Did Mario Bros. Really Have to Be in Every Super Mario Advance Game?

During the first two-and-a-half years of the life of the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo decided to remake some of Mario's best games, adding new features while keeping the classic feel intact. The result was the Super Mario Advance series, and the four games that were remade-Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, Super Mario World, and Yoshi's Island-were improved upon and remained as excellent as when they were initially released years before. As a bonus feature, an updated version of the Mario Bros. arcade game was also included for one to four players to enjoy. The problem was that the very same version of Mario Bros. was featured in all four Mario Advance games, with absolutely nothing added in subsequent releases. Why Nintendo did not merely scrap Mario Bros. in other Mario Advance games or at least update it is beyond me. I feel that I should explain my displeasure over such a lazy move and what should have been done about it.

First, a little background on the arcade game. Mario Bros. was first released in 1983 and was Mario's first starring role after appearing in Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior. His brother, Luigi, made his debut here, and even back then, he was reduced to being controlled by a second player. Their job was to collect coins and defeat monsters that spilled out of the pipes. These enemies included crabs, flies, and turtles, the latter of which would soon become Mario's constant source of trouble. Players would have to hit the platform underneath the monsters to turn them over, and then kick them off the screen. Once all of the monsters were defeated, the stage was over. While it would be another two years before Mario achieved a great deal of stardom with Super Mario Bros., it is clear that some of the seeds were already in place here.

The version included in the Mario Advance games is graphically enhanced and includes remixed music, including the famous underground theme from Super Mario Bros, as well as Mario's famous voice. In the single player mode, game play is not very different from the original version. You still have to take out enemies and collect coins, and additional obstacles such as fireballs and icy foes that would freeze platforms and make them slippery add to the mayhem. Every now and then, you can play bonus stages for extra points, and gain continues that could be used if all of your lives are lost. Once both lives and continues have been used up, the game is over.

A major selling point for the Mario Bros. ports was that players could link up to four Game Boy Advance systems using a single Mario Advance game cartridge, as well as using any of the Mario Advance games (i.e. Player 1 could have a Mario Advance cartridge, Player 2 would have a Mario Advance 2 cartridge, etc). In the multiplayer modes, players could try and collect more coins than anyone else, briefly trap their opponents in trash cans, and utilize items such as a heart that would give them health. None of these special modes were available to single players, who had to be content with the classic mode. To its credit, Nintendo was wise enough to neither force everyone to get a Mario Advance cartridge nor to have each person have a specific title in the series. One wishes that they would have been smart enough to not force every player to own a Four Swords game cartridge in order to play its multiplayer mode.

As fun as the game can be, its major problem is that the very same version of Mario Bros. is included in each Mario Advance game, and was even featured as a bonus game in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. Opportunities to update the game in later installments, perhaps with elements from the main games such as power up items from Super Mario World, were wasted, perhaps to ensure that all four games as well as Superstar Saga would be compatible with each other. Nintendo was also lazy enough to copy and paste the instructions for Mario Bros. in each game's instruction books verbatim (or almost verbatim) each time, though its presence in the Superstar Saga instruction book is limited, as if it were a late addition to that game. Updated versions would have made the game more appealing, and less stale and tiresome.

The addition of Mario Bros. in each Mario Advance game also shuts out opportunities for other multiplayer games. Perhaps other classic arcade games should have been ported, with plenty of features to please numerous players. Failing that, new mini games based on the main games could have been made. In the original version of Yoshi's Island, there was a code that could be used to access a variety of mini games, including two player variations of some of them. However, the opportunity of including four player versions of those games was wasted, which is a shame. The other alternative would have been to drop Mario Bros., and any other bonus games, entirely, as the major games could be considered masterpieces even without any extra games tacked on. Nintendo put a lot of effort into the ports of the main games, so why could they not do the same for Mario Bros.?

Straight ports of games-those that do not have any additional features or changes-can be fine, but not when you insist on porting a game as a bonus to other games without making them feel fresh in any way possible. This is the sad fate of the Mario Bros. port. It was fine when it was ported to the first Mario Advance game, but after that, it was purely an exercise in laziness. Nintendo could have updated it every time, or added other mini games in its place, but they failed to do so. Multiplayer fans deserved better than to have the exact same game appear in multiple titles. Hopefully, Nintendo has learned its lesson and will not do a thing like this ever again. If a new version of Mario Bros. pops up on Wiiware or DS Ware, let's hope that Nintendo makes it the fresh and fun title that it deserves to be.