To get the lady back, Mario (and Luigi in the alternating two-player game) had to run and jump through eight different worlds, each with four stages, battling mushroom-like Goombas, turtle-like Koopa Troopas, Bullet Bills, Hammer Brothers, Piranha Plants and more. The bizarre-looking Bowser, King of the Koopa (a sort of dinosaur turtle), had kidnapped fair Princess Toadstool, heir to the throne of the Mushroom Kingdom. was a multi-world adventure somewhat inspired by another arcade icon’s 1983 game, Pac-Land. cabinets, jumpstarting both Mario’s career and the future of side-scrolling platform video games.ĭesigned by video game legend Shigeru Miyamoto (the same man responsible for the Donkey Kong games and Nintendo home system classics like the Legend of Zelda series), Super Mario Bros. In that watershed year, Super Mario Bros. arcade game, but the future King of All Things Nintendo didn’t really ascend to the throne until 1986.
The mustachioed carpenter-turned-plumber finally got top billing (and a twin brother, Luigi) in 1983’s original Mario Bros. In his first two video game appearances, Mario had to play second banana to two starring gorillas, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.
