Saturday, November 28, 2020

Super Mario Bros. - Thoughts


Playing a lot of Super Mario Bros. 35 has given me a newfound appreciation for the original Super Mario Bros. Or rather, a light-appreciation, as I've always been fond of the plumber's momentum-focused platformer. While there's plenty of other games in Mario's rich history that I'd rank over it, the original possesses a crude strength that no other game (besides Land) has: blunt simplicity. There's no in-game story, no overworld, no minigames, no saving, no hidden collectibles; Super Mario Bros. is about running and jumping. And this paucity of systems works because running and jumping as Mario feels very good.


... But this isn't an irrefutable conclusion, unless one spends plenty of time playing and adapting to Super Mario Bros's physics. Compared to Mega Man or Contra, Mario is as stiff and unwieldy as a mustachio'd van, taking too long to accelerate and dangerously too long to stop. To complicate this, certain jumps in the game are downright malicious, requiring a full sprint to cross safely or sporting a single block to land on—and in one instance in 8-2, both at once. The potbelly plumber might not feel natural to control, but mastery lurks within your fingertips—so long as you learn where and when to pump the brakes.

I've never thought of the original Super Mario Bros. as a difficult game (especially compared to the rest of the NES library), but it can definitely be challenging at times. Later stages not only demand precision from your leaps but will also starve the player of resources, reinforcing the importance—and advantage—of a strong start. Sniffing out fire flowers and preserving your 1-ups will help get you to the end faster than having sharp reflexes will... though those don't hurt either. And even when you lose to the likes of World 7 & 8 (the game's real run-enders), you're only ~30 minutes away from reaching your last checkpoint. Throw in some super obvious-to-find warp-pipes and the game can be conquered in 10 minutes by even the most lax speedrunner.


There's a lot to love about Super Mario Bros.'s demure design, though I didn't truly appreciate it as a kid. I always thought Super Mario Bros. was disappointingly "samey", reusing stages, themes, and gimmicks more than I would've liked. And... I wasn't really wrong about that: several levels are repeated with the only identifiable difference being the enemy quantity. But the other stages have a distinct flavor that I hadn't really noticed until now, shaking up the generic "1-1" feel one might have when they think of the game.

For instance, foes in underground sections have darker colors, several stages see Mario running across treetop canopies, 2-3 and 7-3 are dominated by catapulting cheep cheeps, 3-1's black background gives the impression of starless night, 4-3 uses mushrooms instead of trees, and my favorite level 6-3 is drained of color, awash in a lifeless grayscale as if time has stopped. The only stages that radically shake up the gameplay are the underwater sections, though the gravitational pull of the pits combined with the nettlesome bloopers will make you wish every stage was a sprint-fest. Plus there's no power-up blocks deep beneath the waves, making the swimming levels particularly grueling.

Speaking of, I came to appreciate was the elegant nature of the power-up system. Health bars can be a finicky mechanic to design around; they can make enemies feel unthreatening while pits & spikes feel too cruel. But the mushroom acts as a devious bit of insurance: at the cost of expanding your hitbox, it'll protect you from a single attack. The fire flower provides an added reward for playing well, giving you the firepower to deal with some of the worst enemies in the game (like the RNG-nightmare hammer bros), but you'll still get reduced to tiny (regular?) sized Mario should you take a hit. Always being two hits from death makes accidentally speeding off the edge of a cliff a mild aggravation, unlike when you fall to your doom in Sonic with 100 rings in tow.


Prototypical of many of the NES games to come, Super Mario Bros.'s challenge is offset by the speed at which you can blaze through it. In a way it feels like the perfect blend between a platformer and racer, giving you opportunities to find secret coins, stars, and 1-ups should you need assistance, and letting you run full-throttle to the end if you don't. I won't deny that it looks visually plain and lacks dynamic gameplay mechanics, but there's little details sprinkled around that really make the game shine when you ruminate on it in retrospect. In the wide venue of NES platformers, Super Mario Bros. is a meal of unsalted steak and potatoes. It's able to satiate your hunger without stuffing you so full you can barely walk. And sometimes that can really hit the spot.

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