Não sei se seria exagero chamar esse aqui de jogo mais importante da minha vida. Acho que está ali empatado com Super Mario 64... e até ontem à noite eu meio que nem me lembrava dele. Foi só quando estava vendo alguns vídeos à procura de um outro game (Mario & Luigi, encontrado em todo santo computador na minha adolescência) que parei pra checar se não seria o primeiro Super Mario Bros., afinal de contas, quando--ei, esse aí é o jogo que passei a infância jogando no Dynavision! Que loucura, como não tinha adicionado ainda?!

Hoje em dia é uma outra experiência. Quase dá vontade de falar que lembro dele ser mais difícil, mas não é uma comparação justa: jogar isso aqui sem a opção de salvar do NSO e sem poder conferir algumas coisas, como o caminho certo em alguns dos castelos finais, devia mesmo ser uma experiência de outro mundo, e não no bom sentido. Mas eu adorava, então acho que dá pra dizer que é uma maravilha de qualquer jeito, em qualquer era.

A menos que a gente esteja falando do Lakitu. Lakitu, você é horrível e merece a PRISÃO. Você sabe o que fez.

super mario bros is legendary. the physics of mario feel more advanced than anything that came before it, so movement feels natural and satisfying. the level design is consistently great, with a good progression in terms of difficulty. there’s a good bit of variety to the enemies, and there’s a reason all their designs have stayed mostly the same to this day. this is because they are awesome, much like the music which is also awesome and iconic. no matter how long i play the game i never find myself growing tired of the music or the gameplay, so for all intents and purposes, it’s a perfect experience. searching for secret warp pipes, vines, stars, one-ups, and more just never gets old.

I genuinely wanted to love this game, and I almost did, but i HATE the last two levels to the point where it docks a whole half star off for me. Hammer Bros are such annoying enemies to deal with and have such inconsistent behavior that after having to replay the levels of World 8 probably over 15 or more times, these enemies were the only thing that were killing me consistently anymore. They are so, so frustrating and while to some this may be an iconic aspect of the game, I just cannot stand it at all.

To me it's a real shame, because I think all the way up to the latter half of World 8, barring like... one of the Castle levels that randomly make you do an esoteric maze [which is what the final level decides to do as well for some god forsaken reason], this game is consistently solid, fun, and has fair but mildly challenging course design. Mario's physics are also a point of contention for some, but I personally find it fun how much weight all of Mario's movements have; it channels a similar appeal to Donkey Kong while just being that bit more maneuverable. I'd liken it to controlling a car just because of how much momentum Mario carries with each of his movements, which is especially fun to wrangle with in some of the tougher stages. It's not hard to understand why they changed it in future titles, but it certainly gives this game a unique feel from the rest of the Super Mario side scrollers which I appreciate so much. After all, this game's simple level design simply wouldn't work as well if it weren't for Mario just being that smidge difficult to maneuver through the stages. To me personally, it's a fantastic balance of restriction and control compared to past attempts with stuff like Wrecking Crew and Donkey Kong.

It also shouldn't be understated how revolutionary this game was for the time it came out, but for how many of these levels are bangers with that mindset, it makes the last few stinkers stick out even more in my opinion, and beyond some of the jank you may run into like with Bullet Bills shooting twice randomly, I feel like a lot of my actual 'fuck this game' moments can be traced back to either the Hammer Bros. or the Castle maze segments. Otherwise, once you get used to the physics, I think this still holds up as a classic game and achievement on all fronts.