Mario Bros. is a platform game developed and published for the arcades by Nintendo of Japan in 1983. A port for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released in North America in 1986.
This was one of the early NES games I ever got to play. It was kind of always included in Chinese-pirated Famicom game cartridges containing several games being sold in the Philippines during the late 1980s.
The Story
Mario and his brother, Luigi, are doing some underground plumbing job when all sorts of creatures emerge out of the pipes. They began to attack the helpless Mario Bros. It is up to you to help them hit and knock out these sewer pests before time is out! But beware. There could be more!
Play against the computer, or with a 2nd player friend - either way, this is one NES classic you will want to play again!
The Graphics and Sound
A very old game that actually looks good! This Mario Bros. game is one step closer to its successor, Super Mario Bros. in design. It has very good animation and we get to see for the first time Luigi, his brother. The enemies are simple and had a nice variety. Finally, the blocks in each stage have a different look as you beat levels and look great when you hit them from below and distorting them.
The music is basic but it is quite uplifting. The sound effects are retro-quality good and not irritating at all.
The Gameplay
Gameplay is simple. Run around and turn the enemies upside down by knocking the platform from below by bumping it with your head and after that hit them in order to knock them out.
Enemies will spawn from the top of the screen and after some time throw fireballs and hunt you. Different enemies act differently, so watch out.
The controls are less than responsive as you wanted them to be. The replayability suffers after you have beaten several levels because it becomes too damn repetitive.
One great thing by the game though is when you play it with a friend. With 2 player mode, you can either cooperate (great for beating levels faster), or just compete with each other. Competing with each other is doubly fun too IMHO.
My Verdict
Mario Bros. is just a fair NES game. The 2 player mode saves it from being mediocre. But it is difficult to justify spending time playing it when there are more better and fun games on the NES and cooler Mario games out there in general.
Play with a 2nd player friend for fun on the NES or on emulators.