventure, but I’m guessing my feelings towards it would probably be quite different if I had played it back when I was a kid. There’s no real ‘nostalgia’ vibe for me, so I’m just looking at it through my cold, cynical old man eyes.

There are 8 worlds to progress through, each split into 4 levels and each world ends with a boss fight. Well, not much of a boss fight, to be honest – you just jump over his head once to grab an axe to defeat him. It’s the same for every world from first to last, although he does get a few new tricks along the way.

It’s a surprisingly short game – I played through it in two sittings – although that’s thanks to the ability to essentially Quick Save wherever I wanted in this NSO edition. That does remove any real challenge from the game but honestly, I might not have had the patience to get through the game without it.

Because like a lot of older games that want to encourage repeat play so you feel you’re getting bang for your buck, SMB has a fair amount of bullshit to catch you out and reset your progress. Mario can (unless boosted by a mushroom) only take a single hit from an enemy, and he can’t survive a fall.

So without that Quick Save safety net, you’ll probably be replaying a level multiple times until you learn the platform layout, enemy positions, jump distances and timing you need to get through. Each level is fairly short, but they do get more tricky as you progress with more finicky jumps and more annoying enemies – f**k those hammer throwing little shits!

The game mechanics don’t really evolve much at all. You’re scored by various factors, the most important of which is probably the time limit – the quicker you complete the level, the more points you’ll get. This does give the game an excellent score attack / speed running vibe, because with practice on your timing, you can really fly through these levels, barely touching the ground.

 

The game does throw some new challenges at you here and there, but by the end it’s mostly just repeating everything you’ve already seen. Oh, and I didn’t like those boss level ‘puzzles’ where you’re unable to advance unless you choose the ‘correct’ path to take – if you don’t it just loops you back to the start.

Once again, it feels like a bullshit way to make the player replay the level until they find the right path through trial and error because that clock is always ticking down. Thankfully I didn’t have to worry about that because of the Quick Save feature.

Overall, I had some fun with Super Mario Brothers and I can certainly understand its importance in Video Game history, but it isn’t a game I have any nostalgia for so I’m not going to be as gushing towards it as someone who does. I wouldn’t say it doesn’t hold up today because it does – to a degree – but I’d say it’s a game you’ll probably appreciate more for the classic it is, and less for what it offers you today.