Games You Should Play: Super Mario Bros Tril(Quadr)ilogy

Super Mario Bros Tril(Quadr)ilogy
Platformer
1 Player
System: NES
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Year of Release: 1985/1986/1987/1988

I'd like to test slightly new waters, write about more than just what I've been playing recently. If you can read the nigh illegible text near the top of the screen or even just my little side note "About Me" section you can see I shockingly have interests that lay outside of the realm of video games. Today I plan to ever so slightly expand my horizons and talk about more video games! Specifically, Games You Should Play. The premise is simple, these are games I feel everyone who indulges in the hobby should play at some point in their lives. Super Mario Bros sprung to mind immediately, but which one? Well, you should probably just play all of them.

My earliest memory, at least as far as I can tell, is of me watching someone else playing Super Mario Bros 2 USA. It looked amazing to me, I don't remember if I got to play or not, but it clearly left a heavy impression on me. I don't know how long after but I got my own NES with the first and third Mario games, I wouldn't get to play the second until the SNES remake came out. Incidentally, owning the NES so young warped my sense of when these games released, for the longest time I thought the NES came out in the early 90's. I felt pretty dumb when I finally found out more about the actual history of these systems. I digress. I played the shit out of these games though and completely engrossed myself in the world of the Mushroom Kingdom.

These set the standard for what a good platform game should be, on that merit alone they should be considered a game you should play. Not only that, these games are technically limited but the style these games manage to exude despite this is amazing and in some cases beautiful. If you disagree feel free to call it nostalgia, but all of these games are so appealing to me whether it's the original NES graphics or any of the updated remade visuals. The music and sound design parallel the visuals being simple by nature but simultaneously so iconically fitting, pleasant to the ears and just downright catchy.

The first game sets up the premise as fantastical as it may be. Mario runs to the right while jumping on baddies to eventually rescue the princess. Sometimes he goes underground, or even swims. Mushrooms make you grow and flowers let you throw fire while stars mean you can only die by long falls. Travelling across 8 worlds that are (technically sort of) themed to finally bring down Bowser. It's as basic as can be, but that's honestly where the NES excels in my opinion.

The second game, at least in America, is a bit of a sham. It's widely known now that apparently Nintendo of Japan believed SMB2 to be too difficult for the West (fuck you too guys..) so instead they took another game, Doki Doki Panic, and reskinned it to look like Mario. It's a bit odd, but the game is fun and it brought all sorts of cool enemies like Shy Guys and Birdo into the Mario canon. Instead of jumping on enemies to defeat them now you have to pick them up and toss them into other enemies. While it's a totally different dynamic it works great for what it is. The bosses especially are pretty fun to fight be it against a bomb tossing mouse, or a transgender dinosaur spitting fire and eggs at you. It also marks the one time Bowser wasn't the main antagonistic with the giant frog Wart standing in your way to glory this time. Of course at the end Mario wakes up, and it was all just a dream. I still hope for a day when Wart makes a come back, but I grow ever more doubtful with every release. Seriously, New Super Mario Bros 2 AND Super Mario 3D World were perfect times to really up the SMB2USA love Nintendo.

In Japan they got a very different game, well actually a very familiar game really. Super Mario Bros 2 (known here commonly as The Lost Levels) is a very loyal sequel to the original SMB. It looks pretty much exactly the same, and the only real addition as far as I can remember is the poison mushroom, which kills Mario instead of letting him grow. Oh and in some later levels wind changes your jump mechanics slightly. These two features and much more devious level layouts were what caused this "too hard" branding and while I wouldn't go that insultingly far, it is one tough cookie. I can see a lot of people not enjoying this, but any hardcore fan of Mario owes it to themselves to see it through. Especially with how simplistic most Mario level's tend to be now a days.

And on the seven hundred twenty six thousand thirty fourth day, they gave us Super Mario Bros 3, and it was good. Adding a plethora of power ups, improving the gameplay and controls overall, adding more enemies, more levels, an actual neat little map to traverse between levels adding a better sense of world, an inventory to hold on to extra power ups, secrets everywhere, SMB3 added so much that is still standard in Mario games today. I don't even know what to say really, this is my absolute favorite 2D Mario platformer, possibly flat out my favorite Mario platformer even. Where the hell is Kuribo's Shoe Nintendo?

Super Mario Bros defined platformers for me. There are certainly other styles of platformers out there that I enjoy immensely, but the feeling of a classic Mario game is a truly unique and wholly enjoyable experience. Successfully running through the whole level, bouncing from enemy to enemy, grabbing coins, and getting to the top of the flag pole without getting hit just feels so good.  It's proving rather hard to write about such excellent games without falling back to just "well they do everything right and that's why they're fun!" Not to mention I'm sure almost everyone has given these games at least a try by now.

As well as the original NES releases there are a few ways to play these titles. All of them were grouped together as Super Mario All-Stars for SNES (sometimes with World included) which is the version I played the most as a kid. It has updated graphics and while it changes the physics of some of the games slightly, I've found it to still feel like an accurate experience overall and I highly recommend this if you can't get the original NES versions for whatever reason. Super Mario Bros and at least part of The Lost Levels were released for the GBC as Super Mario Bros Deluxe. It plays just fine and adds some interesting extra modes to the game, but the GBC's small screen makes it a bit of a pain in the ass to play for too long as you can't see as far ahead as you should be able to.

SMB2 and SMB3 were released as part of the Super Mario Advance series, the first and fourth respectively (convoluted numbering systems are fun!) For the most part these are faithful ports of All-Stars with Advance adding some extra coins to find in every level. While Advance 4 went to crazy lengths, assuming you have an e-Reader (and unless you're me you don't) you can actually scan in new items and even whole new levels. It was freaking awesome, but a massive pain to access. If you manage to you can save the exact amount of stages that got released in the US in this way though so they stay on your cart at least. If you have access to an e-Reader I highly recommend trying to play these levels.

Finally, they've all been released on Nintendo's various Virtual Consoles for cheap too. There are a lot of ways to play these, and really you can't go wrong with any. Even the weak GBC adds enough incentive with unique features. The only one I suggest against is the Wii release of All-Stars, it's literally just a copy of the SNES game, no new menu, music, or anything. It's a really cheap way to cash in on the anniversary, was overly expensive on release and is even more so now.

If you haven't been paying attention Mario is an amazing set of games and helped defined who I am as a gamer. There is honestly a lot of bias sprinkled throughout the words above, but you cannot deny the impact Mario has had, and the quality these games managed to bring on just 8 bit carts from the 80's. Give them a shot, even if you already have. I quickly played through these games again before writing this and was taken back to a simpler time. Smiling most of the way through, humming and bobbing my head along with the songs, swearing at Lakitu for being a cheap bitch and talking shit as I masterfully slid underneath Bowser before I dunked his ass in lava.

Play Mario.