Happy 40th Birthday, Super Mario Bros! Why the Original Game is Still Relevant

Imagine that it’s 1985. You pop Super Mario Bros into your shiny new NES, and you’ve never seen anything like it before. Since you’re used to the Atari 2600 and its simple games, this seems like stepping into a new world. The screen scrolls. The graphics are so detailed they almost pop out of the screen. When you beat Bowser for the first time, you think you’ve completed the game, but no, the princess is in another castle.

Of course, I just described an American experience. In Japan, the North American video game crash was a far away news story, and the Famicom, as the NES was originally known in Japan, was two years old when Super Mario Bros hit the scene. Still the game took all gamers, no matter where they were from, on a journey. No one forgot that feeling when they first ate a mushroom and grew taller, or when they found out that the princess was in another castle. They also got that catchy little 8-bit tune stuck in their heads.

Playing the Game Today

It’s easy to go back to the game since it’s available in the Nintendo Switch Online NES collection, and it even has save states and rewinding. Yes, there are some hiccups that you notice when trying to play the game today. For example, the screen doesn’t scroll left. If you miss a mushroom because it slid offscreen to the left, you’re out of luck. In addition, there are a few levels where you have to figure out which sequence of platforms to jump on or else the level will infinitely loop. There’s a reason why Mario games don’t have those kinds of levels anymore.

Still, I keep coming back to it, more often than the other NES Mario games. If I have a little time to kill, I might boot up Super Mario Bros on my Switch and see how far I can get on three lives. Why is that? Well, even forty years later, the game has a certain charm. That cheery tune can put a smile on your face. The game flows nicely, letting you get in a sort of rhythm as you run and jump. More than anything, it’s just plain fun. It’s simple fun where you don’t have to worry about inventory items or huge maps – you can just kick back and play.

So, Is the Original Game Still Relevant?

Yes, it absolutely is. While it may no longer have the “wow” factor it had forty years ago, it’s still very easy to lose yourself in the Mushroom Kingdom. Even if you ignore its historical significance, you can have some good old-fashioned fun playing it. Even with the few bumps in the road, the experience is still worthwhile. As the years go by, every generation can come back to Super Mario Bros and take the same journey their parents and grandparents took. It’s amazing what the game developers could do with a few pixels, a catchy tune, and an everyman plumber.

Happy 40th Birthday, Super Mario Bros!