Super Mario Bros

Super Mario Bros. is a popular side-scrolling action-adventure game where players control the Mario brothers as they explore the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Toadstool. Facing eight levels of varying difficulty, players must skillfully maneuver Mario, performing movements, jumps, and stomps to overcome obstacles and enemies, explore hidden areas, and find power-ups to enhance Mario's abilities and successfully complete each level. After completing a level, higher difficulties and stronger enemies will unlock, pushing players' reaction speed and completion time to the limit.

Gameplay of Super Mario Bros:

Super Mario Bros is a platform game in which the player controls the titular protagonist Mario, who is tasked with exploring the Mushroom Kingdom to defeat Bowser and rescue Princess Toadstool. His brother, Luigi, is controlled by the second player in multiplayer mode and assumes the same plot role and functionality as Mario.The game takes place through a side-scrolling perspective where the player moves to the right to reach the flagpole at the end of each level.

The Mushroom Kingdom includes coins for Mario to collect and special bricks marked with a question mark (?), which when hit from below by Mario may reveal more coins or a special item. Other "secret", often invisible, bricks may contain more coins or rare items. If the player gains a Super Mushroom, Mario grows to double his size and gains the ability to break bricks above him. The item protects Mario from a single instance of damage inflicted by an enemy or hazard, though falling off the map will always kill Mario. Players start with a certain number of lives and may gain extra lives by picking up green spotted 1-Up Mushrooms hidden in bricks, collecting 100 coins, defeating several enemies in a row with a Koopa shell, or bouncing on enemies successively without touching the ground. The player may also spawn hidden bricks with lives by collecting every coin in the previous world's third level, or by warping there. Mario loses a life if he takes damage while small, falls off the screen, or runs out of time. The game ends when the player runs out of lives, although holding the "A" button can be used on the game over screen to respawn from the first level of the world in which the player died.

Mario's primary attack is jumping onto enemies, though many enemies have differing responses to this. For example, a Goomba will flatten and be defeated,  while a Koopa Troopa will temporarily retract into its shell, allowing Mario to use it as a projectile.  These shells may be deflected off a wall to defeat other enemies, though they can also bounce back against Mario, which will damage him.  Other enemies, such as underwater foes and enemies with spiked tops, cannot be jumped on and damage the player instead. Mario can also defeat enemies above him by jumping to hit the brick that the enemy is standing on. Mario may also acquire the Fire Flower from certain "?" blocks that when picked up changes the color of Super Mario's outfit and allows him to throw fireballs. A less common item is the Starman, which often appears when Mario hits certain concealed or otherwise invisible blocks. This item grants Mario temporary invincibility from all minor dangers.

The game consists of eight worlds, each with four sub-levels or stages.  Underwater stages contain unique aquatic enemies. Bonuses and secret areas include more coins, or warp pipes that allow Mario to skip directly to later worlds. The final stage of each world is in a fiery underground castle where Bowser is fought on a suspension bridge above lava; the first seven of these Bowsers are actually minions disguised as him, and the real Bowser is in the eighth world. Bowser and his decoys are defeated by jumping over them or running under them while they are jumping and reaching the axe on the end of the bridge, or with fireballs. After completing the game once, the player is rewarded with the ability to replay with increased difficulty, such as all Goombas replaced with Buzzy Beetles, enemies similar to Koopa Troopas who cannot be defeated using the Fire Flower.

Strategies of Super Mario Bros:

You can add time by stomping on enemies, hitting them with fireballs, hitting them with shells, or by running through them when you have a star. 

You gain +1 second when you hit an enemy with a fireball (unless it's a bigger enemy like Bowser. You gain 5 seconds with him this way, 10 if you hit the switch). 

You gain +2 seconds when you stomp on an enemy. 

When you run through enemies with a star, you gain +2 seconds, then +3, then +4 seconds for every enemy you run through after the first 2. +4 seconds is the most you can gain in this combo. 

You can build up combos. If you stomp on enemies in a row, you get an extra second for each additional enemy. So if you stomp 2 enemies, you get +2 and then +3 seconds, so you gain 5 seconds. 4 enemies in a row would be +2, +3, +4, +5 for a total gain of 14 seconds. 

If you use a POW block, it will defeat all enemies on the screen and give you a time bonus for each one as if you had stomped on each one. 

If you hit enemies with a shell, you also build up a combo for every enemy that is hit. +1 for the 1st, +2 for the 2nd, +3 for the 3rd, +4 for the 4th and so on. 

You can get +15 seconds if you get a fire flower when you're already fire Mario.

You get +10 seconds every time you beat a stage.

You get +10 seconds when you defeat Bowser by hitting the switch. +5 if you run through Bowser with a star or hit him with fireballs. 

You get a bonus when you jump on the flag pole. The higher you are, the more time you get. You get a max of +15 seconds if you jump on the very top of the pole or near the top.

Characters of Super Mario Bros:

Mario: Mario serves as the main protagonist of the game. Luigi, Mario's brother, appears only as the second player and plays identically to Mario. While Luigi is differentiated by his colors, both Fiery Mario and Fiery Luigi have the same palette.

Princess Toadstool: The princess of the Mushroom Kingdom. Bowser kidnaps her to prevent her from reversing the magic the Koopa used on the Mushroom People. She appears in the final course, 8-4 where she thanks Mario for rescuing her and offers a "new quest" for him.

Mushroom retainers: Seven Mushroom People that are servants of the princess and prisoners of the Koopa. They appear in every castle except for the final one. Mario can rescue a retainer by finishing a castle in World 1 to World 7. They'll say, "Thank you Mario/Luigi! But our princess is in another castle!"

Little Goomba: Mushroom creatures that walk back and forth. Little Goombas are the most common enemies and can be defeated with.

Koopa Troopa (green): Foot soldiers of the Turtle Empire. Stomping on Koopa Troopas make them recede into their shells, which can be kicked to hit defeat enemies. Like Little Goombas, green-shelled.

Player Comments of Super Mario Bros:

I have played Super Mario Bros. countless times, on many consoles. This game has always been a staple for me. After tossing my hands up playing one of the more difficult levels of Resident Evil 2, coming back to Super Mario Bros. was refreshing. I used to speed-run the game, hopping from secret warp zones to blast me all the way to the end battle in a matter of minutes. But that’s not what I did for this playthrough.

My mission was simple: Play the game start to finish, without using warp zones.

As it turned out, I grew a fonder appreciation for this game. I had forgotten about some of the levels I had skipped over the past couple of decades. I had been so obsessed with hitting every block and ducking into every pipe as a kid, that I had forgotten to enjoy the actual gameplay of these levels. Then again, part of the charm of Super Mario Bros. was discovering all of the hidden power ups and secrets.

I traversed through a series of different worlds – Vast treetops where Bullet Bills were shot at me, underwater levels covered in Bloopers (squid), an entire world which was set against a night skyline as I jumped from teetering platforms, and even a giant bridge that had Cheep-Cheeps (fish) jumping up and raining down on me (honestly, screw that level).

Super Mario Bros. doesn’t repeat any of its level designs twice. While there are several underground and treetop levels, they all have their own spin to them. Sometimes platforms are smaller and moving, or sea creatures would float about the screen even though you were in mid-air. Even with the castles that would repeat, they would be harder with additional hazards to cross, and more enemies – And it never got overwhelming like many old retro games would make “harder” by dropping as many sprites as they possible could onto the screen before the cartridge would overload itself. In Super Mario Bros., every enemy was strategically well-placed and had its purpose. It was almost like an art. This level of strategy would continue on as a flagship trait for Nintendo’s Super Mario franchise.

Final words:

Super Mario Bros revolutionized the franchise with its introduction of numerous new power-ups and enhancements. The game expanded the number of obtainable items beyond the simple Mushroom, Flower, and Star, creating a rich variety of gameplay experiences.