022 · MARIO BROS.

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00:00 Mario Brothers, you'll need lightning fast reactions to get out of this pipeline adventure alive.

00:21 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sam. And I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Joe! Unfortunately remote, but it's good to have everybody here again. Yeah, yeah. Last time- It was the only last time. Yeah, last time we did like a Donkey Kong- what would you call that, Sean? That was a private adventure. Yeah, four Donkey Kongs in a row with yours truly. But I feel like we became stronger as a couple. Exactly, yeah, I think so too. The bro ship got longer. Yeah, if that got possible, yeah.

01:01 Cool guys, so today we're talking about Mario Brothers, released in the arcade in 1983, exactly nine years before I was born. Wow. Like to the day. Coincidence? I don't know. I really like Mario.

01:15 I'm a big Nintendo guy. I think it's like maybe something about July 14th that's in our genes. Mike, I can't believe you gave away your age. Now nobody's going to believe us anymore. Well, I think like one thing that's important here is that we should always place doubt in the people that are older than us listening to this, being like this way if they don't agree with us. Yeah, they can just blame it on the kids.

01:33 Yeah, they're like, oh, those kids don't know what they're talking about. That's the point, right? Isn't that the point of the show? I think the point of the show is that we're not even in the field. We're not even in the industry of games and we're just talking about them. Joe, how do you feel about that? I mean, I think it's good that we didn't grow up with these games. Otherwise, we'd be biased.

01:51 Yeah, I think that's the whole thing is like nostalgia, but we have no nostalgia for these games. More like nostalgia. Nostalgia. So, in 1983, that puts this game right after Donkey Kong Jr., but before Donkey Kong decided to terrorize greenhouses in Donkey Kong 3, for no reason. He just went on like a tirade or something.

02:14 This is Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi. They worked together on this one, same way that they did for Donkey Kong. So, did anybody like feel any similarities between this and Donkey Kong? I mean, you jump. The jumping is kind of clunky. The jumping is more evolved. It's more evolved, but still kind of clunky. This is better jumping. I can see a progression here. I put it like halfway between Super Mario Bros. and Ice Climbers. Okay.

02:40 That's exactly where I put it too. Since we're talking about the jump here, one thing that should be noted for Yokoi's contribution to this game is he told Miyamoto, you know, you really gotta stop with like this jumping from heights death thing. Like, I get that that happens in real life, but you gotta cut that stuff out. Geez. Wow. I didn't know that I had so much to thank Gunpei for. Yeah, Gunpei Yokoi is like really all over the place. I mean, Game Boy's enough, right? I know. But the death falling, like, nixing, that's 10 out of 10 right there. Yeah. And so Miyamoto was like, no, we're not gonna change that because it's barely a game if you don't die from the jumping. And Yokoi was like, I think you need to try it.

03:21 So they did try it. But this is also Mario's first game as a plumber. Wow. Yeah. He was a carpenter before this in Donkey Kong. And in Donkey Kong Jr., he was just a villain. Or he was just a very angry plumber.

03:36 In Donkey Kong Jr.? No, just in Donkey Kong. Oh, okay. Just carrying a hammer. Right, with a hammer, yeah. He's done with his toilets. Yeah. And one thing that's interesting about the plumber thing, too, is that Nintendo, like, took that off of his resume recently. And, like, the internet got really upset about it. They were like, what do you mean he's not a plumber? He's been a plumber forever!

03:54 Like, so they put it back. So he's officially a plumber again now. Good. Even though he's really like... He's very out of the game. He's probably out of the union at this point. Joe? Isn't this also when they first called him Mario instead of Jumpman? Yeah, this... Well, yeah. So on the arcade timeline, yeah. We're talking, like, 1983. This is the Mario name.

04:16 But, yeah, by this time in 1986, like, everyone knows him as Mario for the NES version. But, yeah, you're right there. And according to Miyamoto, this game takes place in New York. Oh, obviously. No, it's not. See, I thought so, too, right? I saw the resemblance immediately. You've ever heard of the crabs in New York City subway? It sounds like... I thought the crabs were just on the people. Oh, okay. Oh, jeez. We're all from New York City. Yeah. That's funny. Um, yeah. That's funny.

04:47 Crabby people. That's... Well, I always assume that the stuff coming out of the pipes... Someone write that down. The stuff coming out of the pipes was from, like, the Mushroom Kingdom. Not from Brooklyn. Oh, ah, okay. Oh, ah. Okay. I thought that's why Mario was down there. He's like, these pipes are... He's gotta fix the pipes. Yeah, something's going on with these pipes down here.

05:04 Anyway, it's not obvious that it's in New York, because it's never set anywhere. It's also underground. I checked the arcade cabinet. It's not mentioned on the arcade cabinet anywhere. It's not mentioned in the manual for the game. Right, Sam? I gotta be real with you guys. I didn't read the manual for this one. Oh my god, Sam. I knew how to play the game already, because I've played it before. And I just...

05:24 That's on me, guys. I messed up this week. You have a shtick. You have to... I know, I know, I know. You have to rely on the shtick. Joe, what do we do to people who don't read the manual?

05:33 They get out. It's as simple as that. They must leave. Alright, well, I'll see you guys later. That means we all leave, and only Sam is in most of the episodes. Right, Sam would be the only person verifiable for most of the episodes. So we'll give you a pass that you didn't read the Mario Brothers manual.

05:50 You know, I always want to talk about Donkey Kong. Anyway, so yeah, Miyamoto says this game takes place in New York in an interview in like 2010. So I thought, for some reason, I always thought it was New York, but that's just the cartoons that kind of placed Mario in New York before this. It's never really like said otherwise. They mean you retconned it. They totally retconned it because in Paper Mario, Mario and Luigi share a house that you can find in that game in Mushroom Kingdom. In Staten Island.

06:16 They also live in New York in the blockbuster film Super Mario Brothers. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, Joe, we tried not to talk about that movie. Amazing. Shame on you, Joe. I have to make a confession here. As a kid, I love that movie. I thought it was weird. I didn't get what was going on, but I still enjoyed it. Oh yeah, I liked a lot of movies that I didn't realize were terrible when I was a kid. And then you grow up and you're like, oh, it's not a good movie. I only had 11 years of terrible movie watching experiences. Like my parents controlled what I watched. So if it wasn't a Disney film, I was probably watching some awful, awful movie.

06:52 Okay, so here's another and my last surprising fact before we start talking about this game. And I'm going to say this one wrong, but I think it's Hirokazu, Hirokazu Tanaka. He did the music and the sound for this game and a lot of other games that we're going to cover that are like big games. But what do you guys think a guy like that, a composer for Mario Brothers, who he's going to go on to become the lead sound designer for Metroid. What does a guy like that do today? He still does it. Yeah, I would say he still does it. Or he plays instruments or something.

07:21 Guys, he is now the president of Creatures Inc. Creatures Inc. is the Pokemon company. Like another branch of the Pokemon company. Really? Wow. He is now the president of Creatures Inc. They own a 33% stake in Pokemon. That's nuts. And it's just nuts because when you go to his bio, it's just mostly about his music career. And then it's just like, he is also the president of Creatures Inc. Wow. That's dope. And he's been the president since 2001. So he's doing something right. Good for you. Or him, whatever his name is. So he did the music for this game. And does anybody else notice that the starting sound, not the title screen, but when you start the game, it's like a Mozart song. That was him. He wrote that.

08:02 Yeah, it's very strange. He's a well-rounded old. Do we have an explanation for that? I don't have any explanation for why they use that. Wow. I just got confirmation that it is in fact a direct rip from the Mozart's. Okay. From the Mozart's. From the Mozart compositions. The many Mozart's, just like how there's many Shakespeare's. There's obviously more than one Mozart. He didn't write all that music. Okay. That's a conversation for another time.

08:28 I have another interesting anecdote. Oh, I love it. Bring it on. I just read it on Wikipedia. So feel free to fact check it. Fact check it. But, um, so I was reading when they were trying to name him, change his name from Jumpman to something else, that the landlord barged into Nintendo and like said that they were late on their rent. And his landlord's name was, he was an Italian man named Mario.

08:50 Yes. So they were like, oh, let's just name him Mario. Yeah. Which if that's true, that's kind of a interesting, you know, start to this, uh, iconic character. Yeah. When I did the interview with just Sean and Sam for Super Mario Brothers, we did go over that. Oh gosh. No, no, but it's like, it is funny that like they named, they named Mario after their landlord at Nintendo and they named Kirby after their lawyer. Uh, I think his name was, what was it? John Kirby? Jack Kirby? Jack Kirby's an, he's a comic book artist. Oh yeah. Same thing. I think it was John Kirby and they named Kirby after him for winning them a lawsuit. So it's like, really you just have to do something for Nintendo to get, you know, a character.

09:31 It was a big lawsuit, right? It was a big lawsuit. It was the Donkey Kong versus, you know, like, so Universal Studios versus Nintendo. Right, right. That was it. Okay. Yeah. We don't have to get into it. They were like, hey, King Kong, this is, you directly ripped off King Kong. He's like, no I didn't. And they're like, no, we were trying to rip off Popeye. But we'll cover that in next week's episode. So let's talk about Mario Brothers, guys. Give me some first impressions.

10:02 Sean? My first impressions was, I have played this before, but not this game. I had played this as a bonus level. Okay. In a Super Mario Brothers game. Was it three? Three is definitely one where you can play. But that is the one with the bonus level. Well, oh yeah, with the bonus level. In Super Mario Brothers Deluxe on Game Boy, I believe you can also play Mario Brothers. Okay. But yeah, Super Mario Brothers 3 is the one with the bonus level. Yeah. But when I was a kid, I played it as, I would just hit the pow button because that's what I thought you were supposed to do. And just keep doing that. But yeah, no, this reminded me of that.

10:41 And I had fun with it. I mean, it's pretty difficult to get the hang of in the beginning, but I kind of got a groove on somewhere near the middle. I was never like actually good, but I liked the game.

10:53 Great. Sam? Yeah. First impressions. Well, I have played this one once or twice before and immediate impression is that the jumping felt weird because it wasn't Super Mario Brothers jumping. It was just Mario Brothers. Right. It wasn't the physics from the game you were used to. So you were like relearning that a little bit. Yeah. And so you can't, if you jump straight up, you can't readjust yourself in midair. You just jump straight up and you fall straight down. So that was the biggest thing that I had to get used to for it. But besides that, my first impression was just single player.

11:24 And it was, it was, it was pretty fun. You know, it wasn't crazy, but it was, I had a decent time with it. Great. Two player, different story, but we can get to that later. Okay. Yeah. We'll get into that.

11:33 And Joe, what about you? Uh, yeah. So, I mean, I love Super Mario Brothers three. It's my, my favorite Mario game. Um, so I've played the, that mini game that, uh, that Sean was talking about a lot. So my first impression of this was like, yeah, this is clearly a precursor to, to that like mini game, which improved on, on this a lot. But, uh, but yeah, it was, it was interesting to me to see like this game is like, it's still kind of just a mini game that I've played a million times in like a, a less polished, less developed way.

12:02 Uh, so that's kind of my first impression of it was fun, but if I'm being objective, not quite as fun as I remember in the later game. Right. And it seems like everyone has played this game a little bit before in their past. So would you guys say this is like a really well-known game?

12:17 Oh yeah. I would say among game, like people who like games, if you say Mario Bros to anyone, they're going to think Super Mario Bros also. Gotcha. Joe? I'll be honest. I didn't know that this game existed until maybe a few years ago. I mean, I, I didn't realize that it was its own standalone game, just Mario Brothers. I don't know if a lot of other people have that experience where they thought it went Donkey Kong and then Super Mario Brothers.

12:40 But, uh, but when I first like heard about this, I was like, oh, that's, that's, you know, I realized that's what they based the mini game on, but I didn't realize it was its own game. Yeah. I think that, um, well, I, I think that maybe people didn't know that Mario Brothers was a game in itself. I do think that if you showed them like just the board, if you, if you just place an image of the board in front of a lot of people's faces, they would say, oh, that's, that's Mario. But maybe they wouldn't have the same, uh, they couldn't say like, oh, that was actually a game in 1986.

13:12 Now I definitely played Super Mario Brothers before I ever played Mario Brothers. But after being exposed to Mario Brothers and I was, I was exposed much earlier, but like being exposed to Mario Brothers, I was like, well, of course there had to be something before they became super natural as a kid. I was like, yeah, there have to be regular Mario Brothers. Like that has to be a game. You know what? I also could have seen it as it was just because it just came out on Super Nintendo.

13:37 It was Super Mario Brothers. But obviously that was not the naming convention. That was just eight year old man. Yeah, yeah. Super Mario Brothers is the first thing to like include that super naming convention that then the Super Nintendo would just be littered with. Exactly. One thing that's funny though, since we're talking about the first impressions of the game is that my first impression of the game, I didn't really think too much about the gameplay. I just had a really like fun experience just looking at the game and like the, it had like a charm to it. Yeah. You know, I really liked the, I really liked the pixel art for it.

14:07 Even on the NES version, it is nicer on the arcade version. I think that's worth checking out like the graphical differences, but they cleaned up the NES version fine. I think I like the weird distortion of the, of the actual platforms when you jump into them in the NES version better than I do in the arcade version. I think that's a cool like visual tweak that they had in the, in the port. Yeah. So, uh, I think we can jump right into the gameplay, but before that, let me just talk about the objective real quick.

14:38 You're Mario or Luigi. If you're working together and you're down in the sewers of Brooklyn and basically a bunch of different types of insects and creatures have come through the warp pipes and you have to knock them while they're on the platforms above you. So you have to knock on the platforms and then that flips them over. So an example, like if you're, if you're knocking over the turtle, you'll knock it shell a side up and then you go up there and you touch it to knock it down.

15:09 You Mario cannot actually jump on anyone yet. He doesn't, that's not until they become super, super Mario brothers. He gets better shoes. Uh, so basically that's the entire objective of the game is to take out all those creatures from below and then stomp on them from above. And then you'll, you, you know, you complete a certain amount. I think it's usually like no more than 10 enemies by the later parts of the game that

15:31 you have to take out. And then you go to the next phase. And the only unfortunate thing here, and this is me jiving right into the gameplay section is I find it really unfortunate that the patterns of the levels don't really change that much. No, the platform should have been a little different on each stage. Yeah. The, um, I don't think that the platform layout doesn't change at all. Right. It's always exact same layout of the platform. Just the look. Yeah.

15:54 That doesn't bother me too much. Why doesn't that bother you? I don't know. It's kind of comforting because you can get really good at one part of it, but it, the game does get harder as you go on. I'll agree to that. I definitely noticed that by like phase seven, I have a, I have trouble staying alive period like making it through that phase at all. You got the phase seven. Yeah. I tried to get all the way to phase 10 in a single game and I did not do it. I know that it goes beyond that. Yeah. So, uh, it's just sad. And then we're all done here. Joe, did you get very far?

16:24 Uh, I don't think so. Cause I don't even know what phase I got to. I mean, so did you, let's just go through the enemies real fast. Cause there's actually only three of them plus a little side thing. But like you have the turtles, uh, I got to the turtles. Go first. So I'm hoping everybody got there. Uh, then you have the crab title screen.

16:45 Yeah. The title screen is the one. It's like, Oh, there's four options. I don't know what to do. Uh, then you have the crab, uh, which comes in at phase three, phase three. I think three. Okay. And then, uh, the fighter flies come in at phase six. Yeah. They come at phase six. I didn't get to those. You didn't get to the fighter flies. Yeah. I kept dying on five. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I also never saw the icicle dudes. Yeah. The icicle. I mean, like that's a super challenging part of the game. I know. That's where it gets crazy.

17:17 The ice thing was interesting to me. Cause that's the only thing that I felt like was unique over the, the later like mini game and it's who my brothers three. It's like, they took that out. Yeah. Everything else they improved and that they were just like, Oh, let's just get rid of this. It is really strange to think that that would be removed because the ice block to me adds the most amount of challenge because essentially what it does is it comes down on

17:39 the screen and if you don't clear it out in time, it freezes that entire platform and turns it into ice. It's the only thing friction and it gets it. It makes it way harder. It's the only thing that like we were talking about how they're the same board every, every time. It's the only thing that alters the environment at all. Yeah. Besides the, uh, free.

17:58 Yeah. The freezy is what it's called by the way, that ice guy. Um, yeah, you have the fire balls, which is a Mario first. That's now a big thing, obviously in the, like Mario never had like, you know, his fire flower is a big thing. Fire balls from Bowser fire balls in the games. Like that fire ball thing is like the first appearance of that in a Mario game. Oh, in the arcade. Yeah.

18:19 Because we did see, uh, we did see it in our, in our, in our chronological exploration. We're familiar with it. So yes, that's true. Now this, I feel bad asking this because I didn't read the manual, but do we know if the fire balls are called fire balls or if they are technically an enemy like they are in super, super, right. And, and super Mario brothers, they do have a name in this game. I only saw them listed as fireball. Okay. Yep. Interesting. And we also have life.

18:44 Another first, if you're going by the arcade version points, specifically red coins. Another thing that wouldn't show up until a super Mario brothers deluxe. And then more noticeably, um, super Mario 64. There's red coins. There's red. Well, you know, those red. Oh, it's a mario. It's a mario. What's your saying? And Mario Bros. Yeah. And Mario Bros. Yeah. Those coins are red. Are they?

19:07 I noticed, I noticed regular coins. Wow. I didn't notice any red coins. I only got to phase five. Are you guys saying I have a color blindness or something? I thought every single coin was red. You know what, Mike? I also could just not be remembering it properly, but you know what? I think you, you, you've got a good head on your shoulders. I'm not going to doubt you. No, I think if, uh, if, uh, Joe and Sam are going to say that these are not red, I'm willing to listen. I, I, I, you were right about the, uh, the Hogan's alley guy without a shirt on. Not the, no, no, no, no. Everybody needs to know that that guy is wearing a shirt.

19:43 Uh, okay. So. Okay. Since, uh, since we were talking about the jump before, I want to kind of like end that conversation, just kind of get the verdict on how you guys felt about the jump. Cause the jump is the most important thing in a Mario game. So Sean, the jump. See, I don't see a mechanical difference in the jump between this game and, uh, ice climber. Like it definitely feels different and it's much better than ice climber, but they were basically the same mechanics, right? You could do like a, a sort of like forward leap, a slightly to the sides jump and then a directly up.

20:20 I will say this, but they did. They do also have a little bit of friction on the end, which causes some additional challenge and makes it feel a little bit more fluid. Yes. I felt more in control of Mario. It's still stiff. It's still very stiff. And like, I was very angry that, um, at certain angles and coming from certain platforms, I would clip through the platform and directly into an enemy in which I think that I would have landed right before the enemy and could jump again.

20:51 Um, but I, I think it was serviceable in a way that ice climber was not. Um, but that, those are my opinions on, on the jump. Yeah. I felt like in, in ice climber, I was able to like, you, when I jumped, I was kind of like wishing for some luck. I was like, ah, hopefully I land on this platform. Cause who knows what the game's going to do.

21:11 Whereas this, it was like, it was similar where you had to like build up momentum towards the platform. But once you kind of figured out, figured it out, you could like understand the system and make sure you knew how to jump on the platform. Yeah. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't perfect. I mean, I thought it was maybe a little too reliant on momentum. I think that a big part of it is that there's a lot of horizontal movement in this one that there really isn't an ice climber.

21:33 Right. And that has that, that's where, you know, this one is, is way different. And I think it just feels a lot better because of that. Like you are running side to side a lot more in this one. And because of that little, that little like slow down you have to do when you land that we were talking about, that you were talking about. I think it does make it feel a lot better just running around and jumping. And it is something that you get used to instead of something that feels stiff.

21:58 So yeah, that, that inertia and momentum, both of them like working that, that's like to me, that's what makes the Mario games feel so much different than any other jump that we're going to see for a while in these NES games because they have weight to them. But they also have like a, there is a, you know, Sam and I were playing earlier and Sam was like, oh, you can't jump over the turtles.

22:18 And I was like, oh, you can jump over the turtles. But it depends on how much of a running start you got, you know, because again, the more you're running towards the thing, the higher the arc you'll get. And you know, the momentum you'll have at the end. But if you are just trying to do a straight jump over them, you're probably going to come back down to earth faster and touch them and die.

22:42 I think it's a little more realistic than most video games in the sense that you can, you can't actually give yourself any like momentum once you're already in the air, which doesn't necessarily make a game great game mechanic. But I guess it's more realistic than a lot of games. Right. Yeah, you can definitely like I said earlier, you can see the progression that like they're trying to perfect this jump mechanic that they eventually get right in Super Mario Brothers. And this is that step two of the three step process.

23:11 Now, I always forgot about being able to cross from side to side. Did anybody use this with like actual skill? Oh, I did. I did a little bit. I think that I find that fascinating that this first became like a common thing in arcade games and then to kind of disappeared.

23:29 But I remember when I would play the mini game again, going back to that, that was something I had never even seen before. Oh, because like this was basically a port of this arcade game. So I would do that. I would do that when I was a kid and not really use it in a strategic way. But now I'm like, OK, if I cross here, they won't be able to get to me because they can't get to this platform. And they're and they sort of use the they use the bounds differently than I would.

24:00 But I know I think it was a I think I use it strategically enough. Yeah. And just to clarify for anyone who hasn't played it, what we mean by that by cross to side to side is like going off the left side of the screen and you reappear on the right side of the screen and vice versa. Yeah, the wrapper, like actually crossing over.

24:17 Right. And what's funny is I wasn't using it, but the enemies use it so well. And that's like one of the like best things about the difficulty of this game is that the more enemies on the screen, they bounce into each other. And then when two enemies collide, they go in separate directions. So one will go off to the left side of the screen and reappear on the right. So when you can't take care of enemies fast and efficiently and you have four or five enemies on a screen. Yeah, it gets really hectic.

24:44 Yeah. But once you figure that out, also, there's like a moment where you realize, OK, if this guy bumps into that guy and then they have this guy on the left platform, but he's on the right platform, you can kind of use that. And just that not even traveling it by yourself, but just having that be part of the game makes it more fun. And we have warped pipes in this game. Another first if you're going by the arcade thing. I tried to figure out where this where they came up with this idea. And the only thing I can find Miyamoto wouldn't mention what exactly inspired him. But he said he was inspired by mangas.

25:29 What? Another. So. Another ambiguous answer. Right. From Nintendo. He's like, yeah. You know, in mangas, they always had things with like sewers and pipes and things would come out of them. And I'm like, OK, mangas. I want to know. Like, so we don't know. And we never probably will. But if you're if you're familiar with any late 70s, early 80s manga where things come out of pipes, I'm listening. I want to know all about it. I mean, it's not even I wouldn't even attribute it to being a warp pipe. But like if I'm just looking at this game, it just looks like off screen.

26:02 There's a like a connects up there. There's a one. It's a one way pipe. Yeah. It's just a pipe. Right. It's not a you're not warping. Yeah. I think my understanding of it would like if I didn't have a prior knowledge of like the mushroom kingdom and everything, I would just think like, oh, they're trying to say like, oh, we're in the sewers and these are like mutated animals that we have to find. Yeah. That would have been a legend everywhere that there are mutated. Like, you know, so I didn't think they were warping from anywhere. Those are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before the radioactive ooze spilled all over them. Yeah. You know, they do kind of like them.

26:38 And Mario is just like beating up on them. Yeah. This is actually the first, you know, crossover fighting game. Oh, my. And then. So I just want to know if anybody was able to do this because I couldn't do it. I guess I wasn't skilled enough. I was able to take out all the enemies successfully, and I was able to take out the freezy as they call it the ice block, which is like a must do because otherwise you'll get those slippery platforms. But you can put out the flames.

27:05 How? The flames that haunt you down. If they go on a lower arc and you bump them from below, you can. No way. You can put them out, kind of extinguish them. I never even would have thought of that. But you can't do it with the green ones though, right? You know, it only said it only said the fireball. So I assume that applies to every one of them. Oh, okay. Yeah.

27:25 But yeah, because the green one does take an arc. Oh, you're right. It's very sinusoidal. That green one though, since we're talking about it, these flames just show up if you're like staying on a platform. Being a loser. Yeah. If you're like staying on a specific platform being like, I'm just going to, what do they call it, camping? I guess so. I'm just going to camp here and wait for the enemies to come out. And the flames will show up and they were a pain in my side. They killed me more than any enemy. Then why were you camping, Mike? I was camping really hard. Camping so hard I got all the way to phase eight. Like, look at me. I'm really good.

28:01 Joe, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Do you want? On the fireball? Yeah. Or on the flames in general. Well, I feel like what you just told me is the kind of thing that would make this game like growing up would make it like fun even after I've played it for a long time. Cause I feel like that's something that you would like discover after playing it over and over again. And suddenly you're like, oh, you can do this? Like, did anyone else know you could take out the fireball? Like, yeah, that, that's something, uh, that's something that I definitely didn't even consider to do. Uh, and then there's the bonus. I didn't either of them. Oh, no, it's okay.

28:34 What do you got? I did notice that, um, that the fireball would also go in the, like the arc that would go in is, was not like, it didn't go low and then high consistently. Like sometimes when I went high, it wouldn't go over your head. It would still hit you. But other times when I went high, it could go over your head. Yeah. I even noticed sometimes that like with the fighter flies, there was a weird hit box where they can hop over you and you don't even have to worry about it. Like, yeah, you don't have to move. They'll hop right over you.

29:02 Wow. Sean, since you don't know about the fighter flies. Oh, I know who they are. Okay. They hop over. Yeah. Uh, and then we have the bonus stage, which is a thing that appears every so often. We have to collect, uh, what I thought was red coins, but let's just call them coins. Oh, they're all, you thought they were all red. I thought everything was a red coin. Oh, wow. The entire game had red coins. Shirtless red coins.

29:26 And you have to collect them all in like, you don't get that much time. And I think the first one is very forgiving, but everyone after that is like, if you make even a small mistake, you're not going to be able to collect them all, which is a really nice bonus. It was a good, it was like 3000 points, right? Yeah. It just, it rewards you for getting the mechanics down, you know? Yeah. If you play two player, it's a lot, it's a lot easier to get those, but one player, I couldn't get them. I could, I never got off all of the coins in one player.

29:53 All right. So we've been talking about the one player, but the two player mode, I think is like a really, it really changes the game for sure. For sure. Because, uh, Sam and I played alone first and then we said, Hey, let's try that two player mode. And right away we were like cutthroat. I was like, I was like, no, you're not getting any points. Yeah. And Sam, Sam was screwing me up hardcore.

30:15 Like he was doing the power block. And well, I was, you were doing more power blocks than me, but you would go to kick the turtle. And right before you kick it, after it had already been turned over, I'd go under you and pop it up. So that way it comes back to life and then it would get you. And we had like a miserable, like, you know, it was neck and neck. And I think it was like 12,000 to 10,000 was like the final score in terms of points. But that's not even like, that's like phase three, you know, like we were getting killed early and we were doing it to ourselves.

30:43 So if you don't mind me asking who was the 12,000. That was, that was me. Oh, okay. But that's okay. Cause then Sam had a great idea. Yeah. I said, you know, we should just try and work with each other. Just see how far we can get at working as a team. And it, I personally, I thought it was way better that way. I had a lot more fun. And also our scores together were a lot higher. I don't like that. I think you should be fighting each other the whole time. There still was some competition though.

31:10 Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. That's interesting though, because when I played two player, I kind of thought you can play and compete for score, but I thought it also was a little more fun to just work together on it and it was different because not to keep going back to the Super Mario Brothers 3 mini game of this, but in that it, whoever got the, whoever, you know, kicked the most turtles wins. Right. And so that's like a good competitive thing for that. That's a much better competitive answer. So, so yeah. So this not having that made me, this not having that feature made me feel like, oh, this is, you know, kind of a little more, uh, uh, guiding you to work together. I can't do what I'm hearing right now.

31:52 I, but I also understand that you compete for score, but also when you, um, when you do those bonus rounds, if you get all the coins together, you both get the bonus, no matter who gets how many coins, if you, if you collect. But you also know who got more coins during that. Right. No, but I did. I do agree, Joe. That was a nice touch that they give both people the 3000 point bonus. Cause that's a huge bonus. Yeah. It should be a respite from the, the cutthroat behavior of the, of the base game. Not, not some more of it. You guys are, you guys are killing me with this, with this.

32:26 Well, we wanted to go out. Those enemies, trust me, you will be fine fighting each other at first, Sean, but then you get to like the later phases, those enemies will walk all over both of you. If you don't cooperate, you'll never, you'll never see the end of that phase. And also I think you can still cooperate and compete at the same time. Like I noticed a couple of times we would both get a turtle or something and then we'd have to race up to the platform to see who the first person to kick it would be. Right. That's true. You know?

32:53 So, and you can play the game to get the high score and compete against each other, or you can play the game to see how far you couldn't get together. You know, it's kind of like a, you got an option. Yeah. I think it wouldn't be a bad idea too. I mean, this is going to kill Sean, but if you had a two player mode, right. And one of us did just allow the other person to get like, they were just assisting with helping get the kills, but they let one player get all the kills and all the coins and stuff like that. And you work together to get a higher score on one person's things. So this way that's the high score. That's also on your, on your, I can see that's an exploit.

33:27 It's an exploit and it's definitely easier. Uh, but since we're talking about high scores, did anybody, uh, like remember what their scores were? I do remember. Do you remember Mike? I do remember what my high score was. And I'm, I just, uh, something new I want to try here is cause we really should have done this with the donkey Kong games is just, you know, talking about the scores. Cause I think they do mean something in these NES games.

33:51 And then also maybe there's like a, you know, we'll do a thing on the website, like a little leaderboards thing that we can go back to just amongst the four of us. If you're at home scoring way higher than us, send me a picture of it. I'd love to see it, but also just know that like, you're not very impressive because we're

34:08 not good at video games. We just like video games. It's true. Unless you're Joe at duck hunt. I'm sure he's, he got a million points. That's not, I don't know. I don't know. But I did. I liked it. I don't know if I was an expert. I had 68,920 as my final score. And I do think that that would be considered pathetic. But what did you have, Sean?

34:28 Um, I had half of a pathetic. I had 33,630. Anybody else? I'm not sure. I didn't pay attention or that. It could also mean it was just really bad. And you guys decide. I mean, mine was from our game. And so I'm not really sure what it was because you got the higher score. So that one stayed. Yes. My high score would have been my score for that game. So it would probably under 68,000. Yeah. I think, I think you were, if I remember correctly, you were floating around 35.

34:58 Oh really? Very, very under. Not that bad though, but that was two player mode. Yeah. You know, I don't remember what you did single player. You might've done better on the single player. Uh, but that was fun. Yeah. And yeah. So we're going to incorporate these somehow into the website. So look forward to that. I do have to say, I know we, we kind of, we talked about two player a little bit. I don't know if I said this, but two player is the way to play this game. I think, I think that it's so, so much more fun as a two player game. I just gotta, I don't have friends, Sam. I don't know what you want me to do. We gotta play it then.

35:30 I will say this. I enjoyed the single player mode. I thought like, you know, like, again, I was talking about first impressions, the charm, the pixel art, the fact that it's a Mario game helps. Right. But I wasn't like loving this game. And I'm not saying I'm in love with this game now that I played it in two player mode, but I definitely saw a lot more, uh, details in the gameplay design. And I saw a lot more like, uh, like the, to Sam's point, this is like the way it should

35:59 be played just because the cooperative and cutthroat nature of it adds only adds to the intensity of the game. It doesn't, it doesn't make the game worse. At the very least it just adds other, other mechanics in depth to it. Right. Cause sometimes you can have a two player game where you just add the second player and then it becomes a mess, you know, like, it's just like, oh, there's a lot going on. This is too complicated. The second player is in my way.

36:22 I think of that even, you know, controversially, sometimes that's like true with the new Super Mario Brothers games where you can have like four players on a screen at a time. Yeah. It's like, if you've got that one guy that's lagging behind, it's, it's tough or going ahead too much to that. That's also a problem. So this game balances it all by keeping it all on one screen. And I agree with Sam. I think that the two player mode is the preferred way to play the game. For sure. I wouldn't say I love first player even.

36:47 I don't know. I think that if I had a, if I was in 1986, I would not care for this game if I, if it was just me. But if I had a brother or a sister or someone that I could consistently play this game with, then I would get it. But that's, that's what I gotta say about that. And real fast game B. What a nightmare. Okay. Game B is really hard. It's really hard. I think I, I started it and then I'm like, no. And then I went back to a, I need to play Mario Brothers for another five months before I'm ready for game B.

37:19 I just find it interesting that they keep going game A, game B and not just like easy and hard. Cause like game B is never any different other than it's more difficult or like throws the harder stuff at you earlier, but it's not like a different game. You bring up a good point, Joe. I feel like this is before like easy and hard language had been.

37:36 Cause they're using expert a lot in the manual for the game B modes. I noticed that they're saying like, this is for experts, not the expert mode. It's just like, once you become an expert at the game, then you go to game B. And I mean, I love that the options there. I'd even like to see what a game C looks like. Would you? Well, I wouldn't be good at it. That's for sure. Just a stunned silence after you said that. It's like, no, actually, now that I think about it, game C is like, that's designed by Bowser. So, uh, let's, uh, let's dive right into the essential games list.

38:11 All right. It's time for the essential games list. You're looking at games like Super Mario Odyssey on Nintendo switch. You're seeing that that game got loads of tens and you're like, Oh, Super Mario. Wonder what it was like before he was super. Wonder what it was like when he was just Mario, just a plumber in Brooklyn. Right. And he had a brother, but I'm going to play this game single player because I'm alone.

38:35 Well, Sean, since you want to know if this game is essential, that's what we're here to find out. We're going to go through and do a quick boat. Talk about whether we feel like this game is essential to the NES library today. That's why I brought up Super Mario Odyssey. We're talking about if you've got a chance, play Super Mario Odyssey, but you could also play Mario Brothers on the NES. Not that there isn't time for both, but is Mario Brothers an essential part of the NES library? Sean, take it through. I think the pedigree of this game can really get in the way of giving an objective answer. And it is fun and it's got an iconic look to it and just the entire setup for it.

39:16 That being said, while it is fun, I think that you can get the same experience out of it. If you just play like one run through, you get to like phase five like I did. And you're like, yeah, that was that was Mario Brothers.

39:32 So I'm going to say it's not essential. Sam? So like I've been saying, I think that the one player in this is not crazy fun. I think I think it's an okay game on its own. I think the two players great. I really can't stop raving about it. I think that I played Super Mario Odyssey two player and I think this is a more fun game to play two player. I don't like being cappy. Okay. But I think that that's like a great time. But that being said, it's probably not it's not essential. It's I think two player though is great.

40:03 One of my one of if not the best two player game I've played on NES so far. Great. Yeah. Joe? Oh, overall, this is like a it's a mildly fun little little mini game, especially if you're playing two player. It's definitely more fun playing two player. But it doesn't change that much even in like the later levels when the you know that more enemies come up and in there's they change the obstacles a little bit. It changes it up. But it never it never gets so different that the gameplay changes a ton. And for that reason, it can kind of get get repetitive pretty quick. Yeah. Well, it's fun playing two player. It's not necessarily essential. Definitely not essential. All right. And even though I can't vote it in as essential, I'll give my vote anyway.

40:47 And my feelings for this game. Very fun. Oozes the charm. It's another hot streak for Miyamoto. If you're looking at Donkey Kong, Doug Young Jr. And now this, I think he's still got it. And it's great to see that.

41:00 I'm not going to get tired of this game. But the reason why this game isn't essential to me is that it really is in today's standards, just a minigame. I think since we've all talked now that this game is available in other Mario games as a minigame and has even been refined in those games, that that's probably the best way to experience Mario Brothers.

41:19 And I don't think you need the cartridge NES version. You're better off actually if I'm going to recommend like the definitive way to play Mario Brothers is actually at the arcade. Find it at like maybe a Dave and Buster's has it or your local arcade if you got something like that, because that is even though it's a little more rigid, that's like the true way to experience this game. And it's good for a quarter.

41:41 Yeah, I also want to add a little retroactive disclaimer of mine. And that's that I'm I compared this to Super Mario Odyssey, but I'm I'm not really crazy about Super Mario Odyssey anyway. Oh, okay. So you just try to throw in controversial. Now we just try to see where I'm coming from because that's like that's like a big thing. So if you do like it, you'll probably like it way more. Not saying that's everyone's everyone's take on it.

42:04 Gotcha. Yeah, I can't wait till we get to the Super Mario Odyssey episode. I know. Hey, we're only let's see how many games we're only about twenty three thousand. Yeah. Episodes away. Yeah. So sometime in sometime in the next coming millennium. So I mean with that in mind, that's about all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia. Join us next time for Popeye. Right. Sailor Man. Yeah. The Sailor Man. Our first licensed game.

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