Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt was a Nintendo Entertainment System pack-in multicart that compiled two games together, making good use of both the NES gamepad controller and the Zapper light gun.
Super Mario Bros. was the system seller for the Nintendo Entertainment System at the time of its release in 1985. By release of the multicart in 1988, Duck Hunt was also a peripheral seller for the Zapper. So, it was a no-brainer to compile both games together.
Super Mario Bros. took the platformer genre to new heights by bringing the Mario brothers from static to smooth-scrolling horizontal platforming. Along with that, it brought the oft copied system of levels inside of stages set in a variety of settings. It had levels with gaps spread along the ground, levels high in the sky, levels under water, levels on bridges, levels in castles, and levels set at night. To audiences of the 1980s, it offered a little bit of everything for everyone.
On the other end of the multicart, Duck Hunt was a fun light gun shooter. The title was a bit of a misnomer, as it included two games that were a remake of sorts of projection-based light gun games from the 1970s. The titular Duck Hunt shared a name with the Beam Gun projector-based shooter. It took things much further than the click-clacky projection of ducks to full-colored ducks flying over a field with a cute hunting dog chasing after those that have been downed by the hunter.
The second game in Duck Hunt was Clay Shooting, which was a demake of Nintendo's first lightgun arcade game, Laser Clay Shooting System. The latter had a 16-mm film of clay pigeons streaming into the sky while a white light would flash which would signal the area and time to fire the gun. The clay shooting in Duck Hunt, like the game proper, used the scanlines of a cathode ray tube television or monitor to determine the position the gun had been fired. The latter is more precise, if not as pleasing artistically.
It's no surprise that Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt became one of the best sellers for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Even if it wasn't packed-in with the system, it would have certainly still have sold well because both games are among the best and brightest for the console at the time of the compilation's release in the mid-1980s.
Final Verdict:
4½ out of 5
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