Action Video Game/System Review: Game & Watch Mario Bros.

Mario Bros. by Nintendo Research & Development 1 was the twenty-fourth Game & Watch console. It was actually the first game that included both Mario brothers, Mario and Luigi, as it was released before their eponymous arcade game.

It is a frame-by-frame game on a liquid crystal display. In the game, Mario and Luigi work in a factory packing bottles and loading them on a truck. In the unofficial sequel for the Commodore 64, as well as the officially released Game & Watch Gallery 3 for Game Boy Color, the brothers pack up cakes instead of bottles.

Mario is on the right and Luigi is on the left. Mario loads the base on a conveyor belt, it goes through a machine and comes out the other side. Mario and Luigi have to go up and down ladders in order to keep the packages from falling to the ground. When the fully packed items get all the way to the top, Luigi tosses them in a shipping truck. 

In the Game & Watch Gallery 3 remake, Wario also sometimes messes with the process, and Luigi has to pull a lever to the left in order to fix it. Also in the remake, the truck takes off and a new one comes back to start the process again.

Like all Game & Watch games, Mario Bros. is simple. However, despite its simplicity, the game works well on double screens of this version of the Game & Watch system. Game & Watch Gallery 3 is the best way to play it, whether it is on the Nintendo Game Boy Color, Nintendo 3DS, or Nintendo Switch. The addition of Wario throwing a spanner in the works adds more complexity, and the more advanced technology allows for color graphics as well as animation. This is much less remembered than the arcade game of the same name, which is a shame, as this is actually one of the most fun Game & Watch games.

Final Verdict:

3½ out of 5

Donkey Kong Jr. review

Mario Bros. Review

Platform Game Review: Mario Bros. Special

In the 1980s, Hudson Soft was a huge name in Japan for personal computers. They had ports of their arcade games, and original games, on every popular computer in Japan. In the mid-1980s, before the Nintendo Entertainment System made Nintendo a household name worldwide, Nintendo licensed their arcade games to outside companies to port them to video game consoles and computers. Hudson Soft did do conversions of games for computers, such as their excellent Excitebike port. However, most of their games with Nintendo licenses were far more interesting. Mario Bros. Special is one of those games.

Mario Bros. Special is a very different game from the arcade game with which it shares its name. It shares level music but, unlike Mario Bros., it has a time limit. It also takes the Donkey Kong approach by having a series of four stages that repeat after they are completed. The first of the four stages include moving girders which have to be climbed upon and switches that have to be hit twice to open the stage exit. The second has the familiar Mario Bros. shellcreepers, but they are knocked over by jumping on the trampoline with them on it rather than hitting them from above. The third has girders, but the shellcreepers are taken out in the same way as the trampolines. In the final stage, there are no enemies and the goal is simply to collect all the dollar symbols.

The various computer versions are each the same but differ in colors and sounds, due to hardware restrictions. It's weird that Luigi isn't included, but the fresh take on the Mario Bros. arcade game is a fun idea. The various tasks are all thought out well. However, due to problems with ground detection, Mario will sometimes go right through a platform when he should have been able to stand on it just fine. Due to this, the game is a lot less fun than it should have been.

Final Verdict:

2½ out of 5

Mario Bros. Review

Super Mario Bros. Review

Arcade Platform Game Review: Mario Bros.

This review was originally posted on the McMurray Internet Channel website on December 15, 2018.

Mario Bros. was the first game to feature Mario's brother Luigi and the first to feature the titular duo as the first and second player.

The game sees Mario shed his carpenter profession and join his brother Luigi in life as a plumber, heading into the sewers of New York City to eliminate all creatures that come through the pipes. The game has two-player cooperative play as both brothers try to take out the creatures together. Unlike the later Super Mario Bros. games, the creatures have to be knocked from below, which will flip them over.  Trying to step on them while they aren't flipped over will result in the loss of one life. The flipped-over enemies have to be knocked off the playfield into the water below by kicking them before they flip back over.

The creatures start off easy, with the shellcreeper turtles, which require only one hit to flip them. The game gets progressively harder, as enemies that require multiple hits, enemies that fly, obstacles that cause ice to form on the ground making things slippery, and many more enemies and obstacles, try to stop the brothers from performing their task.

To ease things a little bit, there is also a POW block in the middle of the stage, which will automatically cause one hit to every enemy that is touching the ground. However, this POW block can only be used three times during a game before it is used up forever.

Like Donkey Kong before it, the game has been released on many different platforms, including Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Apple II, Commodore-64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari 7800, and Atari 8-bit computers.

The NES version was emulated on the Nintendo 64 (in Animal Forest), e-Reader for Game Boy Advance, GameCube (in Animal Crossing), Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Famicom Mini, NES Classic Edition, and the Nintendo Switch legacy games online service. The gameplay was also included as a mini-game in Super Mario Bros. 3, and a Super Mario All-Stars-style remake was released with the Super Mario Advance games for the Game Boy Advance.

The arcade original is the best version of Mario Bros., and it was finally emulated in its entirety by Hamster as part of its Arcade Archives line on the Nintendo Switch on September 27, 2019. Hamster's Switch version is the way to go as it also includes online multiplayer co-op gameplay.

Final verdict:

4 out of 5

Mario Bros. Game & Watch Review

Mario Bros. Special Review