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Well hello, Internet!
Today, I'm gonna be talking about something very important to gamers and developers alike.
First impressions.
Yeah, you know what I mean, If you are gonna be making a game, your first of the franchise
might possibly be the most important. In this Two-parter, I will be looking at the first
Super mario and Sonic games, and show how thier first
impressions have helped these franchises grow ever so strongly.
Here is Mario Bros. It was released in 1985 in Japan and North America. It has sold over
40 Million copies and is still the highest selling mario
game, heck, the highest selling NES game of all time.
I can say Super mario, and anyone will know what I'm talking about. But why? What made
gamers choose this platformer over others? Why did THIS game
get so much praise and recognition?
Lets take a look
The story:
Bowser and his koopalings are jealous of the mushroom kindom, and Bowser wants it all for
himself. Bowser casts a spell and transforms all of
the mushroom kindom's inhabitants into blocks, weeds,
and other objects. Princess Toadstool(peach) can undo the spell, but Bowser knew this,
and kidnapped her. The mario brothers heard about this and
set off on a quest to save the princess!
This story is clishe as all hell, but I'm not complaining, Its simple and it works.
There is no need for a rich story in a game like this.
Now lets talk Visuals:
Being a launch title, it obviusly wouldent be the best looking game.
It looks better than alot of the other launch titles, and better than alot of NES
games in general. Being 8-bit, they had thier limitations, but they pulled it off
really well, The graphics are nice and easy on the eye, nothing really blends in together,
so you can always tell what everything is. The enviroments are nice and colourful
and range from Land, Sky, Water, Castle, and Underground levels. Sounds
cliché now, but back then it was awesome. Rarely games would have more than 2 or 3
different enviroments and make them all look nice, This game had 5.
Mario himself looks fine, his colour is nice and bright, so he pops out, and
you will know where you are at all times, you never get "lost in the action".
Everything seems like where it should be, and there never is a time where you question
it. It all just works.
Lets move on, shall we? On to Gameplay!
First off, Mario controls beautifuly. You press A to jump, and hold B to run.
Its one of the first games I played where, the faster you go, the more mommentum you
gain. Not many games did that back then. With mario
you always feel like you are in control. You can even control your
trajectory mid-jump, so if you make a mistake and
jump, you have a chance to save yourself by steering mario towards saftey.
I don't understand how it works, but I'm damn glad you can do it!
The world has shiney gold coins that you can collect, if you get 100 you can get an extra
life. They also give you score.. You know, incase
you wanted to get that High score.. yaay.. There also are 3 powerups in game. Mushrooms,
which allow Mario to grow in size, and take an
extra hit, a Fire flower, which allows you to shoot fireballs by pressing the B button.
And a starman, which is a gold, flashing star that when you collect it, Mario starts flashing
and is invinsable for a short period of time. There is also the occasional hidden Green
mushroom, Which gives you an extra life.
The enemys in this game range between many things, goombas, koopas,
hammer bros, cheep,cheep, etc. but most can be killed by stomping thier head.
Now, what is the point of this game? How do you progress? Well, The goal of this game
to get to the end of the level and slide down the goal flag at the end. There is 8
worlds with 4 levels in each, The 4th of every world is always a castle level with
bowser waiting for you at the end. There also sometimes is the water levels,
which play very diffrently, but its very easy to get used to.
Its all fairly simple and easy to understand, but
this game can get fairly difficult at times. It is not NEARLY as hard as say Megaman, Zelda
2, or this game's sequal, Super Mario Bros. 2
(or lost levels if you don't live in japan)
Some of the difficulty comes from the level layout, It can be hard to play, but there
exsists no bad level design in this game, just difficult
level design. Alot of the difficulty comes from
THESE *** HAMMER BROTHERS. I HATE THEM SO MUCH. If you have ever played this game,
you will know EXACTLY what I am talking about. For the 2 of you who don't know, this hammer
brother is possibly one of the most *** enemys in
gaming. He throws a constant stream of hammers at you, they are
very hard to dodge while you are trying to stomp on his head. They can also start chasing
after you and jump onto different platforms. If you
don't have the mushroom or fireflower powerup, you will most
likely die.
Alright, enough of that lets get on to another topic, the Music.
Theres not much I can say about the music that has not already been said. Its good,
and catchy. So damn catchy that the land theme in this game is now the main theme
for the entire franchise. Even non gamers know this song. Its possibly one of
the most catchy songs of all time.
Anyway, each different enviroment had a diffrent song (except Land and sky, those share the
same song) They are all fairly good, my favorite being the underwater song.
The virdect:
This game is an instant classic, and Gamers of all kinds like this game. In my opinion,
It still stands as a solid title and I find myself comming back
to this game every once an awhile. You can see that this game has
made a VERY good first impression on me, and many gamers over the years. Its one of the
reasons we STILL have gaming today, and its one of the reasons
why mario is still around. Even if you are not a fan
of the old retro games, you should still respect the game, and it's entire franchise. I'm glad
that this game exists, and I'm pretty sure you all agree.