Mario Bros. retrospective: The overlooked evolutionary link | NES Works #022

When I got SMB3 I was shocked it had a version of Mario Bros. in the cart. Spent a whole bunch of times with friends fighting against each other in that mode when we weren't playing actual SMB3.

Watching this on a device that only plays Youtube videos back at 30fps, the flickering half-sprites of the NES version look like a trip.

Mario Bros. was also the coin debut. I got this game as a kid after playing Super Mario 3. At first I thought it was old and boring but, oh boy was I wrong. It became better with age, and now it's one of my favourite pick-up-and-play games for the NES.

I had this game on the Commodore 64. my friends and I played it a lot. it was great fun. In fact, by the time I saw SMB on NES, I was already familiar with Mario because of this game.

It's kind of interesting how Nintendo took the basic gameplay of Mario Bros. in a radically different direction (Jumping and hitting things from below) while Taito took the basic game rules - single screen, stun and kill all enemies - and expanded on it with Fairyland Story and Bubble Bobble.

in my opinion, the most addictive arcade game Nintendo ever made, Balloon Fight being second which is like a mix of this game and Joust

Mario Bros is one of my most-played games in the arcade. Such a great arcade game.

Technically Luigi made a cameo appearance at the beginning of Donkey Kong Junior, although he was wearing the same outfit as Mario...this was changed in Donkey Kong Junior Remix...Luigi is wearing his green outfit

Can you imagine, if they did a Mario Brothers 2 instead of Super Mario Brothers?

I still have good memories of playing the C64 port of this.

I guess I had a different experience from the norm: I came to the NES (and SMB) late in its life after playing a ton of Mario Bros on the Atari 7800. Always loved this game!

I always called this game "Regular Mario Bros." as a kid. Decent enough arcade-style game. I mean, it's more fun than Ice Climber.

I played hours upon hours of Mario Bros on my Atari 5200 long before the NES. It was a good port.

I love Mario Bros. I sometimes think I like it more than Super Mario Bros.

I remember playing this a lot on the Atari 5200 my friend had. It looked good, and played good. Always enjoyed this game as a kid. This was before I even had played an NES.

I forget which one right now, but a company has been making little Amiibo-like figures of Mario characters, and I had to pick up the versions of Mario and Luigi based on the arcade cabinet renditions from Mario Bros. I love those early 80's designs, which have so much in common with vintage 30's cartoon characters. Oh yeah, I love the game too! It's fascinating to track the evolution of the Mario franchise in the early years and how it accrued its tropes. I'm actually kind of surprised that Mario's steel trap minions from Donkey Kong Jr. have never surfaced again as a weapon.

The platforms that bring Mario & Luigi to the game after they die is used in the Super Smash Bros games

Our family had an unofficial DOS port designed to utilize VGA graphics. It was the first video game I ever felt I really got good at.

I like this game. Now it's the most played one (with Balloon fight) on my Classic Mini NES.

I owned this game on GBA. It was one of my favorites, alongside both Metroid games