MAME - Vs. Super Mario Bros

Everybody on the planet, and even lots of animals and perhaps trees have played Super Mario Bros. at some point.  It's probably the most well-known of any game of all time, so yes the story is Mario and Luigi try to save the Princess from Bowser (King Koopa in Asian versions). Anyway, the reason I chose to look at Vs. SMB is because it's quite different in many ways than the SMB version on the NES.  

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.#Vs._Super_Mario_Bros.)

Vs. Super Mario Bros

(Released 1986 According To The Title Screen)

First of all, depending on the arcade machine's settings, the game can be much harder. On the version I played, Mario has to gather between 100-250 coins for an extra life, the timer can be set to faster, Mario can start with only 2 lives, and credits can cost as much as 3 coins. This can really up the challenge of the game, because the timer already ticks off pretty quickly, especially towards the end, and extra lives are sparse and perhaps necessary in this version. I chose to play the game with 100 coins per/extra life, and with a regular timer.  If you choose to continue, you start the game at the start of the World you were on, i.e. 5-1, 6-1, etc.

Something else that I read in an online walkthrough for the game was that the green extra life mushrooms don't appear in this game.  I'm not sure if there are different versions of the game or something, but on the standard version that I played included the green extra life mushrooms in the familiar spots.  They seemed not to be there after World 4-1 though, and the one in World 8-2 was replaced with a regular mushroom.  Also it doesn't seem possible to do the bounce on the koopa on the stairs trick to get extra lives.  First of all, the koopas on World 3-1 are replaced by goombas, and secondly, even in a couple places where I worked extremely hard to knock a Para-Koopa onto the stairs, trying to get the stomp repeatedly trick to work proved impossible.

So who cares right?  I mean, I can beat SMB with both eyes plucked out and playing with my one good toe.  Well...this version is very similar to the NES for the first few worlds, but around World 5-1 the difficulty really gets cranked up.  There's less power-ups to be found, more enemies, way trickier jumps, less coins, different level layouts, and in general other cheap kinds of things to force the gamer to spend more quarters.

Why not just warp you ask?  Well, seeing as how my banner says "No Warp Zones," I try to stay away from that.  But, it is possible to warp to Worlds 2-1, 3-1, and 4-1 from World 1-2, and I believe to World 6-1 (vine) and World 5-1 (pipe) from World 4-2.  The World 6-1 warp replaces the World 8-1 warp in NES SMB.  So basically you're going to have to play through the tougher levels, and they can be a bit frustrating.

It was pretty hard to capture the full effect of the levels with screencaps, but I'll give some examples from my playthrough of the game.

World 1-1 - Minor Differences Already

World 1-2 - 1-Up denied

World 3-1 - Starting To Get Trickier

World 3-1 - No Koopas! Bummer...

World 3-2 - Lots O' Pits

World 6-3 - Tricky Jump

I know this screencap doesn't really show anything too difficult, but to get to that platform you have to do full speed running jump onto a Para-Koopa and hope that you haven't accidentally scrolled it out of position.

World 7-2 - Death By Seaweed!

World 7-3 - Hey Mario, Why Don't You Bounce Off That Para-Koopa For A Mushroom... C'mon, I Dare You!  Uhhhh... Pass.

World 8-4 - Wow!  New Text!  Hey!  Friendship... After All Those Dead Koopas.... You Bi...!

World 8-4 - The Toadstool Rainbow

High Score! Yes!!

Some other differences that I noticed in the game were that World 4-4 was swapped with World 5-4, and also the castle mazes in World 5-4 and 7-4 have different paths than the original SMB.  If you're too lazy to google, the walkthroughs and some nicely done map pics for the mazes can be found at

(http://www.gamefaqs.com/arcade/584015-vs-super-mario-bros/faqs).  I believe one of the faqs there also lays out exactly how the levels correspond to different versions of the game as well.

Just an aside, I played this game on a huge screen in an arcade in Japan, and I was feeling pretty rad hanging out there showing off my old-school skills...until I brutally and repeatedly died facing off against a Hammer Bros. in World 5.  Plus it cost approximately a dollar per play, but really not a bad deal considering one play lasted way longer than most arcade games.

Overall, I would give this game a 9. I really enjoy this incarnation of SMB.  It's the same old game that was basically the reason for the success of the NES coupled with a whole new challenging aspect.  I'd probably give the game a 10, because after all it's kind of the granddaddy of awesome, but I thought that some of the later levels caused a little too many cheap player deaths. I would highly recommend all SMB old-school fans to check this version out!!