Players control Mario, or his brother Luigi in the multiplayer mode, to traverse the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from King Koopa (later named Bowser).

After completing the game once, the player is rewarded with the ability to replay with increased difficulty, such as all Goombas replaced with Buzzy Beetles, enemies similar to Koopa Troopas who cannot be defeated using the Fire Flower.

Finally, they reach Bowser's true stronghold, where they defeat him by throwing fireballs or by dropping him into lava, freeing the princess and saving the Mushroom Kingdom.

[15] Miyamoto also wanted to create a game that would be the "final exclamation point" for the ROM cartridge format before the forthcoming Famicom Disk System was released.

Miyamoto designed the game world and led a team of seven programmers and artists who turned his ideas into code, sprites, music, and sound effects.

[24] Developers of previous hit games joined the team in February 1985, importing many special programming techniques, features, and design refinements such as these: "Donkey Kong's slopes, lifts, conveyor belts, and ladders; Donkey Kong Jr.'s ropes, logs and springs; and Mario Bros.'s enemy attacks, enemy movement, frozen platforms and POW Blocks".

[25] Due to this storage limitation, the designers happily considered their aggressive search for space-saving opportunities to be akin to their own fun television game show competition.

Miyamoto used this remaining space to add a sprite of a crown into the game, which would appear in the player's life counter as a reward for obtaining at least 10 lives.

Rather than confront the newly oriented player with obstacles, the first level of Super Mario Bros. lays down the variety of in-game hazards by means of repetition, iteration, and escalation.

[37] Kondo had two specific goals for his music: "to convey an unambiguous sonic image of the game world", and "to enhance the emotional and physical experience of the gamer".

[52][53][54] In 1990, another cartridge, touting those two games and World Class Track Meet, was released in North America as part of the NES Power Set bundle.

Existing levels were made much more difficult, with narrower platforms, more dangerous enemies, fewer hidden power-ups, and 200 coins needed for an extra life instead of 100.

[50] The arcade game debuted at the 1986 Amusement Trades Exhibition International (ATEI) show in London,[47] held in January 1986;[48] this was the first appearance of Super Mario Bros. in Europe.

[47] The arcade game then received a wide international release for overseas markets outside of Japan in February 1986,[49] initially in the form of a ROM software conversion kit.

[69] A remake of the game titled Super Mario Bros. Special developed by Hudson Soft was released in Japan in 1986 for the NEC PC-8801 and Sharp X1 personal computers.

Though featuring similar controls and graphics, the game lacks screen scrolling due to hardware limitations, has different level designs and new items, and new enemies based on Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong.

The game features graphics based upon the show, with sprites of the enemies, mushroom retainers, and other characters being changed to look like famous Japanese music idols, recording artists, DJs, and other people related to All Night Nippon.

It stars only Luigi in a mirrored version of World 1–2, scrolling from left to right, with a higher jump and a slide similar to the Japanese Super Mario Bros.

[78] Super Mario Bros. Deluxe was released on the Game Boy Color on May 10, 1999, in North America and Europe, and in 2000 in Japan exclusively to the Nintendo Power retail service.

She felt the graphics were simple compared to other arcade games (such as Sega's Space Harrier at the same ATEI show), but was surprised at the depth of gameplay, including its length, number of hidden secrets, and the high degree of dexterity it required.

[47] In the fall of 1986, Top Score newsletter reviewed Vs. Super Mario Bros. for arcades, calling it "without a doubt one of the best games" of the year and stating that it combined "a variety of proven play concepts" with "a number of new twists" to the gameplay.

[93][51] Reviewing the NES version, the "Video Game Update" segment of Computer Entertainer magazine in June 1986 praised the "cute and comical" graphics, lively music and most of all its depth of play, including the amount of hidden surprises and discoveries.

[118][119] By that September, teenage videogame journalist Rawson Stovall declared in his syndicated column, "[The game's universe and plot] elements...[help] develop [a] special style that makes [playing it] a must.

[91] In 1989, ACE called it the "undisputed king of cutesy platform-style arcade adventures" and that the "game is crammed with secret levels, 'warps' and hidden treats such that you never tire of playing it".

[85] AllGame gave Super Mario Bros. a five-star rating, stating that "[T]he sense of excitement, wonder and – most of all – enjoyment felt upon first playing this masterpiece of videogame can't barely be put into words.

And while its sequels have far surpassed it in terms of length, graphics, sound and other aspects, Super Mario Bros., like any classic – whether of a cinematic or musical nature – has withstood the test of time, continuing to be fun and playable" and that any gamer "needs to play this game at least once, if not simply for a history lesson".

[160] Super Mario Bros. Deluxe ranked third in the bestselling handheld game charts in the U.S. between June 6 and 12, 1999[161] with more than 2.8 million copies in the U.S.[162] It was included on Singapore Airlines flights in 2006.

The brief cited social research that declared several games, including Super Mario Bros., to contain cartoon violence similar to that of children's programs such as Mighty Mouse and Road Runner that garnered little negative reaction from the public.

[176][177] Super Mario Bros. Crossover, a PC fangame developed by Jay Pavlina and released in 2010 as a free browser-based game, is a full recreation of Super Mario Bros. that allows the player to alternatively control various other characters from Nintendo games, including Mega Man, Link from The Legend of Zelda, Samus Aran from Metroid, and Simon Belmont from Castlevania.

[196] The Minus World bug in the Japanese Famicom Disk System version of the game behaves differently and creates multiple, completable stages.