World 8-1 While not a difficult course in terms of level design (outside of a few tough jumps), World 8-1 does its best to unnerve you into playing sloppily by giving you entirely too little time in which to complete the stage at a reasonable pace. Compared to some of the more recent World x-1s, […]
World 7-3 Case in point for my previous claim: World 7-3 sends you into a reprise of World 2-3, but one that’s far, far more difficult than what you dealt with the first time around. Once again, you have a bridge stage following an underwater level, but the gauntlet of flying Cheap-Cheaps is several orders […]
World 7-1 Well, here you go. There can be no doubt at this point that Super Mario Bros. wants you dead. World 7-1 consists of a pure gauntlet of devastatingly placed foes, specifically Bullet Bills and Hammer Bros. There are a few other enemies that appear here and there, most notably a hilariously ineffective Buzzy […]
World 6-3 I remember being confused a long time ago when someone referred to the “ice level” in Super Mario Bros. “Super Mario Bros. doesn’t have an ice level,” I said, puzzled. Later, I realized they were referring to World 6-3, which features a monochromatic color scheme. But I never parsed it as ice, personally. […]
World 6-1 World 6-1 sees the return of Lakitu. This is Super Mario Bros.‘s way of congratulating you for surviving a brutal gauntlet: By following it up with something even worse. Actually, this stage isn’t too difficult if you have fireballs, since Lakitu’s Spinies go down like suckers when you flash-fry them. Of course, that’s […]
World 5-3 Bullet Bill puts in yet another appearance to create the most interesting twist on the World x-3 “mushroom platform” (though, in this case, it looks like we’re back to trees) stages to date. The fundamental design aesthetic dials things back a bit to resemble earlier x-3 levels, largely dropping the moving platforms and […]
World 5-1 The second half of Super Mario Bros. kicks off with a devastating tease: A level where three different enemy groups appear to almost, but not quite, allow you to earn a 1UP by kicking Koopa shells. The last group even demands a touch of finesse to not-quite-acquire the precious prize of a […]
World 4-4 marks the halfway point of Mario’s adventure, and as such introduces one of the most devious tricks to date: Split paths. While the level design appears at first glance to be no different from previous castle stages — only only enemy appears besides Bowser, leaving the bulk of the active threats to take […]
In keeping with the overall “back to World 1” theme of World 4, World 4-3 reprises many of the elements of World 1-3: Tall mushrooms poke into the sky, patrolled by turtles and connected by dropping lift platforms. And as always, the brevity and overall design of the stage precludes the presence of traditional secrets […]
I made a terrible factual error in the previous entry. It has been amended. World 4-2 takes Mario back into the underground in a level that calls back to World 1-2 in obvious ways, but does so primarily to throw you off-guard and hoodwink you. In fact, the general layout of World 4-2 strongly resembles […]
On to World 4-1. With Mario’s arrival in the game’s fourth world, Bowser introduces a new kind of hazard to the action: An infinite hazard that pours on the pressure from start to finish. His name is Lakitu, and he hates you. Lakitu himself doesn’t pose much of a direct threat; he flies around on […]
World 3-2 I love world 3-2, because the entire thing is an elaborate troll. The whole of the stage takes the form of a series of wide-open expanses patrolled by Koopa Troopas and Goombas, with the free areas divided up by narrow columns of blocks, single pipes, and the occasional small pit. It’s a low-challenge […]