This Week in Retro: Super Mario Bros. [1985] (Patreon)

September 13: Ranking the Super Mario anniversaries

by Diamond Feit

If you're reading this column on its original publish date, today is September 13, which means that Super Mario Bros is 35 years old. You're likely still reeling from the recent Nintendo Direct announcing an array of special anniversary goods to celebrate this somewhat arbitrary number of years. With all that fresh in our collective gamer minds, I decided to look back at how the Super Mario legacy has unfolded over the years and assign a rank of how excited I was about each occasion.

1990: SMB+5

The NES is still red-hot, and Mario-mania in the U.S. is at its highest level ever. American kids are likely still waiting to get their hands on Super Mario Bros 3 despite its "launch" back in February, because it was a different era and popular Nintendo games were notoriously hard to find. In Japan, the Famicom was getting on in years, but Nintendo fans were only a couple months away from getting their hands on Mario's next-gen debut adventure, Super Mario World. In other words, there was nothing remotely "retro" about the Super Mario games yet.

Personally, I had traded my NES for a Genesis by this point because who could resist all those bits?

Hype ranking: **

1995: SMB+10

The NES has seen its final release in all territories. Most kids have moved on to the Super Nintendo, or quite possibly the brand-new CD-based consoles made by Sony or Sega (or Atari, maybe), although the most recent Super NES Mario release—Yoshi's Island—is a masterpiece. Fans interested in revisiting the Super Mario Bros. tetralogy either have to dig up original hardware or settle for the Super Mario All-Stars SNES compilation (which by this point is being sold with Super Mario World on one cartridge).

While I was very curious about the next-generation, I had long since sold my Genesis for a SNES and was definitely the type of teenager who would replay entire video games for fun. Super Mario games would have been in that rotation alongside Super Castlevania IV and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

Hype ranking: ***

2000: SMB+15

It's a new millennium! The NES feels like ancient history; the SNES feels like medieval times. Everything is in 3D now, don't you get it? Sprites might as well be cave drawings. And Nintendo? They're all but yesterday's news; it's all about PlayStation now or, if you’re extremely cool, the Dreamcast. But if, for some reason, you want to play a 15-year-old video game, there's Super Mario Bros Deluxe for Game Boy Color. After all, 2D games belong on handheld systems now that home consoles are dedicated to the almighty polygon gods.

At this point in time, I was a woefully single adult living in a studio apartment chock full of absolutely every game console on the market so yeah, I still had my Nintendo 64 and a copy of Super Mario 64, which I revered as a classic...but with Perfect Dark on hand, I had no time for collecting stars anymore.

Hype ranking: *

2005: SMB+20

For the first time since Super Mario Bros was released, Nintendo seems to be in actual dire straits. The PlayStation 2 is the biggest home console of all time, and now Microsoft's into games as well—their upcoming console offers HD graphics! Meanwhile, the GameCube is a certified flop, and the Game Boy Advance has been replaced by a weird clamshell thing with two screens? Anyone looking for an 8-bit Mario fix probably knows about emulators by now, but if not, there's an entire series of "classic" NES games available for GBA—just ¥2000/$20 per title! GBA owners could also invest in the Super Mario Advance series of classic Super Mario games remade for the handheld system, although the very first Super Mario Bros. was never included in that lineup.

Despite the fact that Mario had multiple 3D games by 2005, the original 1985 sprite was at the centerpiece of a "Happy Mario" 20th anniversary campaign in Japan... which I know because I happened to be in Japan at the time. I also just happened to be going through a phase at the time where I missed playing old games because I found the rush to make everything 3D to be exclusionary… that phase will end any day now, surely. Sadly, I never purchased a Game Boy Micro, which launched on 9/13/2005; it looks like it would have been the perfect method for me to whet my appetite for 2D Mario adventures.

Hype ranking: ***

2010: SMB+25

Nintendo is BACK, baby! The Wii took America by storm and outsold all its hi-rez competition. Mario is also "back" with the recent New Super Mario Bros 2D games as well as Super Mario Galaxy, a pair of 3D games, showing that the plumber (and his Kyoto masters) still have plenty of fun left to deliver in both dimensions. For those looking to revisit the NES glory days, Nintendo sells old games a la carte on "Virtual Console" via a digital Shopping Channel on the Wii. There's also the Nintendo DS, which became more popular than the Game Boy Advance ever had been following a hardware redesign, but it still plays all the old GBA games.

For this historic anniversary, though, Nintendo announces two head-scratching special offers. First, Super Mario All-Stars is released on disc for the Wii, but it's just the original SNES ROM with no special features—exactly the sort of thing that would normally be available for a few bucks on Virtual Console. The package includes a booklet and a soundtrack CD, but that CD only includes ten—10!—tracks of music from Mario games, followed by 10 sound effects. Even stranger, Nintendo produces a special red Wii which includes a "25th Anniversary edition" of Super Mario Bros installed on the hard drive in certain regions. What's special about it? Instead of question marks, the power-up blocks have the number "25" on them. That's it.

As a Wii and DS owner in 2010, I already had access to all the Mario games that I needed, making Nintendo's offer to sell me old stuff in a bright red box insulting.

Hype ranking: 0 stars

2015: SMB+30

Just five years later and Nintendo seems like a very different company. The Wii boom dried up quickly, leading to a not-quite innovative follow-up console confusingly named the Wii U which sells terribly. It does play all Wii games, along with new 4-player Mario romps New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario 3D World. However, the console's best game is released on this date as a celebration of Super Mario's 30 years: Super Mario Maker. While the game is light on original content, its online functionality lets players access an entire planet's worth of fan-made levels, most of which are awful but a small percentage of which are excellent. Fortunately, basic math tells us that a small percentage of infinity is itself infinity, so it is possible to be entertained by Super Mario Maker forever (or until the servers are shut down).

Also significant: Nintendo replaced the DS with the 3DS which is far and away the most popular non-smartphone handheld console. The 3DS does not play GBA games, but it plays all DS games (like New Super Mario Bros.) in addition to its own exclusive library (such as New Super Mario Bros. 2). Plus, the upgraded New 3DS model has its own Virtual Console, just like the Wii and Wii U. That gives Nintendo fans three different platforms for playing classic Super Mario titles. Sadly, unlike Sony's inter-connected PlayStation Network, all platforms are independent of one another, so buying Super Mario Bros. on 3DS does not unlock it on your other devices. Then again, anyone who had bought a 3DS in the first few months after launch received a free handout of multiple retro games as an apology for a surprise price cut in the summer of 2011.

In addition to the worldwide release of Super Mario Maker, Nintendo also sold a 30th anniversary Mario soundtrack in Japan, which was two full discs of music—a vast improvement over the shoddy 25th anniversary disc. There were also a pair of Mario concerts in Tokyo and Osaka which I attended alongside Retronauts' Jeremy Parish. It was my first ever concert experience in Japan and I was extremely pleased.

Hype ranking: ****

2020 (today!): SMB+35

Nintendo has rebounded again with the Switch, a now-3-year-old console which is still so popular it is hard to find in stores. The 3DS and Wii U Virtual Console still exist, but there is no equivalent on Nintendo's current platform: instead, paying Nintendo Online subscribers have access to a selection of classic NES and SNES games which naturally includes all the Super Mario Bros games. As part of the anniversary celebration, Super Mario All-Stars is added to the selection as a treat.

While nothing of significance is being released today, we are days away from a "limited" re-release of Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy for Switch, with a port of Super Mario 3D World to come later. Also coming later: Super Mario Bros. 35, an online competitive game a la Tetris 99 where players race one another to beat Super Mario Bros., all the while sending obstacles and enemies to each other as they progress. For offline handheld fun, Nintendo is making a special Super Mario Bros. edition of Game & Watch, the company's original handheld device from 1980. At ¥5000 (no price has been announced abroad yet, but that's likely going to be $50), it's pricey for a gadget that just plays Super Mario Bros. 1 and 2 (the Japanese 2, not the American 2) but its charm and form factor is undeniable.

As for me? In 2020, this is the first mainstream Mario anniversary where I'm more excited for my kids' response than my own: In 2015 they were too young to understand how to play Mario games, but now they have a Switch of their own and routinely ask for new games when birthdays arrive. They have no memory of any of the games being re-released this week, but I look forward to seeing their faces when I bring home a copy and try my hand at star/shine collecting after decades off. Will the magic transfer to them? Will I, a famous 2D>3D grouch, find new life in these beloved games? I have absolutely no idea... but unlike all the years listed above, when I felt like Nintendo was preying on my nostalgia, I'm really looking forward to finding out how these games handle today and what they will mean to my kids.

Hype ranking: *****