2.5/5 ★ – PKMX's review of Super Mario Bros. Deluxe.

Third and final time having to play a version of the original Super Mario Bros. Thank fucking god it's over. And it actually took longer than planned, because for the first time in this series, I had to use an emulator. From 1985-2003, every single 2D Mario game is available on Switch except for this and the first Mario Land, the next game I'm playing. It was available on 3DS, and Wii U as well I think, but those are dead so yeah. Why not add these remaining shitty games for the sake of completion? So anyway, I've learned about GB and NES audio distortion while playing these games. Always thought I was either going crazy, or I was having problems with emulators, or Nintendo's apps were a bit shit. My god, the music is absolutely FUCKED here. It's like it had every track playing twice simultaneously while off sync by a few seconds. Similar problems with NES music where I'd stop in my tracks and the music plays perfectly, then I do anything else and suddenly it goes to shit. Genuinely torturous to listen to, as if NES and GameBoy music/SFX aren't fucking grating enough as is. Anyway, yeah this gets the same rating as the original. Slight extra points for the improvements - nicer colours, extra modes, world map, BEING ABLE TO GO BACKWARDs etc etc - which are then lost due to extra screen crunch so it all balances out. This is probably the better way to play though, but I can't justify going higher than 5/10. Still a very generous rating for the original that probably deserves to be lowered eventually whenever I'm in a cranky mood, so let's call this one a stronger 5. It's actually kinda fun sometimes when I get into a groove. But for the most part, still so lame and I couldn't imagine paying any money to play this. The fucking emulator white screened randomly when I was exactly halfway through and I had to restart. Only about 25 minutes of lost progress, but this is so painful to get through that I felt absolutely devastated as if I lost 25 hours. Went through it again quickly anyway and made sure to continuously save. I didn't bother the first time because I didn't think of it (saving is also a new feature here actually) and I intended to just get fucking in and out in 45 minutes. But hey, we made it, no more SMB1 for me ever again. Stop hyping up mid. Next, time to find out how fucking shit Mario Land is. I've preemptively penciled it in at dead last in my 2D Mario Ranked list. After a solid run of great games, we've entered an absolutely fucking cursed era that will end after Advance 1. Will be interesting to see how the list shapes up when I've finished playing everything and the rankings are properly locked in. Not excited.