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Comment by kmooney | Hacker News Reader

I remember the first time I played Super Mario Bros on an NES. It was like the first time I used an iPhone. It was immediately obvious that everyone else had been doing it wrong all along.

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In many ways, it's a "perfect" game. Smooth scrolling, no frame rate issues, cool art style, amazing music, excellent control. No tutorial levels, no shitty movies, no hand-holding. Just - go. It blew my mind in so many ways. Way ahead of its time.

The first game on the PC that came close to matching that experience was Commander Keen, which was, what, 1991? 6 years later...

Fun fact, Keen was originally a Mario port but Nintendo didn't want it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_Keen#Creation_and_de...

No save games. This is a complete deal breaker. Yes, those first couple of levels are really, really good, but they are not good enough to let the developer demand that you play them again and again, instead of letting the player get on with new challenges.

I really don't consider Mario games interesting until Super Mario World, unless you have an emulator with save states.

The first time I played it was in the arcade. I was flabbergasted when I realized the NES version was exactly the same.

This is not about the arcade title 'Mario Bros.'. 'Super Mario Bros.' was never released to the arcades.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Bros. and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.

Edit: OK, seems like I was wrong :-)

It did in a roundabout kind of way - a Nintendo arcade system called the Playchoice-10 let you play various NES games on a paid timer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayChoice-10

Yes, it was. (I saw one in the wild many years ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayChoice-10

In m_st's defense, this wasn't really an "arcade" version of SMB, but rather they took an NES, slapped 10 games in it, and put it in an arcade cabinet (not literally, but functionally).

Most games that originated on the arcade and later became console games were usually ports. However, in the case of PlayChoice 10, all of these games originated on the NES, and were "ported" (but mostly unmodified) from the NES.

So when sehugg thought they were playing an arcade game, they were actually playing a (slightly modified) NES.

Mario Bros. arcade was ported to the NES, and it was modified. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Bros.#Reception

That's a distinction without a difference. Sega built arcade hardware almost identical to their SG-1000 console and ported some of its games to it. Most Neo-Geo arcade "MVS" cartridges were the same as the home "AES" carts except for the physical connector and arcade-specific stuff (checking for coin switches).

There's no platonic ideal that makes an "arcade" game vs a home system. They come in all shapes & sizes of cabinets. Some take coins, some take cards, and some are kept on free play to keep kids from running around a restaurant screaming.

I'd say the only real difference between an arcade game and a home game is where they were meant to be played.

Agreed. My point is that back then, most console versions of arcade games were "watered down" software ports after the fact. PlayChoice 10 was one of the first, more popular exceptions to this (the software remained practically unchanged).

There was the Playchoice release and also Vs Super Mario Bros. Vs Super Mario Bros is a true arcade version of SMB, which had harder and different levels from the home version.

http://www.mariowiki.com/VS._Super_Mario_Bros. (You need to manually add the trailing period, HN is stripping it)

This was also the only way to play Goonies in the US, they only sold the sequel for consoles here.

Yes it was, on the Playchoice 10 platform: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayChoice-10

Everyone is talking about Playchoice 10 (which I never saw), but the Wal-Mart nearest to my house had "VS. Super Mario Bros" when I was a kid. It was like alternate reality Mario. Super Mario Bros with harder levels.

http://www.mariowiki.com/VS._Super_Mario_Bros.

Awesome, I knew about PlayChoice when I was a kid, but I never knew about VS Super Mario Bros.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcRHqfBhTh4

It really does look quite a bit harder.

To help anyone who doesn't realize it, HN is eating the period from the end of that link in the parent post (which is necessary to avoid getting a page without any text).

and to be accurate, Vs Super Mario Bros (the arcade release) is different from the home version. The levels are harder. The difficulty ramp as you progress is much steeper. It's actually a very fun version of SMB because of the changes.

oooh! It's not exactly the same! The arcade is quite a bit more difficult. You need 250 coins for an extra life, and there are a handful of levels that are not on the cartridge. The NES version has a couple levels (I think it's 1-3 and 2-2) which show up again later with slightly more characters, but in the arcade those later levels are completely different.

*though the graphics and mechanics are the same and I'm sure that's what you meant. I'm a big fan and it bugs me that I can only play those levels through MAME.

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