Super Mario Bros. officially turns 30!

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Hard to believe that one of the most iconic and one of the most popular video games to ever be released will be 30 years old. Super Mario Bros. was first released in Japan on September 13, 1985, then on October 18, 1985 in North America in the New York City metro area during it's NES test market run. Released in 1986 for the other areas of the country, then PAL regions in 1987. I first played Super Mario Bros. In 1987 at a local arcade nearby where I lived in the Seattle metroplex. It was at the B&I Marketplace. The arcadebwas huge and almost 200 games to play. I first played the coin op version which is called Vs. Super Mario Bros. Which came out shortly after the NES release in 1986. When I first played it I was awestruck. It was as if you were going on the adventure as well. Hitting every coin block or brick to see what item would come out, trying to go down every pipe to see what goodies you can muster, and trying to find out and discover any secrets or hidden tricks. I was only 6 when I first played it. Then in 1988 I first played the NES version at one of my friends house. And it was so fun I couldn't even put down the controller and was obsessed with the game and I was mesmerized. That Christmas I got the NES for Christmas along with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. I enjoyed the heck out of Duck Hunt. But Super Mario Bros. is what brought gaming to the next level for me and starting a love to what is now considered to be my favorite game console ever; the NES. And many years down the road it has been released other than the NES and Famicom carts. The Famicom Disk System which has the different minus worlds, Super Mario All-Stars; the graphical upgrade for the SNES and Wii, and finally the Game Boy Color's Super Mario Deluxe. I first beat the game when I was 8 years old in 1989. And the first video game that I have ever conquered. I remember I literally ran out of the house and went over to all my friend's houses telling them about one of my favorite video game accomplishments. And 26 years later it still brings cherished memories. In conclusion Super Mario Bros. is one of my top favorite NES games of all time. The music and sound effects are memorable and bring all of the nostalgia. I always pop it in every couple or few times a month just to relive these countless memories and a piece of my childhood. Any of you like to share your memories. Whether it is fireballing a fake Bowser the first time, the turtle hopping trick at the end of 3-1, discovering the minus world at the end of 1-2, finding the warp zones, or saving Peach at the end of 8-4. Feel free to share.

[fdurso224]

Nice history lesson Keith!

 

 

My parents were at FAO Schwartz in NYC on that date in October 18, 1985 when the NES was doing its test run in the early morning showing it to the public. When it was available for sale that day, my father paid in cash for it as a gift for my sister. I was 2 years old at the time.

 

Big sis still has it the same why it was sold on that date. She only played it a few times and now its up in her ranch in Albany, NY. I think she still has the receipt with it as well.

 

 

 

If you visit the Nintendo World store in NYC on its store opening debut, the prototype of the Famicom based Advanced Video System home computer was available to view for the public. I think its still there!

 

Anthony...

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Wow that is awesome!! Got it right on launch day and she still has all of it 30 years later. Is it the "Deluxe Set" that has R.O.B. the robot packed with Gyromite and Duck Hunt? I know the "Action Set" came out in 1988 which is the one I got. And I believe the "Power Set" came out the same time which came bundled with the power pad plus the 3 in 1 cart of Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, and World Class Track game. I've been to New York City a few times and went to FAO Schwartz as well. Had a blast over there and is one of the funnest cities that I have ever visited. I know today is a pretty emotional day for ya from what happened 14 years ago and I hope you had no family, friends, or close ones affected and impacted from the attacks.

[NE146]

I remember seeing "Mario Bros" (not Super) running on a Famicom in Japan in a store display as a kid and being totally blown away that the graphics and movement quality was so arcade like.. but back then I might as well have been on the moon and when I went home to my 5200 I could only describe it as a exotic video game awesomeness that we would never see in the US like so many other japanese gadgets we saw at the time.

 

Then my little brother went back to Japan not long after for a student exchange thing, and he described the video games he played at his hosts family's house.. I remember how he struggled in that it was Mario but it had so many hidden passages and secrets and you'd break things etc. It sounded completely unlike anything I ever imagined. Of course he was talking about SMB.

 

It's hard to remember now.. but I think the FIRST time I saw the game myself was at an arcade on a playchoice 10. And once I saw it I knew.. that's the game my brother had described... i played it on and off and got maybe to level 1-3. We got a famiclone very quickly after that with SMB, then I graduated from high school, went to the states and bought an NES and SMS. Them's were the days

[fdurso224]

Wow that is awesome!! Got it right on launch day and she still has all of it 30 years later. Is it the "Deluxe Set" that has R.O.B. the robot packed with Gyromite and Duck Hunt? I know the "Action Set" came out in 1988 which is the one I got. And I believe the "Power Set" came out the same time which came bundled with the power pad plus the 3 in 1 cart of Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, and World Class Track game. I've been to New York City a few times and went to FAO Schwartz as well. Had a blast over there and is one of the funnest cities that I have ever visited. I know today is a pretty emotional day for ya from what happened 14 years ago and I hope you had no family, friends, or close ones affected and impacted from the attacks.

 

Hi Keith,

 

Yes, she got the "Deluxe Set" with the R.O.B. My parents use to buy the top of the line products because of the, "you get what you paid for" mentality . Unfortunately, she never really enjoyed it and kept it in the closet growing up. She use to tell me not to play with it because it was an important set and part of history. I didn't understand why at the time, but as time when on, I started to say to myself, "ah, I can see why she never wanted me to play this ".

 

So around Christmas time of 1988, I received the "Action Set" version. Since then I was hooked to Nintendo!

 

Yeah, its quiet around here. 9/11 was a tragic day for us New Yorkers and Americans. My family and I wasn't around there during the attacks in Manhattan. But I went to my local church and prayed for those that lost their lives today!

 

Anthony...

Edited September 11, 2015 by fdurso224

[MaximRecoil]

SMB was the first game I ever played on the NES, which was in 1986 (I was 11), on my cousin Mike's (who is the same age as me) NES which he bought about a week after the NES's nationwide US release.

 

I went over to his house for the weekend, and my aunt said he was up in his room playing video games. I went up there expecting him to be playing his ColecoVision, but instead he had a brand-new NES. The TV commercials for the NES had just come out, and Mike already had one. He was playing SMB, and I thought it looked like a dumb, childish game. The graphics and sound were impressive, though I was no stranger to such things, since I had regularly been playing the latest arcade games for the past couple of years at that point (which had better graphics and sound than the NES), but it was the first time I'd seen anything like that on a home console.

 

I mostly watched Mike play; I tried it a couple of times but I was no good at it, and it didn't seem like a good game anyway.

 

At this point, we didn't know anything at all about the game; had never heard of "warp zones" and didn't even know that you could go down certain pipes. It was me who suggested that Mike try to go down a pipe. Mike said he already tried that, but it didn't work. I said, "Try it again." So on the next pipe he came to, he tried it again and it worked. This discovery made the game more interesting to me. Then there were the vines. Mike would always hit the block to make the vine grow but then just keep going. I said, "Why don't you try to climb the vine?" I also discovered warp zones by suggesting that Mike try to jump up on top of the ceiling. This seemingly large and expansive world with things to discover made the game very interesting to me, and it eventually became one of my favorite games.

 

A couple of years later when SMB 2 came out, Mike rented it for the weekend and we had a blast with that game, though we didn't manage to beat it before it had to go back to the video rental store. Not knowing "Birdo's" actual name, I nicknamed it "Orlo". I was surprised when I found out that its official name, and the name I made up, both ended in "o".

[spoonman]

It's hard to believe it was nearly 30 years ago that I played Super Mario Bros. on the NES!

 

After a lot of begging my awesome parents bought me a NES (pre) Deluxe Set in the Fall of 1985.

I played the hell out of Duck Hunt. I even managed to have a bit of fun with the R.O.B. and Gyromite.

I followed those up with the other available Black Box games available for purchase.

 

Soon after that a Vs. Super Mario Bros. arcade cabinet showed up at our local arcade and I had heard it was coming out for the NES. This was around late November of '85. The arcade was located directly across from a Kay-Bee Toys & Hobby store, which always had the latest and greatest video games on display at the time, so after playing it in the arcade I would always walk over and bug the manager as to when they would get it in stock. He eventually agreed to call me when it came in.

 

Then one cold, January (1986) morning in New York, we finally got the chance to play Super Mario Bros...in our own homes! After spending countless amounts of money and waiting in line at the arcade I had the chance to take my time with it and break almost every block I could reach to find the hidden treasures!

 

I convinced my dad to drive me straight to Kay-Bee at the mall where the manager, knowing I was a 13 year old video game maniac, let me open the Nintendo shipment box full of SMB copies. It was an honor!

I recall the manager telling my dad how I [jokingly] bugged him every chance I got and how he hoped others would be as excited to buy a copy as I was.

 

Here's a picture I took of my NES collection soon after buying Super Mario Bros. in early 1986.

You can also see some other gaming goodness if you look around. My R.O.B. was promoted to guard duty with his own flashlight.

 

Now here it is 30 years later and I'm still enjoying Super Mario Bros. as I play and design Super Mario Maker levels. Good times!

[Cynicaster]

I remember playing SMB for the first time at a kiosk in Woolco one day when I was out shopping with my mom. Not sure exactly when it was; probably right in the midst of the post-crash North American NES sales push in ‘86/’87. We had a 2600 at the time, and I remember thinking Super Mario was pretty awesome (along with Duck Hunt, also at that kiosk) but for whatever reason my brother and I still went on to ask our parents for an Atari 7800 as our next console, sight unseen. We enjoyed it a lot at first, but quickly grew disillusioned with it. We ended up ditching the 7800 for the NES about a year later, because the games on the Nintendo were just so much more abundant, and so much better.

 

I never imagined at the time that SMB would go on to be such a classic. I enjoyed it, played it a fair bit, finished it, etc. but to be brutally honest, I never understood why it was *the* game that everybody wanted to play. I remember getting kind of annoyed by that, actually, wishing my friends would show more interest in other games.

 

All that aside, the game is completely timeless and every bit as playable and fun in 2015 as it was in the 80s. That is rare.

[darthkur]

I really can't recall when or where I first seen SMB. I was aware of the NES being increasingly popular but didn't have any desire to buy one since I felt I had already spent a fortune on an Intellivision, ColecoVision and Atari 5200. I ended up getting one for x-mas, either in 87 or 88. Didn't take long to get into the games, although I never got that many of them brand new back then. I've since made up for that.

[0078265317]

It's hard to believe it was nearly 30 years ago that I played Super Mario Bros. on the NES!

 

After a lot of begging my awesome parents bought me a NES (pre) Deluxe Set in the Fall of 1985.

I played the hell out of Duck Hunt. I even managed to have a bit of fun with the R.O.B. and Gyromite.

I followed those up with the other available Black Box games available for purchase.

 

Soon after that a Vs. Super Mario Bros. arcade cabinet showed up at our local arcade and I had heard it was coming out for the NES. This was around late November of '85. The arcade was located directly across from a Kay-Bee Toys & Hobby store, which always had the latest and greatest video games on display at the time, so after playing it in the arcade I would always walk over and bug the manager as to when they would get it in stock. He eventually agreed to call me when it came in.

 

Then one cold, January (1986) morning in New York, we finally got the chance to play Super Mario Bros...in our own homes! After spending countless amounts of money and waiting in line at the arcade I had the chance to take my time with it and break almost every block I could reach to find the hidden treasures!

 

I convinced my dad to drive me straight to Kay-Bee at the mall where the manager, knowing I was a 13 year old video game maniac, let me open the Nintendo shipment box full of SMB copies. It was an honor!

I recall the manager telling my dad how I [jokingly] bugged him every chance I got and how he hoped others would be as excited to buy a copy as I was.

 

Here's a picture I took of my NES collection soon after buying Super Mario Bros. in early 1986.

You can also see some other gaming goodness if you look around. My R.O.B. was promoted to guard duty with his own flashlight.

 

Now here it is 30 years later and I'm still enjoying Super Mario Bros. as I play and design Super Mario Maker levels. Good times!

 

BTW what is that thing robby is holding in between his claws in the picture?

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Vs. Super Mario Bros is a lot different than the original SMB for the NES. The stages are tweaked a bit, different enemies replace the ones in NES (for example end of 3-1 goombas replace koopas to prevent you doing the turtle hopping trick), some levels resemble "The Lost Levels" (SMB 2 from Japan), warp zone in 4-2 takes you to 6 not 6, 7, and 8 in the NES, ending is related to The Lost Levels. A lot have difficulties with the coin op version. As for me I enjoy it a ton. Only area you can do the turtle hop is at the end of 5-2. On the stairway a flying koopa hops down and you have to stomp him to get him hiding in his shell and have to get him towards you heading left, if not it will fall off. My goal is to challenge the Twin Galaxies record of 2,700,000. You can only die no more than 5 times and no turtle hop. My best at that was about 2,400,000. I always get compliments from everyone at the barcade from playing this. In June "The Lost Levels" will turn 30! Happily have it on the Famicom Disk System, NES repro cart, and Virtual Console. Here is some screenshots taken back in August on another completion. Scored almost 3,700,000 points!

 

 

[fdurso224]

Vs. Super Mario Bros is a lot different than the original SMB for the NES. The stages are tweaked a bit, different enemies replace the ones in NES (for example end of 3-1 goombas replace koopas to prevent you doing the turtle hopping trick), some levels resemble "The Lost Levels" (SMB 2 from Japan), warp zone in 4-2 takes you to 6 not 6, 7, and 8 in the NES, ending is related to The Lost Levels. A lot have difficulties with the coin op version. As for me I enjoy it a ton. Only area you can do the turtle hop is at the end of 5-2. On the stairway a flying koopa hops down and you have to stomp him to get him hiding in his shell and have to get him towards you heading left, if not it will fall off. My goal is to challenge the Twin Galaxies record of 2,700,000. You can only die no more than 5 times and no turtle hop. My best at that was about 2,400,000. I always get compliments from everyone at the barcade from playing this. In June "The Lost Levels" will turn 30! Happily have it on the Famicom Disk System, NES repro cart, and Virtual Console. Here is some screenshots taken back in August on another completion. Scored almost 3,700,000 points!

 

 

 

WHOA!! Those are some spectacular numbers you've ranked in points Keith. Thumbs up for you!

 

I haven't seen a Vs Super Mario Bros machine in years. The last time I played one was in Hackensack, NJ and it was in a little known pizza/arcade location. I folded quickly after. The unit looked similar to this one listed below.

 

 

Anthony...

Edited September 16, 2015 by fdurso224

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

WHOA!! Those are some spectacular numbers you've ranked in points Keith. Thumbs up for you!

 

I haven't seen a Vs Super Mario Bros machine in years. The last time I played one was in Hackensack, NJ and it was in a little known pizza/arcade location. I folded quickly after. The unit looked similar to this one listed below.

 

 

Anthony...

Thanks!! I enjoy playing it quite a bit and I also have it ported to an NES cartridge and for a rom in my mame emulator on my modded xbox.

 

[fdurso224]

Thanks!! I enjoy playing it quite a bit and I also have it ported to an NES cartridge and for a rom in my mame emulator on my modded xbox.

 

 

 

Two more thumbs up for you Keith!

 

Anthony...

[Austin]

I want to play through Vs. Super Mario Bros. I have it on my PowerPak but it displays with weird colors, so I don't play it. I wonder if there's a fix for that?

 

The original SMB is a classic and one of my favorites on the NES. I still go back to it for fun at least a couple of times a year.

[spoonman]

BTW what is that thing robby is holding in between his claws in the picture?

It's an old Duracell flashlight. R.O.B. was promoted to security guard.

Edited September 17, 2015 by spoonman

[MaximRecoil]

It's an old Duracell flashlight. R.O.B. was promoted to security guard.

 

Awesome. I have that same flashlight, and I still use it all the time. I got my first one for Christmas in '82 when I was 7, and I don't know what ever happened to that one. Then in the late '90s I was at Marden's Surplus & Salvage in Waterville, ME, and they had some, new old stock (they had long been out of production by that time), and of course, I bought one immediately. They also had the fullsize version (like the one my father had back in the '80s), so I bought one of those too.