How to play Mario Bros. online
- Run left and right: left and right arrow keys
- Jump (and punch the floor above): Z
- Choose one or two players: up and down arrows on the title screen, or F2 (Select)
- Choose the game level: left and right arrows on the title screen
- Start: Z or F3 (Reset)
- Pause: F4
- Back to the title screen: F2 (Select) during a game
- Full screen: F9
Both the USA (NTSC) and Europe (PAL) cartridges are on this page; use the switch above the game to change.
Gameplay
Creatures are crawling out of the pipes and onto the floors, and Mario has to clear them out. To get rid of a pest, you jump up under the floor it is walking on, which flips it onto its back, then run up and kick it off before it gets back on its feet. Each phase ends when every pest is gone. Mario has three lives and earns one more at 20,000 points. Touching an upright pest or a fireball costs a life.
- Shellcreepers: one punch from below flips them.
- Sidesteppers: the first punch only makes them angry and faster; a second one flips them.
- Fighterflies: they hop, and can only be flipped while touching the floor.
- Slipice: appears in later phases and turns floors to slippery ice unless you punch him first.
- Fireballs: jump over them, change floors, or punch them from below.
The POW block near the bottom of the screen flips every pest at once when you hit it. It works three times, and a new one arrives in round 8, round 13 and every fifth round after that. Every kicked pest also releases a coin from a pipe. Now and then a coin phase replaces the pests: you have 20 seconds to grab dangling coins, with a bonus for collecting all of them.
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Punching a pest | 10 |
| Punching a green fireball | 200 |
| Punching Slipice | 500 |
| Kicking a pest off / grabbing a coin | 800 |
| Punching an orange fireball | 1,000 |
| Kicking several pests off quickly | 800, 1,600, 2,400, 3,200 |
In the two-player game the second player is Luigi. You can share the work, one punching and one kicking, or compete and flip a pest back up just before your rival kicks it.
Tips
- Save POW for a crowd. One hit that flips three or four pests is worth far more than using it on a single one.
- Kick in quick succession. Flipping several pests and kicking them in a row raises the value of each kick.
- Punch Sidesteppers twice fast. If you are quick, the second punch lands before they run off to another floor.
- Bring pests to you. Punch a pest near the end of its floor so it drops down to the level you are standing on.
The story behind Mario Bros. on the 7800
Mario Bros. was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi and released in arcades by Nintendo in 1983. Nintendo kept the home rights in Japan but licensed them abroad to Atari, which is why versions appeared for the 2600, 5200, Atari 8-bit computers and, years later, the 7800. The 7800 conversion was made by International Technology Development Corporation (ITDC). The falling icicles of the arcade game are missing here, as in every home version except the Atari 8-bit one.
AtariProtos calls it a decent conversion that plays well enough, though with slippery controls and weak sound. It also notes that the cartridge is one of the harder 7800 games to find, even though it was made alongside the much more common Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior.
