History VideoGame / SuperMarioBros1

* HardModePerks: The "hard mode" replaces all Goombas with Buzzy Beetles, which allows the player to get as many lives as they want by having their shells being kicked repeatedly against certain structures, much like a Koopa shell. It also makes clearing a whole row of enemies much easier - stomping a Beetle and kicking it to take out all the others is effortless compared to stomping all Goombas individually.

The first game in the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' series, but the [[OlderThanTheyThink fourth game overall]] that stars Mario, and the game that singlehandedly kicked off UsefulNotes/The8bitEraOfConsoleVideoGames. After appearing in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'', ''VideoGame/MarioBros'', and ''VideoGame/WreckingCrew'', the Mario Brothers moved on to the game that set loads of standards. Not just for [[PlatformGame platformers]], but any genre that used conventions established in this game. Released for the Family Computer on September 13, 1985 in Japan, and for the Nintendo Entertainment System on October 18, 1985 in North America.[[note]]The NA release date has been subject to debate.[[/note]]

The general story is that Bowser, the ornery King of the Koopas, has conquered the Mushroom Kingdom and had all of the subjects turned into [[ThrivingGhostTown background textures]]--er, bricks and shrubbery. The Mushroom Kingdom's Princess is the only one who can revert his black magic, but he has kidnapped her in order to prevent this. Mario, ever the gallant one, storms several castles looking for her. Unfortunately for Mario (and you), Bowser has several body doubles, and there's no way to tell who's the real one, so it's a long road ahead.

This game was highly formative for the later series. Most notably, it introduced the basic storyline of Mario rescuing Princess Toadstool (later Peach) from Bowser that later games would copy, modify, subvert, deconstruct and reconstruct again and again. In addition, it introduced Toadstool and Bowser's characters, alongside the Toads, the Mushroom Kingdom, the basic system of powerups that would become central to later installments' gameplay, and a number of classic enemy types such as Goombas, Koopa Troopas and Paratroopas, Hammer Brothers, Spinies and Bloopers.

* FinaleProductionUpgrade: Intended, but ultimately averted. This game was intended to be this for the original cartridge-based Famicom hardware, representing the pinnacle of what could be achieved on the system; Nintendo assumed that, following the release the game, most developers would shift their focus over to the Famicom Disk System (FDS), whose higher capacity floppy discs would allow developers to create games that were more impressive than cartridge based ones. However, thanks to advances in mapper chips and ROM capacity, this ended up not being the case, with later cartridge-based games able to match or exceed what FDS games could do. Because of this, in addition to [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil rampant piracy]] the popularity of the FDS faded, to the point that it was [[NoExportForYou never released outside of Japan]].

* EliteMooks: Hammer Brothers. They not only strafe back and forth in one spot but usually pop up in groups and throw an endless supply of hammers that are very hard to dodge. If you didn't get a Fire Flower beforehand, youre in for a world of hurt with them.

** ''VS. Super Mario Bros.'' takes this UpToEleven. Items and 1-Up Mushrooms are either moved or ''removed'', you need to collect between 100 to 250 coins to earn an extra life, and every infinite lives exploit is removed. As if this wasn't enough, the original levels themselves are edited to be much harder, new levels are added in, and {{Warp Zone}}s don't take you as far forward as the originals. [[note]] Even many expert NES Mario players never got past World 6, where they had to take a blind, running jump across a bottomless chasm and bounce off a Koopa Paratroopa onto a safe platform, where neither the Koopa or the safe platform were even on-screen from the jumping point. [[/note]] It's somewhat justified as ''VS. Super Mario Bros.'' is an arcade game that's supposed to take as many quarters from players as it can.

* InNameOnly: Aside from the presence of Mario, Luigi, turtle enemies, and coins, ''Super Mario Bros.'' really doesn't have anything to do with ''VideoGame/MarioBros'', although it does have some similar elements (you can still attack enemies from below when they are on brick platforms).

* TooDumbToLive: So Bowser[[ActuallyADoombot (?)]], you have an axe at the end of your drawbridge that acts as a switch that makes said bridge collapse. Sure sounds handy for sending [[TheHero Mario]] into the burning lava below when he appears before you. Clearly, the ideal course of action is to... jump up and down breathing fire at Mario while ''still on the bridge''!? And so we have the first of many a BossArenaIdiocy violation on Bowser's part!

* BigBad: Bowser. He's the kidnapper of Princess Peach and the main responsible for all the havoc occurring in the Mushroom Kingdom.

* MythologyGag: Some of the level assets used weren't actually original to the game. The moving, red platforms with holes are repurposed from ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'', climbable vines and springboards were lifted from ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongJunior'', and Koopa Troopas are reimagined Shellcreepers from ''VideoGame/MarioBros''.

* MythologyGag: Some of the level assets used weren't actually original to the game. The moving, red platforms with holes are repurposed from ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'', climbable vines and springboards were lifted from ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongJr'', and Koopa Troopas are reimagined Shellcreepers from ''VideoGame/MarioBros''.

** The name ''Mario Bros.'' evokes a business, the sort of name crammed onto a sign with limited sign and abbreviated by necessity. Such a title fit the premise of the 1983 arcade game, in which Mario and Luigi were plumbers cleaning out New York's sewers. In this game, the whole plumber business thing is irrelevant aside from the presence of pipes.

* ArtifactTitle: ''Super Mario Bros.'' is a completely different game from the original ''Mario Bros.'', most notably lacking the 2P co-op mode from the original (being replaced by an alternating mode instead). As a result, Luigi's presence in the game feels rather thrown in, since it makes no difference whether the second player controls Luigi or another Mario. The sequels would try to remedy this by either: making Luigi into a selectable character with a different play-style (as seen in both versions of ''Super Mario Bros. 2'') or by allowing both players to split the game's stages among themselves and throwing in a minigame version of the original ''Mario Bros.''.
** Also, the title itself. The name ''Mario Bros.'' evokes a business, the sort of name crammed onto a sign with limited sign and abbreviated by necessity. Such a title fit the premise of the game, in which Mario and Luigi were plumbers cleaning out New York's sewers. In this game, the whole plumber business thing is irrelevant aside from the presence of pipes.

** ''VS. Super Mario Bros.'' takes this UpToEleven. Items and 1-Up Mushrooms are either moved or ''removed'', you need to collect between 100 to 250 coins to earn an extra life, and every infinite lives exploit is removed. As if this wasn't enough, the original levels themselves are edited to be much harder, new levels are added in, and {{Warp Zone}}s don't take you as far forward as the originals. [[note]] Even many expert NES Mario players never got past World 6, where they had to take a blind, running jump across a bottomless chasm and bounce off a Koopa Paratroopa onto a safe platform, where neither the Koopa or the safe platform were even on-screen from the jumping point. [[/note]]

** Also, the title itself. The name ''Mario Bros.'' evokes a business, the sort of thing crammed onto a sign and abbreviated by necessity. Such a title fit the premise of the game, in which Mario and Luigi were plumbers cleaning out New York's sewers. In this game, the whole plumber business thing is irrelevant aside from the presence of pipes.

* BigBad: Bowser. He's the kidnapper of Princess Peach and the main responsible for all the havoc occuring in the Mushroom Kingdom.

* BottomlessPits: Many levels have pits that must be avoided; even the pools of water and lava act this way instead of simply drowning or burning you respectively. Of special note are those of World 8, because they're much wider and require long jumps (which are difficult to perform and time due to the game's outdated physics in comparison to later ''Mario'' games) to be overcome.

* SlippySlideyIceWorld: Aesthetically, Worlds 3, 5, and 7 are snow-themed, although "snow" in this game is just recolored trees and pipes; the ''All-Stars'' version of the game improves on this by making the ground actually look snowy. The only ''actual'' snow-themed level is 6-3, where the tileset is monochrome (black and gray) and very slippery.