Italian twin brother plumbers Mario and Luigi exterminate turtle-like creatures and crabs emerging from the sewers by knocking them upside-down and kicking them away.

It is part of the Mario franchise, but originally began as a spin-off from the Donkey Kong series.

The arcade, Famicom, and Nintendo Entertainment System versions were received positively by critics.

The NES version of Mario Bros. had been re-released through the Wii and Wii U's Virtual Console as well as Nintendo Switch Online; the original arcade version was released by Hamster Corporation on the Nintendo Switch as part of the Arcade Archives series.

[7] Unlike future Mario games, players cannot jump on enemies and squash them, unless they were already turned on their back.

[8] 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.

[9] Points are scored for defeating enemies and collecting the bonus coins that emerge from the pipes afterward.

[15] The "POW" block will flip all enemies touching a platform or the floor when activated, but can only be used three times before disappearing.

One life is lost whenever the player touches an un-flipped enemy, fireball, or fully formed icicle.

Mario Bros. was created by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, two of the lead developers for the video game Donkey Kong.

[16] Because of Mario's appearance in Donkey Kong with overalls, a hat, and a thick moustache, Miyamoto thought that he should be a plumber as opposed to a carpenter, and designed this game to reflect that.

[17] Another contributing factor was the game's setting: it was a large network of giant pipes, so they felt a change in occupation was necessary for him.

[20][21] Miyamoto also felt that the best setting for this game was New York due to its labyrinthine subterranean network of sewage pipes.

The Atari 8-bit computer version by Sculptured Software is the only home port which includes the falling icicles.

Another NES port was released in August 1993 exclusively in Germany as part of the Classic Series.

The latter was altered for the vertical screen used by the other games, with the visible play area cropped on the sides.

[55][56] In Japan, Game Machine listed Mario Bros. on their July 15, 1983, issue as being the third most-successful new table arcade unit of the month.

[64] This brings total Atari 2600, NES and Famicom Mini cartridge sales to 3.96 million units sold worldwide.

The NES and Atari versions of Mario Bros. received positive reviews from Computer and Video Games in 1989.

[69] A version of the game was announced alongside the Virtual Boy hardware itself at Nintendo Space World 1994.

[77][78] On October 16, 2015, Steve Kleisath obtained the world record for the arcade version at 5,424,920 points verified by Twin Galaxies.