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The original Super Mario Bros. didn't age well

I really don't agree with this. I just played through every level a few weeks ago on my Retron 5 and thought it looked and played great.

That said, NES is my favorite system of all time.
 
This thread just made me boot up the VC version on my 3DS so I could refresh myself on what the first two world 8 stages entailed since I just couldn't remember them at all.
Sprinting through the final half of 8-1 made me feel like a champ, tense enough for my palms to start getting a touch moist dare I say, then the mere sight of Lakitu in 8-2 caused me to to be reduced into a fearful state and I died twice in the very first section leading to a game over.

Safe to say I play this one completely different to the rest of the series, I don't have the confidence to speed through stages here, I'm incredibly cautious, I tend to just jump over lines of enemies, avoid kicking shells and have to prepare myself for the tougher jumps.
If anything this tells me that while I find the game unwieldy it's still got that certain something, dare I say its unique form of momentum on Mario's jumps is what I love and loathe about it.
Younger me was so much better at this game, it's like years of inactivity with the game have made me unable to re-adapt to its physics, Lost Levels would chew me up and spit me out now.

Also the inability to go backwards is part of what makes the hammer bros so fantastically fearful for me, I would not change this.
 
Bomber Bob said:
the original SMB is one of the few NES games that age wonderfully IMHO

Controls are still good, it's fun to play, doesn't feel dated, the formula still works.

Ageless classic.
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Exactly how I feel. Great game. It's a timeless classic that I can return to when in the mood.
 
It's aged very well.

The only time you die is due to your own screw ups. Control is pretty damn good and it has a challenge but only one that is fair without dumbing down things for you like games today.
 
Carnby said:
I haven't seen this much backlash since the Fifth Element Sucks thread.
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But that hair though...
lJP5Vcg.jpg


Also, Super Mario Bros. still one of the best.
 
wondermega said:
SMB is pretty tight. There's countless articles online about how and why the design and aesthetic is so perfectly honed, especially considering the climate that spawned it. For me, I always will love the immediacy and urgency of the game.. Its linear-but-with-exceptions layout (play how you like essentially) - and while many will claim that it is too stripped-down for their liking, I'll argue that it is simply not weighted down with fluff. Croon about SMB3 all you like, it is a masterpiece level game in so many ways, but for me games like that just have too many things going on. Have faith in strong mechanics and design and let the game go from there. SMB achieved this in spades where all of it's predecessors were different animals entirely. And now all these years later, after having plaques umpteen thousand different platformer over the decades, I wanna kick back with (quite literally) the old standards where that spark of design originated from, purely, before they started heaping "everything but the kitchen sink" on top. Maybe modern gamers can't understand this quite as well since they have only ever experienced so much of the latter before the former. I guess this is what old cinephiles argue about as well, however.
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I'm not so sure you can use the "elegant in its simplicity" argument to describe the original Super Mario Bros. First of all, consider its contemporaries, which were, by and large, singularly focused arcade games like Pac-Man that could be described in two or three rules. SMB, with its reliance on level design (as opposed to simply doing the same thing over and over again with increasingly difficult constraints) and the presence of a large number of mechanics, was arguably the opposite of elegant in its simplicity. It seems simple by today's standards -- although I would argue against even that, given that games like VVVVVV have slimmed down the platformer rulebook considerably from SMB -- but not by those of 1985.

I would argue that Super Mario Bros.' success came from its complexity. It, unlike most of the trash being spewed out in the early 1980s, was complicated and interesting enough to justify its own existence. Furthermore, I would say that its success is not a triumph over design over gimmicks as this argument hadn't quite entered the debate. If anything, SMB's competitors were too simple, and the console audience was hyper-receptive to gameplay with narrative (not in the literary sense but in the continuity sense). That people now see the design as harboring some golden properties is probably more of a result of its legions of imitators than anything else.

EDIT: I think it's also worth noting that the case of Super Mario Bros. indicates pretty clearly that simplicity in design isn't necessarily a good thing given its position somewhere in the middle between "arcade simple" and needlessly complex. The best analogy I can use to describe this is through three classical tactical board games: Checkers, chess, and go. Go is about as simple as a game can get, with only two real rules. Checkers is about as simple. Chess, with its different pieces and specific plays, is quite a bit more complicated. None of these games have any element of luck, nor are they affected by the external trivialities that games that don't rely on a simple design are often accused of having (such as an emphasis on non-gameplay things), and yet in those three games you have two with nearly infinite competitive depth with contrasting degrees of simplicity -- Chess and go. Simplicity is a poor predictor of depth and quality.

Having said that, I definitely appreciate when something manages to produce depth out of simplicity, probably more so than when it is produced out of complexity.
 
BolognaSoup said:
Maybe the most wrong opinion I've ever seen on GAF.

Try watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2wGpEZVgE&list=TLf3JsMDTWdDPfYku9yDhEB9QD0588J0a6
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I think there's a lot of straight up empty babble in this video. He's less describing Super Mario Bros. and more describing games that aren't intuitive in their design. He also reads far further into the aspects of the first ten seconds of the game than I'm sure the people who made the game did; while he points out some nice things about them, he doesn't really provide any evidence that they made their choices for the reasons that he said they did. His point about the game basically pigeonholing you into grabbing the mushroom is complete nonsense.

At two points it became obvious to me that he was just trying to put a spin on something he clearly already liked, and that was in his favorable description of the arbitrary, invisible 1UP secret (does he think the original LoZ is the epitome of design too?) and his glossing over of the warp pipe.
 
In it's own genre SMB is timeless, it nails all the key components of what make a good 2D platformer, good stage design, challenge and physics.
 
Rubius said:
And try this.

SMB is not a bad game, it's just not a good game. There is tons and tons of better game on the NES.
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Did you even watch what you posted? The guy even says it's a great game before trying to find 4 negatives. He came up with -

-Bad multiplayer mode
-Pointless time limit
-Repetitive music
-Bad story

Cmon.

Fugu said:
I think there's a lot of straight up empty babble in this video. He's less describing Super Mario Bros. and more describing games that aren't intuitive in their design. He also reads far further into the aspects of the first ten seconds of the game than I'm sure the people who made the game did; while he points out some nice things about them, he doesn't really provide any evidence that they made their choices for the reasons that he said they did. His point about the game basically pigeonholing you into grabbing the mushroom is complete nonsense.

At two points it became obvious to me that he was just trying to put a spin on something he clearly already liked, and that was in his favorable description of the arbitrary, invisible 1UP secret (does he think the original LoZ is the epitome of design too?) and his glossing over of the warp pipe.
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On the contrary, they DID think that extensively about small things like that.

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/nsmb/0/3

More insight -

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/mario25th/4/3

Tezuka: "It wasn't by chance. (laughs) As I designed a level, I would anticipate how the players would play it, and then I would show it to Miyamoto-san."

"He would look at it and make comments like, "The player will probably approach it this way. When an enemy appears here, the player will run this way, but we don't want the player to hit Mario's head on that, so..." Then I'd fix what didn't feel right."
 
I honestly thought that this was a troll thread (and it might still be one) but the original game is pure gameplay. There's no gimmicks it's just a straight forward platformer. To say that it hasn't held up well is to say that the formula for 2D platformers hasn't held up well, but the OP stated that he likes SMB 2 and 3 so I dunno...

homerback.gif
 
Rubius said:
And try this.

SMB is not a bad game, it's just not a good game. There is tons and tons of better game on the NES.
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lol
so his first point is...there's no coop. that isn't really a negative about the game design, but ok..(this also applies to every single mario game until nsmb wii)

2nd: the time limit. that also applies to more games than just this. and i think is prettttty insignificant

3rd: there's only a few songs in the soundtrack. again...lol

4th: the fucking STORY is bad?


nice try, guy
 
Personally I think it aged better than the majority of platformers from the 8-bit era. The original Super Mario Bros. may look simplistic compared to its successors, but it is still one of the most well balanced and finely tuned games to date.
 
mattp said:
lol
so his first point is...there's no coop. that isn't really a negative about the game design, but ok..(this also applies to every single mario game until nsmb wii)

2nd: the time limit. that also applies to more games than just this. and i think is prettttty insignificant

3rd: there's only a few songs in the soundtrack. again...lol

4th: the fucking STORY is bad?


nice try, guy
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The last one was totally hilarious. The story is straight-forward. Why is Mario there? Why not? They never said he wasn't an inhabitant of the Mushroom Kingdom. If anything, Mario lore(LOL) paints that he has ties to the Mushroom Kingdom. He doesn't come from Brooklyn or our Earth, the world where Mario comes from is one of many mysterious and fantastical lands, some more "earth-like", while others are not.

I gotta agree with everybody else regarding the physics. It's actually a nice staple in the Mario series that hasn't really been downgraded(if much), UNLIKE the Sonic series, which just seemed to get worse and worse.
 
orborborb said:
Super Mario World is the one that aged poorly for me, I just can't enjoy the physics and level design of that game any more, the experience isn't dense enough.
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Wow! I just fired this up last night on VC, and couldn't get into it at all. It really hasn't aged as well as I thought it would.
 
MagnaderAlpha said:
The last one was totally hilarious. The story is straight-forward. Why is Mario there? Why not? They never said he wasn't an inhabitant of the Mushroom Kingdom. If anything, Mario lore (LOL) paints that he has ties to the Mushroom Kingdom. He doesn't come from Brooklyn or our Earth, the world where Mario comes from is one of many mysterious and fantastical lands, some more "earth-like", while others are not.
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See Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island for that answer.
 
ShinUltramanJ said:
Wow! I just fired this up last night on VC, and couldn't get into it at all. It really hasn't aged as well as I thought it would.
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I'm curious which controller you used. I found using a GCN controller I couldn't get into it at all, but playing on a DS Lite (which IMO has one of the best d-pads ever) I really enjoyed it a ton.
 
I think it's aged well, but I personally don't like it. I can't stand the controls.
 
For a game that's about 30 years old I think it's aged fairly well. I have a soft spot for the look of the first round of nes games and I think it still plays quite good.
 
mattp said:
lol
so his first point is...there's no coop. that isn't really a negative about the game design, but ok..(this also applies to every single mario game until nsmb wii)

2nd: the time limit. that also applies to more games than just this. and i think is prettttty insignificant

3rd: there's only a few songs in the soundtrack. again...lol

4th: the fucking STORY is bad?


nice try, guy
Click to expand...

Compare it to Super Mario Bros 3.
Super Mario Bros 3 still had no active coop in the levels, but you could do a versus against him in a Super Mario style game. And the goal was to beat more levels than your adversery.

There is still a time limit, but it's way more leniant than the first one.

Super Mario Bros have 4 song in the soundtrack, Overworld, Underworld, Underwater and Castle. Super Mario Bros 3 have dozens and dozens, each overworld have it's own music, bonus music, stage music are multiples. It put Super Mario Bros to shame.

The story is explained in Super Mario Bros 3. You have kings transformed by the kids of koopa and you help them. Peach help you with powerups, it has an actual story.

Super Mario Bros 3 is probably one of the best platformer if not the best platformer on the NES. Super Mario Bros 1 is no where near that title. It's not even in the same realm. There is dozens and dozens of platformers who are better on the NES than Super Mario Bros. Being the first at doing something do not make your product the best. It might be revolutionary, but does not mean it hold up.
 
beril said:
Maybe not better, but in some way it has aged better and feel more relevant today than SMB3 does. SMB3 for me was eclipsed by SMW in every way and there's very little reason to go back to it, but SMB1 is still the one to play if you want straight forward platforming without much gimmicks.

some of the graphics are honestly a bit rough even by NES standards though, but it's made irrelevant by the fact that every sprite and tile in the game is iconic.
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I actually think SMB3 is better than SMW for a lot of reasons. SMW felt somehow contextual to its day and age, and added complexity in design that didn't necessarily made the game better: there's plenty of scenarios that are basically made to showcase some kind of novel game concept and design element, while SMB3 is a more "serious" game that's simpler but explores all its design elements splendidly.

Cyrano said:
Its minimalist architecture and excellent design is why it remains an ageless classic. The game's physics are entirely intentional, and while I've heard, many times, that the ability to not go backwards is a flaw, it is an exceptionally smart design decision and encourages momentum-based play. It may not be the best platformer, but it is still better than most.
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Momentum-based play in SMB can really be done only if you know perfectly the layout of a level: because you have almost not control after a jump (apart from killing your momentum and making some jumps impossible) and because of the fact the when you jump on an enemy you have no control of the height of the subsequent jump (like you do for the first one) I'd say that momentum-based play for this game can only really be done by speedrunners and such.

Also, I can't see how it's smart to not allow me to grab a few coins I missed just a couple of steps back.

I don't think the original SMB aged well if you consider it a platformer, but if you consider it like a shmup or some kind of endless runner, I guess it did. Also, I think that the additional complexity, compared to endless arcade games that were based on points rather that reaching a particular goal, and the sense of exploration both contributed to the success of the game when it came out, but today they feel dated.

About the double-posted Extra Credits video: it is true that the original SMB is like a textbook of game design because it shows some very good patterns for the basics, but still this doesn't make it a perfect game.
 
Rubius said:
Super Mario Bros 3 is probably one of the best platformer if not the best platformer on the NES. Super Mario Bros 1 is no where near that title. It's not even in the same realm. There is dozens and dozens of platformers who are better on the NES than Super Mario Bros. Being the first at doing something do not make your product the best. It might be revolutionary, but does not mean it hold up.
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Well go for it, start naming better platformers(aside from the already mentioned SMB2 and 3). You claim there are dozens and dozens, I'm calling your bluff.
 
It's nice on occasion but it controls like ass - at least in terms of the stage layouts. Early stages are fun but midway, and ergh. It increasingly feels like trial-and-error because oops, Mario's trajectory controls as well as a bowling ball.
 
It hasn't aged well? I find that surprising to hear since I can't really recall any other old game that I still semi-regularly play as much. Not any older that is for sure.
 
poorlonelycomputer said:
Wait. Dozens...on the NES? That's a specious claim even if you meant in the whole history of video games but I can't even think of, like, five NES platformers that hold a candle to SMB.
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I can think of some good ones, Kirby's Adventure, Felix the Cat, Tiny Toon Adventures(which is really a reskinned SMB 3), the Disney/Capcom games, Goonies II even, but not dozens.
 
SMB1 hasn't aged poorly at all, it's just different than modern Mario players are used to because of the physics. SMB3 was dramatically different and much closer to what people are used to these days. SMB1 just takes a little readjustment but it is and will always be a timeless game.
 
flak57 said:
Tezuka: "It wasn't by chance. (laughs) As I designed a level, I would anticipate how the players would play it, and then I would show it to Miyamoto-san."

"He would look at it and make comments like, "The player will probably approach it this way. When an enemy appears here, the player will run this way, but we don't want the player to hit Mario's head on that, so..." Then I'd fix what didn't feel right."
Click to expand...
This quote simply reasons that the level wasn't designed by a random block generator, and that Miyamoto realized the value of not putting the game's first enemy in a low tunnel. That's not exactly genius-level design, it's basic.
 
Biggest thread backfire in GAF history lol?

Not to shame the OP, but it's almost unanimous in its contrary opinion lol.
 
Dishwalla said:
I can think of some good ones, Kirby's Adventure, Felix the Cat, Tiny Toon Adventures(which is really a reskinned SMB 3), the Disney/Capcom games, Goonies II even, but not dozens.
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Yeah I love Kirby and several of the Disney/Capcom games but I'd put all of them behind SMB1 and 3. I will cop to being a Mario snob when it comes to platformers though.
 
Fugu said:
I think there's a lot of straight up empty babble in this video. He's less describing Super Mario Bros. and more describing games that aren't intuitive in their design. He also reads far further into the aspects of the first ten seconds of the game than I'm sure the people who made the game did; while he points out some nice things about them, he doesn't really provide any evidence that they made their choices for the reasons that he said they did. His point about the game basically pigeonholing you into grabbing the mushroom is complete nonsense.

At two points it became obvious to me that he was just trying to put a spin on something he clearly already liked, and that was in his favorable description of the arbitrary, invisible 1UP secret (does he think the original LoZ is the epitome of design too?) and his glossing over of the warp pipe.
Click to expand...
He linked an Iwata Asks where Miyamoto discusses the the first mushroom and for the most part it's spot on
 
entrement said:
Biggest thread backfire in GAF history lol?

Not to shame the OP, but it's almost unanimous in its contrary opinion lol.
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It could happen that someone has some particular opinion that's not shared by the majority of GAF. I didn't think my opinion was actually that horrible, to be honest: I expected more users agreeing with me, and I was certainly wrong in that.

Also, apart from pointing out that it's an influential classic and that a lot of people still regularly enjoy the game, I didn't read any argument that could help me in not feeling that SMB is very dated as a platformer (my shmup/runner point was ironic).
 
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