Super Mario Bros. (NES) Playthrough

A playthrough of Nintendo's 1985 platformer for the NES, Super Mario Bros.

Forty years ago today, Super Mario Bros. first launched on the Nintendo Famicom, and a month later, it came to North America.

I feel like an old man telling stories from good old days when I say this, but it's hard to believe that so much time has passed. I got my NES for Christmas in 1988, when I was in the first grade. It came with the 2-in-1 Super Mario/Duck Hunt cartridge, and wow. I had a 2600 and played it to death, but the NES was worlds beyond the decrepit Atari. Playing Super Mario Bros. was like discovering video games for the very first time. Everyone talks about how revolutionary it was, and they're right. Nintendo is the company they are today largely thanks to this game, and it's hard to describe in words just how big of a deal it truly was.

But anyways, my gushing gaming origins story-tell aside, Super Mario Bros. is the game responsible for the platforming genre as we know it, not to mention the lasting contributions it made to shaping the philosophy of game design in general. Quite deservedly, Mario is one of the most widely recognized pop culture icons in the world. Does the game really need any further introduction?

In this video, for the first loop, I play the game straight through without using warp zones.

In the second loop (34:49), I take what I believe is the shortest possible path through the game. I warp from 1-2 to 4-1, and then again from 4-2 to 8-1. Once I'd mastered the game as a kid, this was the way I usually played it. It was a great way to burn ten or fifteen minutes before school or when dinner wasn't ready yet.

I've played this before for the channel, but I thought Mario deserved a nice, razor-sharp presentation of his first visit to the Mushroom Kingdom, so this is a brand new playthrough for 4K.

I love Super Mario Bros., and chances are, if you've ever played a 2D platformer, you do as well. Doesn't the world seem so much nicer when people agree on how awesome something is?

Happy birthday, Mario!

You can see the Game Boy Color version (SMB Deluxe) here:
   • Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (Game Boy Color) ...  

And here is the 16-bit version from Super Mario All-Stars:    • Super Mario Bros. (SNES) Playthrough - Nin...  
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!