Track: Overworld Game: Super Mario Bros. Publisher(s): Nintendo Composer(s): Koji Kondo Character: Super Mario
Super Mario Bros. is a 1985 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It is the successor to the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros. and the first game in the Super Mario series. Players control Mario, or his brother Luigi in the multiplayer mode, to traverse the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Toadstool from King Koopa (later named Bowser). They traverse side-scrolling stages while avoiding hazards such as enemies and pits and collecting power-ups such as the Super Mushroom, Fire Flower and Starman. Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka designed Super Mario Bros. as a culmination of the team's experience working on Devil World and the side-scrollers Excitebike and Kung Fu. Miyamoto wanted to create a more colorful platform game with a scrolling screen and larger characters. The team designed the first level, World 1-1, as a tutorial for platform gameplay. Koji Kondo's soundtrack is one of the earliest in video games, making music a centerpiece of the design. Super Mario Bros. was released in September 1985 in Japan for the Famicom, the Japanese version of the NES. Following a US test market release for the NES, it was converted to international arcades on the Nintendo VS. System in early 1986. The NES version was released in North America that year and in PAL regions in 1987. It has been rereleased on most Nintendo systems. Super Mario Bros. is frequently cited as one of the greatest video games, and is particularly admired for its precise controls. It is one of the best-selling games, with more than 58 million copies sold worldwide. Alongside the NES, it is credited as a key factor in reviving the video game industry after the 1983 crash, and helped popularize the side-scrolling platform genre. The soundtrack is often named among the best video game soundtracks. Mario has become prominent in popular culture, and Super Mario Bros. began a multimedia franchise including a long-running game series, an animated television series, a Japanese anime feature film, a live-action feature film and an animated feature film.
