The game that changed everything. Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom, from warp zones to Bowser's castles. Revolutionary level design, immediate and universal fun. The most important video game ever made.
Your verdict
Category
Platformer1 player3+
Description
Founding platformer in which Mario runs, jumps and stomps enemies to save Princess Peach from King Bowser. Published by Nintendo, released in Europe in 1985. Mario in side-scrolling view crossing eight worlds with varied levels, mushrooms and stars and Bowser bosses. Founding absolute masterpiece of the modern platformer on NES.
Super Mario Bros. review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
1/5
Story
★★★★★
"Anecdotal"
The entire visual vocabulary of the platform game is fixed here: plain blue sky, round hills, clouds and bushes drawn from the same shape, bricks and question blocks readable at first glance. The characters are made of very few pixels yet keep an immediately identifiable silhouette, cap and dungarees included.
Koji Kondo writes a few dozen seconds that would become some of the most recognisable melodies in the world: a syncopated main theme in a major key, a descending underground motif, an aquatic waltz, a castle march. Every piece holds in very few voices and sticks from the first listen, which was precisely the point.
Gameplay
"Masterful"
Everything rests on an inertia of foundational rightness: building up momentum, gauging your jumps and reading obstacles delivers a sense of control that defined the genre. The crystal-clear progression and well-placed secrets invite replay. A touch stiff today, this platforming archetype retains a handling and a readability that remain a model.
Fun
"From the very first seconds"
Running, jumping and stomping Goombas to the right: three moves are enough to understand, a whole life isn't enough to forget. The perfect handling, the genius level design and the joy of the pixel-perfect jump defined the platformer for decades. Immediate, luminous and timeless, the game that saved an industry stays a model of efficiency and joy.
Addictiveness
"Obsessive"
Running, calculating a pixel-perfect jump and diving into a secret pipe turns every level into a field of mastery you want to run again, better. Coins, mushrooms and warning zones reward boldness and feed the hunt for the perfect run. The game doesn't forgive a mistake, but this crystal-clear precision stays a model of efficiency never disproven.
The 'World' run of the founder of the console platformer, a common multi-region cart with very wide international distribution. A NES cornerstone, it was pressed in colossal volumes, making the loose version one of the most ubiquitous in gaming: its everyday price is almost entirely a graded-sealed market artifact, not real scarcity. Collector interest rests on the title's iconic status rather than on the piece itself, which is unremarkable in a worn box.
A cult cover
Mario dashes between the green hills and plump clouds of a Mushroom Kingdom pared to its essentials, in an illustration as clean and clear as a poster. The bright simplicity of the composition and the dynamic pose say everything about the instant fun awaiting the player. A template for Nintendo's imagery, this box remains a founding visual landmark of the medium.
Is Super Mario Bros. still worth playing in 2026?
Super Mario Bros. is the game that changed everything. Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom, warp zones and Bowser's castles, Nintendo's title redefined the platformer and set the language of an entire medium. Revolutionary level design, immediate universal fun, precision controls never surpassed. Without hyperbole, the single most important video game ever made, still perfectly playable, still perfectly perfect. An absolute must to know today.
