Arcade Archives: Mario Bros.

One thing I’ve noticed while playing Mario Bros: people either love and defend the 1983 arcade original and its direct ports, or they love and defend the numerous remakes of it, some of which happened in games like the Mario Advance series, as a competitive minigame in Super Mario 3, or even as a Virtual Boy game. Regardless of the quality of the coin-op (spoiler: it sucks), that tells me that the fundamental concept is one of Nintendo’s biggest home runs during their formative years as a game maker. Of all their early titles, it’s certainly the one with the most staying power. And that’s kind of amazing, because Mario Bros really sucks. Sorry for those that I didn’t give proper spoiler warning to above.

For those that say “you’d of had more fun if you played (name of game) co-op”, I played Mario Bros. co-op. I didn’t have fun and dragged an innocent child’s weekend down with me. I’m a monster thanks to your peer pressure. Hope you can sleep at night now, because I won’t be able to. Also, you can’t play the high-score modes or caravan modes co-op. Maybe an option for a version of both would have been nice, but so far the only game in the Arcade Archive series that seems to have gone the extra mile is Donkey Kong, which includes three different ROMs for the game.

Okay, that’s a bit unfair. Mario Bros. actually has a lot going for it, including co-op. People have complained that I don’t always play these arcade games the “best way”, IE with a partner. Because I guess miserly loves company. But the thing is, my family doesn’t really like misery. They get enough of it from me. But, I conned my nephew C.J. into playing a round with me. He couldn’t quite comprehend what the game in question was. “Mario Bros!” “Mario Maker 2?” “Mario Bros!” “New Super Mario DX?” “Mario Bros!” “Mario 3D World?” “Mario Bros!” “I uh.. Mario Maker 1?” That’s not a joke, by the way. He couldn’t compute the concept. Then I showed it to him and I’m convinced he played deliberately poorly just to escape. He’s a shifty one.

By the way, if not for how bad the emulation for Punch-Out!! seems to be, this would be by far the worst of the Arcade Archives releases. Not because the emulation is bad. It’s not, except for the sound. My understanding is that all the authentic pre-Donkey Kong 3 Nintendo arcade games had strange sound programming that requires emulators to take actual audio recordings in .wav files in order to have, you know, noise. It made the sound effects of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. sound strange. But at least the audio was clear for those. For Mario Bros, sometimes the sound effects sound washed out, like they’re coming from another room. I’d show you a 30 second clip, but video capture is disabled for this one. It’s the first time that’s happened during this mini-series I’m doing. Which really means my fans are just being spared seeing me post roughly two-thousands videos of me dying in a fire(ball).

Probably the biggest difference between all these arcade games and their NES counterparts are the lack of cut scenes. NES Donkey Kong doesn’t have the “how high can you get” screens. Donkey Kong Jr. is missing cut scenes and animations. Mario Bros. is missing explanation screens. It made me wonder why they couldn’t do these things on the NES. The NES went on to do impressive things graphically. Well, I found out that it was a cost-cutting thing. Back in 1983, every KB cost extra money.

Yea, those fucking fireballs. I get why they’re there. Being an arcade game, Mario Bros. was expected to generate revenue for arcade operators. You can’t do that if players last too long. Ideally, you want a fun game where players last just long enough to make them think they’ve got skills, then die in a way where it sure seems like the player, or those watching, think they could have done better. They drop quarters, then die again in the same spot because it’s close to fucking impossible. That’s Mario Bros, only they forgot the fun part.

After a few stages, fireballs start to spawn with such breakneck frequency that it felt like there was no opening to flip the enemies over. I’d go to jump over the fireballs and they seemed like they’d always zag straight into me. You can kill the fireballs the same way you flip enemies over for lots of bonus points, but the vulnerable surface area of them seems very small, and the timing of even being able to stop them is so short that you’re more likely to die pursuing it than you are to succeed. And while all this is going on, the actual enemies you’re supposed to be targeting are still walking around, doing their thing.

The POW block isn’t as useful as you’d think. The crabs take two hits. The flies can’t be hit if they’re not on the floor. For the five-minute mode, I found I did better when I burned it early to shave time.

Mario Bros. goes from simple, reasonable challenge to unmanageable cluster-fuck of shit happening with so little transition in-between that I can’t believe this isn’t remembered alongside Defender or Smash TV as one of the all-time hardest arcade games. It’s insane how tough it is. And this isn’t helped by some of the most slippery, imprecise movement controls of any Golden Age of Arcades title. I actually longed for the lumbering, heavy movement of Donkey Kong Jr. multiple times while playing this steamer, because at least that was accurate. Mario Bros. actually introduces little sentient ice monsters that, if not stopped, will freeze platforms and cause slipping. To quote Dorthy Parker when she heard Calvin Coolidge died: “how can they tell?” Because this shit is already buttered-floor levels of slick to begin with.

There’s less bonus stages in the arcade version too I think. You certainly get the bonus levels faster in the NES version, which only opens with two turtle waves. The arcade game has three before you get to the first bonus round. I pictured a seedy arcade operator, shirt stained, cheap cigar hanging out of his mouth, saying “BONUS STAGES? FREE LIVES? DO YOU THINK I’M RUNNING A FUCKING CHARITY HERE?”

To Mario Bros.’s credit, the framework for something special was laid here. I didn’t like it, but at least the foundation gave rise to Super Mario Bros. and the modern game industry as a whole. And actually, the five minute caravan mode is best with Mario Bros. because it takes about four minutes for everything to become out-of-hand. When things get unplayable then, at least the game is going to end within a minute. Funny enough, I fired up the NES/Famicom version of Mario Bros. to compare to the arcade original. The graphics are a major step down on the NES, more-so than any other arcade game I’ve played so far. And, while the movement is more accurate and less slippery, the home version has a horrible Ice Climber-like glitch where you clip right through the platform if you jump in a certain way. So there were tons of times where I was trying to jump onto the platform above me and went straight fucking through it and back down to the level I was already on, or even lower. That doesn’t happen in the arcade version. That really sucks because now I have to turn my six-game marathon into a seven game one and buy Arcade Archives: Ice Climber to see if the clipping isn’t present in the arcade version of that, which I consider the NES version to be the worst Nintendo game ever. Fuck you Mario Bros. for making me do that.

Fine, but I draw the line at Clu Clu Land. I think that’s reasonable.

Arcade Archives: Mario Bros. was developed by Hamster
Point of Sale: Nintendo Switch

$7.99 said the crabs and flies sort of got the shaft in the Mario universe in the making of this review.

While all indies I review are purchased by me out of pocket, a fan paid for Arcade Archives: Mario Bros. for me. I matched their purchase price with a donation to Direct Relief. Last year, they provided relief to my home state of California, and they’ll sadly have to do it again this year. They need money though. Give them some, please.