Mario Bros.

Mario Bros. (マリオブラザーズ, Mario Burazāzu) is a platform game published and developed for arcades by Nintendo in 1983. It was created by Shigeru Miyamoto. It has been featured as a minigame in the Super Mario Advance series and numerous other games. Mario Bros. has been re-released for the Wii's, Nintendo 3DS's, and Wii U's Virtual Console services in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia.

In the game, Mario is portrayed as an Italian-American plumber who, along with his younger brother Luigi, has to defeat creatures that have been coming from the sewers below New York City. The gameplay focuses on Mario's extermination of them by flipping them on their backs and kicking them away. The original versions of Mario Bros.—the arcade version and the Family Computer/Nintendo Entertainment System (FC/NES) version—were received positively by critics.

Gameplay

Mario Bros. features two plumbers, Mario and Luigi, having to investigate the sewers of New York after strange creatures have been appearing down there. The objective of the game is to defeat all of the enemies in each phase. The mechanics of Mario Bros. involve only running and jumping. Unlike future Mario games, players cannot jump on enemies and squash them, unless they were already turned on their back. Each phase is a series of platforms with pipes at each corner of the screen, along with an object called a "POW" block in the center. Phases use wraparound, meaning that enemies and players that go off to one side will reappear on the opposite side.

Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros. (Japanese: スーパーマリオブラザーズ, Hepburn: Sūpā Mario Burazāzu) is a 1985 platform video game internally developed by Nintendo R&D4 and published by Nintendo as a pseudo-sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. It was originally released in Japan for the Family Computer on September 13, 1985, and later that year for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America and Europe on May 15, 1987, and Australia later in 1987. It is the first of the Super Mario series of games. In Super Mario Bros., the player controls Mario and in a two-player game, a second player controls Mario's brother Luigi as he travels through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from the antagonist Bowser.

In 2005, IGN's poll named the "pioneering" and "highly influential" title as the "greatest game of all time", considering it to have aided in resurrecting the crashed American video game market of the 1980s. The game's mid-1980s release served to further popularize the side-scrolling subgenre of the already popular platform video game genre of the early 1980s. In addition to its definitive features, the game has also sold enormously well, and was the best-selling game of all time for a single platform for approximately three decades at over 40 million units, until Nintendo's Wii Sports took that title. The commercial success of Super Mario Bros. has caused it to be ported to almost every one of Nintendo's major gaming consoles. Nintendo released special red variants of the Wii and Nintendo DSi XL consoles in re-packaged, Mario-themed, limited edition bundles in late 2010 as part of the 25th anniversary of the game's release.

Super Mario

Super Mario (Japanese: スーパーマリオ, Hepburn: Sūpā Mario) is a series of platform video games created by Nintendo featuring their mascot, Mario. Alternatively called the Super Mario Bros. (スーパーマリオブラザーズ, Sūpā Mario Burazāzu) series or simply the Mario (マリオ) series, it is the central series of the greater Mario franchise. At least one Super Mario game has been released for every major Nintendo video game console and handheld.

The Super Mario games follow Mario's adventures in the fictional Mushroom Kingdom, usually with Mario as the player character. He is usually joined by his brother, Luigi, and occasionally by other members of the Mario cast. As in platform video games, the player runs and jumps across platforms and atop enemies in themed levels. The games have simple plots, typically with Mario rescuing the kidnapped Princess Peach from the primary antagonist, Bowser. The first title in the series, Super Mario Bros., released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985, established gameplay concepts and elements prevalent in nearly every Super Mario game since. These include a multitude of power-ups and items that give Mario special magic powers such as fireball-throwing and size-changing into giant and miniature sizes.

New Super Mario Bros.

New Super Mario Bros. (New スーパーマリオブラザーズ, Nyū Sūpā Mario Burazāzu) is a 2006 side-scrolling platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld game console. The game was released in North America and Japan in May 2006, and in Australia and Europe in June 2006. It was the first original side-scrolling platform game starring Mario since Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins in 1992, and the first game to be a part of the main Super Mario series since Super Mario Sunshine in 2002.

The game's plot is similar to those of other side-scrolling Mario games. New Super Mario Bros. follows Mario as he fights his way through Bowser's henchmen to rescue Princess Peach. Mario has access to several power-ups that help him complete his quest, including the Super Mushroom, the Fire Flower, and the Starman, each giving him unique abilities. While traveling through eight worlds with a total of 80 levels, Mario must defeat Bowser Jr. and Bowser before finally saving Princess Peach.

Bowser Jr.

Bowser Jr. (known as Koopa Jr. (Japanese: クッパＪｒ., Hepburn: Kuppa Junia) in Japan), or sometimes simply Jr., is a video game character who appears in Nintendo's Mario franchise as a recurring antagonist. As his name implies, he is the son of the series' primary antagonist, Bowser. Since his debut in Super Mario Sunshine, Bowser Jr. has been a recurring character in the Mario series, and has been made playable in several spin-offs, such as Mario Superstar Baseball, Mario Strikers Charged, and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. He wants to do nothing more than his father's will (kidnap Princess Peach and defeat Mario).

Design and characteristics

Bowser Jr. is a yellow-skinned Koopa similar to his father with the same yellow and tan skin complexion, as well as a light green head and a tuft of red hair. He has one small tooth in his mouth and a large snout, as well as small circular eyes that are beady and black in color. His shell is lined with a green encasing with small white spikes. By contrast, Junior typically wears a white bandanna (garment) that's decorated with drawn-on fangs and worn like a mask (however it is absent in Mario Strikers Charged, and he wore a blue bandanna with Mario's mustache in Super Mario Sunshine).This bandanna is also often worn over his stomach. Bowser Jr. also has two metal wristbands, while Bowser wears four that are all spiked.