Mario bros.
| Mario bros. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 | |||
| Studio |
Nintendo R & D1 Nintendo R & D4 |
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| Publisher | Nintendo | ||
| Senior Developer | Shigeru Miyamoto | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
 June 1, 1983 July 14, 1983 September 1, 1986  |
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| genre | Jump 'n' run , platformer | ||
| Game mode | 1-2 players, multiplayer | ||
| control | Joystick , one button | ||
| casing | extra wide | ||
| Arcade system | CPU: Z80 @ 3,072 MHz
Sound CPU: I8039 @ 730 kHz Sound chips: DAC Sound: One channel mono |
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| monitor | Raster graphics , horizontal, colored | ||
| Age rating |
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Mario Bros. is an arcade jump 'n' run game that was developed and published by Nintendo in 1983 under the direction of Shigeru Miyamoto . It is the indirect successor to Donkey Kong (the direct successor is Donkey Kong Jr. ). Mario Bros. is about the plumber Mario, who, together with his brother Luigi, has to defeat creatures that are up to mischief in the New York sewers. The gameplay basically consists of Mario destroying the pests by throwing them on their backs and then kicking them away. The game has been reissued several times in other games. The successor to the very successful Mario Bros. is Super Mario Bros. , one of the best-selling computer games of all time. Mario Bros. can also be played with two players. The game sold around 1.63 million times. The NES version of the game sold 90,000 times.
development
In addition to conventional arcade systems, Mario Bros. was developed for the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo Entertainment System . A version for the Wii was released on December 8, 2006 and a version for the Wii U followed on June 20, 2013 .
Development of the game principle
For Mario Bros. Miyamoto worked with Gunpei Yokoi . Hirokazu Tanaka was responsible for the sound . Yokoi's idea was that two players could compete against each other in the game, and that Mario could jump higher than in the previous game and also survive falls from great distances. Miyamoto agreed and developed a prototype that made Mario jump and run. The next question they asked themselves was what kind of game was going to be created. They came up with the idea of placing opponents on the many levels that are defeated by jumping against the opponents from below. But that turned out to be too easy. So the developers decided that you had to stun the opponents first and then defeat them. For this, in turn, an opposing figure was required, which, when lying on its back, gets up again after a few seconds. So Yokoi and Miyamoto came up with the idea of building in turtles, called Koopas in the game .
“The turtle was the only solution! If you hit it from below, it will tip over! If you leave it there, it will stand up again at some point! "
If a turtle is stunned in play, it will get up after a few seconds. The developers thought about how to suggest to the player that the turtle is getting up again. Miyamoto initially planned to make her fidget with her legs. Tanaka's idea was that the turtle would lose its shell and find it again after a few seconds.
Another element of the game are tubes. The problem with development was that if the player didn't defeat the turtles, there would eventually be too many turtles on the ground level. Hence the idea that when a game element leaves one side of the screen, it comes out of the other side. This did not solve the problem. When Miyamoto was driving home from work one evening, he saw a concrete wall with multiple pipes. This encouraged him to let the opponents appear out of tubes in the game, and if they are not defeated, to let them disappear back into the tubes.
“Then one day on the way home from the office I saw a concrete wall with several sewer pipes protruding from it. I thought: "They are perfect!" (laughs) Everyone knows that something can go in and out of a pipe. "
In the predecessor Donkey Kong , "Jumpman" had to be controlled via platforms. The appearance of the figure has been adjusted in Mario Bros. and renamed Mario . Miyamoto imagined Mario to be a hard worker, and because Mario Bros. played underground, he decided that Mario was a plumber. The development team chose New York as the location because the city offers a distinctive underground tube labyrinth. In contrast to Donkey Kong , Mario Bros. is no longer primarily about overcoming obstacles, but about defeating opposing creatures. A very common opponent are turtles. Miyamoto chose these because once they are on their backs they are helpless. Originally it was planned that Mario could defeat the opponents with a jump on the head. However, this would have meant that the machine would have to calculate whether Mario touched the opponent from above or from the side. A corresponding algorithm would have been so complex that the machine could not cope with the task. So it stayed with a jump from below. However, the jump on the opponent was implemented in the successor to Mario Bros.
Game description
Backstory
The two plumbers, Mario and Luigi, work in sewers that are suddenly flooded by enemies. The brothers now have to defeat their opponents and collect coins to get their “prize”.
Gameplay
In Mario Bros., Mario has to defeat opponents who appear from tubes at the top of the screen. Each level consists of a couple of platforms that Mario can jump onto. He defeats opponents by jumping from below against the platform on which the opponent is standing and then kicking them away from above. For each defeated opponent there are points, if all opponents of a level have been defeated, the next level starts. If Mario has been touched by an opponent, he loses one attempt, if he has lost all attempts, it is game over. There are also two floating “POW blocks”, each of which can be jumped three times. A jump against a POW block will cause all opponents on the screen to be defeated.
Characters
Playable characters
The player can control the two main characters Mario and his brother Luigi . In the multiplayer version it is also possible to play two more characters, the Blue and the Yellow Toad .
opponent
In Mario Bros. the player has to fight different opponents. Turtles are the game's first and weakest opponents. They can be incapacitated by a simple jump against the platform below. They appear in every level. Crabs are strong opponents who jump against the platform below to make them even stronger. Only one more jump puts them out of action. Your first appearance is in phase 4. The flies represent rather weaker opponents, but they cannot be put out of action so easily because of their permanent jumps. They appear for the first time in phase 6. Freezers appear randomly to freeze a platform of the level. The icing makes it easier to lose control and is therefore at the mercy of the opponent more quickly. Froster can be seen for the first time in phase 9.
In addition to the living enemies, there are also some physical ones. Icicles , for example, hang on platforms until they fall down after a while. They appear late, in phase 16. In the same way, fireballs appear randomly and put the player in difficult situations. The increase in fireballs are the green fireballs . They have an increased speed, so it is more difficult to avoid them. The green fireballs were replaced by the Buu Huus in the later versions .
reception
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GameSpot awarded 4.9 out of 10 points and 8 out of 10 points in the user rating. IGN gave a rating of 4.5 out of 10 points. Both rated the virtual console version of the game on the Wii.
Both Greg Kasavin from Gamespot and Lucas M. Thomas from IGN praised the game's multiplayer mode. However, Kasavin complained that the Virtual Console version reflects the NES version well, but does not make any improvements. The screen still flickers in the newer version.
meaning
Mario Bros. was the predecessor of the much discussed and famous game Super Mario Bros. , which had a huge impact on the entire platforming genre. As the predecessor, Mario Bros. includes some essential characteristics of the successor and is therefore also decisive for the cult series.
literature
- Chris Kohler: Power Up . BradyGames, Indianapolis, Indiana 2004, ISBN 0-7440-0424-1 , Coming Home: Super Mario Bros.
Web links
- Mario Bros. in the Killer List of Videogames (English) (arcade version)
- Mario Bros. at arcade-history.com
- Mario Bros. at MobyGames (English) (home versions)
- Mario Bros. in MarioWiki
Individual evidence
- ↑ Super Mario: Copies Sold , accessed May 2, 2014
- ↑ a b c d e Iwata Asks - New Super Mario Bros. Wii. wii.com, archived from the original on January 23, 2010 ; accessed on March 13, 2014 .
- ↑ Chris Kohler: Power Up . BradyGames, Indianapolis, Indiana 2004, ISBN 0-7440-0424-1 , Coming Home: Super Mario Bros., pp. 56 .
- ↑ Mario Bros .: Background story in MarioWiki, accessed on May 2, 2014
- ↑ Mario Bros. Accessed March 9, 2019 (German).
- ^ A b c Lucas M. Thomas: Mario Bros. Virtual Console Review. In: IGN. December 8, 2006, accessed April 9, 2019 .
- ^ A b c Greg Kasavin: Mario Bros. In: GameSpot. November 22, 2006, accessed April 9, 2019 .