Tell Me About Vs. Super Mario Bros.

[Bongo]

You know, the arcade port of SMB1. I'm curious about it.

I know it's harder than the home version, with rarer extra lives, fewer powerups, trickier obstacles, etc. But has anybody here got any really serious opinions about the difference? Any of y'all ever waxed philosophical about it, or done any fine-grained comparative analysis? Or even vaguely remember any experience with this product at all?

I want to hear what you have to say.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

Played it as a kid, figured the reason I couldn't get very far was that using a joystick for it didn't work for me. There were apparently different toggle settings that could "cheat" you by changing the rules of the game, such as how many lives you could start with.

 

[jpfriction]

We had it at the bowling alley my parents owned for a bit. Only thing I remember is there is a koopa troopa where a goomba is supposed to be early in 1-2. Blasphemy.

 

[Super Megaman X]

According to The Gaming Historian,
some levels were actually new in Vs. and designed to be more difficult. (from about 1:50 to 4:00 in the video) These levels were actually imported into Super Mario Bros. 2.

 

[Vaeran]

This arcade game was my first encounter with Mario when I was very little. I don't remember much about it other than that my dumb ass couldn't figure out how to jump across a pit because I didn't realize you could hold a button to run.

 

[Troa11]

When I first saw it as a kid, I remember thinking, "Holy crap, an Arcade game where a quarter will last me longer than 60 seconds!"

Between the rearranged levels and the arcade control layout vs the NES pad... I shouldn't have been so excited.

And yes if I remember my reading correctly something like nearly half the stages were wholesale lifted from SMB2J or vice versa. I forget which came first.