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RetroMo: Mario's Handheld History

Did you know that Mario starred in eight Game Boy and GBC games? Rediscover your roots inside...

...Continued From Page 5

Super Mario Bros. Deluxe

Quite a long time would pass before we would again see Mario in our hands. The Wario Land games had taken over as the main platform series for the Game Boy, until the launch of the Game Boy Color, at least. Nintendo released a game that was a blast from the past. With the recent interest in NES emulation on PCs, Nintendo decided to spring the original Super Mario Bros. upon us. The game was recreated as faithfully as was possible with the (still) 8-bit hardware of the Game Boy Color, with the game only lacking the screen size of the NES version. To me though this in a way enhanced the game, forcing you to make "leaps of faith" into screens unknown.

While the in-game graphics were faithful to the NES, there were many new additions to the game, like a graphical world map, which essentially existed just to look good. But hey, it did look good. You could also now save the game and continue at the stage you last completed, which is always welcome. Then there were the bonus bits! Challenge mode gave you the task of locating five hidden red coins in each stage, as well as a hidden Yoshi egg. VS mode, in which you had a race against your the other player in stages with cleverly placed blocks to impede your progress. The Photo Album contained pictures awarded to you when completing certain achievements in the game. If you had a Game Boy printer you could attach it and print them off! There were other printable goodies within the toy box section, like Nintendo logos and other cool pictures.

The main screen was also host to other unlockable bonuses like the "You vs. Boo" minigame (unlocked after scoring 100,000 points), which pitted you in a race against your ghostly enemy in the stages seen in the VS mode. The crown jewel unloackable was that there was a whole extra game locked away. Super Mario Bros. For Super Players (unlocked after scoring 300,000 points) was basically the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, The Lost Levels game almost in its entirety.

All in all this was to me the greatest handheld Mario title so far. Even though it was merely a re-release of an earlier title, there could not be a better title to have such an honor. I found myself playing it more than I ever had before, enjoying the challenge and progressing further (a big thanks goes out to the battery backed save for that) into the game than before. Needless to say Super Mario Bros. Deluxe became one of the top 10 all time best-sellers for the 8-bit period, only bettered in sales by the Mario Land titles, Tetris and some game called Pocket Monsters or something.