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30 years ago today, Super Mario Bros. was released in Japan

F

Forkball

Member
r9YUMZ0.jpg


We all know this year is the 30th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., but what day exactly? TODAY IT'S TODAY. On September 13th 1985, Super Mario Bros. was released on the Famicom in Japan. The release of one of the most famous video games of all time is surrounded by irony, such as it not even being a launch title in Japan, and the US release date of SMB is unknown. But nevertheless, 30 years ago today was the first time anyone in public had their hands on the game that would have a tremendous effect on video gaming.

Super Mario Bros. was the first game I ever played. I still vividly remember playing it as a kid, testing out the warp pipes, unscrewing the RF switch from the VCR so I could play my NES etc. Even though I also had SMB3 at the same time, I still really enjoyed the first game. Today it may seem pretty dated (going left was an absurd concept in the 80s), but the level design still holds up today. Are any of your Super Mario Maker levels as good as 1-1? Didn't think so.
 
S

ShadowElliot

Banned
Mario got me into loving video games. No matter what, I always end up getting Mario games and will continue to do so.

Can't wait to see what the future will hold for our heroic plumber.
 
Å

Ōkami

Member
Fun Fact.

The original SMB is the all time best selling console game in Japan with 6.8m units (that is not included handhelds) and it was the all time best selling game in Japan until 1998, when Pokémon Red/Geen/Blue surpassed it.

Right now it sits as the third all time best selling game in the region, after the afromentioned Pokémon games and their immediate successors, Gold/Silver.
 
N

Nanashrew

Banned
Good memories. It was one of my first games too when I was reall, really little. My uncle was the one who handed the NES down to me and my brother and he taught me the infinite 1-up trick with the turtle shell. Had a blast with the NES and having lots of fun with that game and then amazed at Mario 3 with its style and really cool levels.

Chacranajxy said:
And holy shit, do I feel old.
Click to expand...

image.php


It's okay, you're ageless.
 
N

Ninja Dom

Member
Tremendous effect on video gaming and a profound effect on my life.

I first played Super Mario Bros when it first came to the UK in 1987/1988. In Brent Cross Shopping Centre, North West London, two retailers, Boots & Fenwicks, had NES Play Choice systems set up and us kids FLOCKED there to play it.

Then my best friend got a NES and both Super Mario Bros 1 & 2, he brought it all over to my house and we played those two games all day and night.

I would draw Mario, try and create scenes from the game as best I could. I would absorb anything to do with it. The sad thing was the UK never really took to Nintendo like other parts of Europe and America.

Now, I'm a Super Mario fanboy. I even made a "pilgrimage" to the Nintendo World store in New York. I bought Super Mario Maker this weekend and having such a great time with that.
 
OmegaDL50

OmegaDL50

Member
This is actually the very first video game I've ever played. Which may not be surprising, as many other people who started on the NES as their first console generation, SMB was also likely to be the first game they played.
 
CharminUltra

CharminUltra

Member
It was neither the first game I ever saw or played, but I still consider it my first video game ever. It's certainly the one that got me into the hobby.
 
1

120v

Member
Aged terribly. clouds look like bushes

But really though, amazing game I still play to this day. So good there's almost no point talking about it
 
C

Cody_D165

Banned
Quite possibly the most influential platformer of all time. Legendary game. Without it, who knows if I'd even be interested in gaming or even on this forum right now.

Phediuk said:
Fun fact: if you're playing on a Famicom or top-loading NES, you can randomly generate levels in Super Mario Bros. by taking out the cartridge while the console is on, inserting Tennis, playing a few volleys, and reinserting Super Mario Bros.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEEnEoKSgQs
Click to expand...

okay what the actual fuck
 
L

Linkyn

Member
Second video game I ever played and the first one I owned myself (technically, it's tied with Tetris and that football game I can never recall the name of). It's crazy how much this helped shape my life. Oddly enough, I never managed to beat it as a child (I think the only NES game I finished before I got my N64 was Kirby's Adventure). Glad I rectified that when I was older.

Edit: The first time discovering the warp zone to skip to world 4 is pretty surreal (especially because of the way you then get your ass handed to you by Lakitu in world 4-1)
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
I could have sworn Nintendo did some big 30th anniversary thing last year for this.
 
W

Wanderer5

Member
Such a long time. Didn't play the game till the Deluxe version on the GBC through, but so many wonderful memories from Mario overall. One of my childhood video game characters, and to this day he can still be quite good. Looking forward to getting the Classic Mario Amiibo.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Cody_D165 said:
Quite possibly the most influential platformer of all time. Legendary game. Without it, who knows if I'd even be interested in gaming or even on this forum right now.



okay what the actual fuck
Click to expand...

Quick explanation:


You put in the Mario Bros cart. It sets up addresses with certain values in memory, then you play the game.

Swap cart. Put in Tennis. Tennis is now writing values to certain addresses in memory. Since you didn't power down, the NES has maintained all the values at addresses Mario Bros wrote to, but that Tennis didn't explicitly clear when it started.

So now you've used Tennis to write certain values in memory.

Swap carts back to Mario Bros, then send it the reset signal - which only clears the addresses Mario Bros is programmed to reset when it detects the reset button being pressed. The Reset button isn't hardware level, it's actually just like a button on the controller that the game can decide what it wants to do with when pressed.

Mario Bros doesn't zero out all of the NES's RAM when you reset, so any values Tennis wrote are now still in memory. Those values happen to be in the area it looks for level data, or can even mess with where it looks for the data in the first place, and boom, scrambled levels.


The likely reason it works so well with Tennis and Mario Bros is they were both early games. Later games that got more clever would explicitly clear or overwrite the RAM on boot (or simply stuffed it all to the last byte), meaning no data could survive resets.


You can do it in a more controlled manner with FAMICOM BASIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeNjkBJSzig
 
F

FleetingFlowAir

Member
Super Mario Bros. definitely wasn't my first game (that would be Super Mario World), but I had a blast playing it on my Dad's NES and later on a GBA. It truly is a legendary classic.
 
N

neopokekun

Member
Remember knowing that the game had eight worlds but didn't realize what that meant until completing the first castle and going from 1-4 to 2-1. I wasn't half way through the game (four stages), there was 28 stages more to go.

In Sweden we still have to wait a while to celebrate it's 30 year release since the we got it on May 15 - 1987 (the first pack-in game for the NES here was Ice Climber).
 
C

Creamium

shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
Side note: if you search for SMB on google today, a question block appears to the right that you can hit with your mouse and coins come out. I wonder if there are other easter eggs out there
 
S

Sorta Maximus

Member
The funny thing is I remember playing Super Mario Bros. in USA arcades way before I snagged an NES. I assume it was the first year the NES was released here, it had a gun and a robot, but I can't remember the timing exactly. I was just happy to play Super Mario Bros. without quarters. I don't think I realised that it played other games at first. Dad's version of XMAS back then was to stroll around in Toys R Us on his weekend visit after XMAS. I picked out my gift, tossed away Rob the Robot, life was good.
 
SonicMegaDrive

SonicMegaDrive

Member
My favorite game of all-time. Games come and games go, but I'll always default back to the original, the greatest, Super Mario Bros.

I'm sure i'll be playing it for 30 more years.
 
S

Sorta Maximus

Member
Does anyone remember how long the Rob the Robot packing was in stores with Gyromite, Duck Hunt, and Super Mario Bros.? Was it only that one XMAS holiday in 1985? I seem to remember watching Back to the Future on video with my NES in the house. I must of had it that 1st year...
 
SonicMegaDrive

SonicMegaDrive

Member
Zee-Row said:
Miyamoto drew the cover art for the japanese game.
Click to expand...

Yes, he did. When I was young, I thought that style of drawing Mario was the best and whenever I drew the characters I'd always try to emulate that art style. Most people probably look at it today and think it's too ugly or off-model. But I loved it.
 
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