The flagpoles at the end of each stage are a perfect expression of the design philosophy that underlies the whole game. The flagpole encourages you to reach for the top and rewards players that manage to pull it off with extra points. This reward never becomes stale because the game always finds new and slightly more difficult variations to this simple challenge that often smartly encompass the elements already introduced in the stage itself. But these penultimate tests of skill remain mostly optional and don’t hinder less experienced players from finishing the stage itself. It is perfectly alright to only catch the flagpole at the bottom (turns out it is even better when you speedrun the game) – you’ll still advance to the next stage like everybody else without carrying over any disadvantages for the rest of your playthrough. Even the occasional eruption of fireworks is completely unrelated to how well you performed. The game just occasionally celebrates you for making it one step further.
Despite Super Mario Bros. being the most important and influential game of its time, it is remarkable just how much its design philosophy differs from most platformers that came after it. Sidescrollers on the NES were predominantly about creating difficulty by asking an increasing level of precision from the player while at the same time punishing their mistakes more severely the further they came. This means that you either need expert reflexes or minute memorization of the game to make it through to the end and the vast majority of players won’t acquire either skill without repeating the same obstacles over and over again. Of course, learning through repetition is not problematic in and of itself. Only when combined with limited lives and a general lack of checkpoints or other save options does the habit of placing the most unforgiving challenges towards the end turn many of these games into a more frustrating and unfair than motivating and rewarding experience. In effect, the most difficult challenges become the same ones that players have the fewest chances to practice and experiment with, which completely undermines the idea of learning through repetition.
Although Super Mario Bros. works largely with the same elements mentioned above (finite continues, no permanent checkpoints, increasing demand of precision with a growing number of deadly obstacles), the act of mastering its challenges has far less to do with memorizing enemy placements or optimizing a perfect series of inputs than the impressive speedrun history of the game may suggest. Instead, Nintendo designed the game from the ground up to make the process of learning through repetition – in other words: the game itself as you experience it – as fun and engaging as possible.
The level design often offers multiple routes in almost every course. For example, the path on the ground can present a bigger gauntlet of enemies while the way forward above has more difficult platforming ahead. Hidden passages underground or in the sky might let you skip a tricky section of the level, but perhaps also make you miss out on a valuable power-up. Players have to make real decisions on how to progress, and their choices are likely to change on later attempts depending on their familiarity with the game. However, this is rarely because one option turns out to be clearly better than the others. Rather, the different decisions usually correspond to a player’s level of experience, which means they are primarily between a risky but more rewarding options against a safer but slower approach. Take a basic enemy encounter with a Koopa: It can be avoided, immobilized, or turned into a projectile against other enemies. While the last strategy sounds most tempting, it can also sometimes quite literally backfire. Even the power-ups adhere to this trade-off between risk and reward. The Mushroom and Fire Flower are mostly there to aid less experienced players by giving them extra health or an easy option to deal with opponents. But at no point are they required to beat the game. On the contrary, playing as little Mario has its own advantages like a smaller hitbox or being able to use tiny passages.
The process of active decision making is complemented by Mario’s movement, which allows for great flexibility and even split-second adjustments mid air. You can progress through the game at breakneck speed as well as slowly and methodically and it feels great to race past a course that posed a real challenge a couple of tries earlier. The wide range in Mario’s mobility also makes it pretty likely that you stumble upon small or big secrets fairly regularly, even after dozens of attempts. Every Green Pipe and breakable block not only functions as part of the obstacle course, but also might hide a new short-cut or power-up. Even the simple act of miss-timing a jump can turn into a discovery when you suddenly hit an invisible block. Especially the early levels hide alternative routes that allow you to completely bypass most of the challenges and you only have to beat eight of the 32 levels once you found out about the warp zones, no glitches required.
In the end, the whole point of the flagpole is to give players another opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of the game without punishing those that have not reached that level of skill yet. Super Mario Bros. trusts you to figure out your own way to have fun with it, while still carefully guiding you towards a better understanding of its mechanics and teaching you everything you need to know. This balance occurs so rarely that I could not help but be impressed by how seemingly effortlessly Nintendo found it this early.
__________________
More Super Mario reviews
Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
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Castlevania
Despite Super Mario Bros. being the most important and influential game of its time, it is remarkable just how much its design philosophy differs from most platformers that came after it. Sidescrollers on the NES were predominantly about creating difficulty by asking an increasing level of precision from the player while at the same time punishing their mistakes more severely the further they came. This means that you either need expert reflexes or minute memorization of the game to make it through to the end and the vast majority of players won’t acquire either skill without repeating the same obstacles over and over again. Of course, learning through repetition is not problematic in and of itself. Only when combined with limited lives and a general lack of checkpoints or other save options does the habit of placing the most unforgiving challenges towards the end turn many of these games into a more frustrating and unfair than motivating and rewarding experience. In effect, the most difficult challenges become the same ones that players have the fewest chances to practice and experiment with, which completely undermines the idea of learning through repetition.
Although Super Mario Bros. works largely with the same elements mentioned above (finite continues, no permanent checkpoints, increasing demand of precision with a growing number of deadly obstacles), the act of mastering its challenges has far less to do with memorizing enemy placements or optimizing a perfect series of inputs than the impressive speedrun history of the game may suggest. Instead, Nintendo designed the game from the ground up to make the process of learning through repetition – in other words: the game itself as you experience it – as fun and engaging as possible.
The level design often offers multiple routes in almost every course. For example, the path on the ground can present a bigger gauntlet of enemies while the way forward above has more difficult platforming ahead. Hidden passages underground or in the sky might let you skip a tricky section of the level, but perhaps also make you miss out on a valuable power-up. Players have to make real decisions on how to progress, and their choices are likely to change on later attempts depending on their familiarity with the game. However, this is rarely because one option turns out to be clearly better than the others. Rather, the different decisions usually correspond to a player’s level of experience, which means they are primarily between a risky but more rewarding options against a safer but slower approach. Take a basic enemy encounter with a Koopa: It can be avoided, immobilized, or turned into a projectile against other enemies. While the last strategy sounds most tempting, it can also sometimes quite literally backfire. Even the power-ups adhere to this trade-off between risk and reward. The Mushroom and Fire Flower are mostly there to aid less experienced players by giving them extra health or an easy option to deal with opponents. But at no point are they required to beat the game. On the contrary, playing as little Mario has its own advantages like a smaller hitbox or being able to use tiny passages.
The process of active decision making is complemented by Mario’s movement, which allows for great flexibility and even split-second adjustments mid air. You can progress through the game at breakneck speed as well as slowly and methodically and it feels great to race past a course that posed a real challenge a couple of tries earlier. The wide range in Mario’s mobility also makes it pretty likely that you stumble upon small or big secrets fairly regularly, even after dozens of attempts. Every Green Pipe and breakable block not only functions as part of the obstacle course, but also might hide a new short-cut or power-up. Even the simple act of miss-timing a jump can turn into a discovery when you suddenly hit an invisible block. Especially the early levels hide alternative routes that allow you to completely bypass most of the challenges and you only have to beat eight of the 32 levels once you found out about the warp zones, no glitches required.
In the end, the whole point of the flagpole is to give players another opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of the game without punishing those that have not reached that level of skill yet. Super Mario Bros. trusts you to figure out your own way to have fun with it, while still carefully guiding you towards a better understanding of its mechanics and teaching you everything you need to know. This balance occurs so rarely that I could not help but be impressed by how seemingly effortlessly Nintendo found it this early.
__________________
More Super Mario reviews
Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
More NES reviews
Castlevania