All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. is a game that most people haven’t heard of. This was a release on the Famicom Disk System add-on for the Japanese Nintendo Entertainment System. To know what this game is you first need to have a little backstory. All Night Nippon is a Japanese radio program that has been airing since the late 60s, and from what I hear was/still is fairly popular. Apparently the studio wanted to do a video game cross over, but the format doesn’t exactly lend itself well to a Nintendo game. Meetings were had and ideas were pitched and the end result was All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros.
This was a re-tooling of sorts of the original Super Mario Bros. release with a few retooled graphics, mechanics, and levels. Generally it’s never a good idea to mess with such a legendary game but they managed to not mess it up. This is a rare release that’s hard to find and only available on a niche peripheral that never left Japan. With that said All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. is pretty much the original game, but I did appreciate quite a few of the changes and the new graphics are interesting to say the least.
The story here is the same as it was in the original release. It’s up to the Mario Bros. to rescue Princess Toadstool (or since this is a Japanese release I guess she can be referred to as Peach) from the clutches of the evil giant lizard King Koopa (or Bowser for the same aforementioned reason.) That’s it for the scenario, but what’s interesting is the fact that instead of rescuing Toad at the end of each castle he has been replaced by various DJs from All Night Nippon. This change made surprised me at first, but I found it to be comical.
Either way, as I’ve already mentioned this is a re-tooling of Super Mario Bros. This is still a side scrolling platform game where you maneuver Mario through each stage and jumping on enemies heads, jumping into blocks from below revealing coins and power-ups with your goal being to jump on to the flagpole at the end of each stage. The game is divided into eight different worlds and each has three stages within it. At the end of every world you face off against Bowser within his many castle areas, and you can defeat him by jumping on the axe (or… whatever the icon in this version is supposed to represent) which makes him fall into the lava below. It’s a pretty simple premise that hasn’t been altered.
It’s been a year or two since I’ve played the original Super Mario Bros. and this All Night Nippon version reminded me of just how good the original release is. Nintendo’s development teams were on point here in terms of level design. Each stage is an absolute blast to play through, and the various hazards introduced throughout do an amazing job of keeping everything fresh. Enemy placement is intelligent and often requires you to plan your next move before progressing, and the variety in patterns and specific traits does a wonderful job of keeping you on your toes.
The gameplay hasn’t aged a day in my opinion, and I love how this title can bring me back to my childhood. I still get worried whenever I see the hammer bros characters when I’m not armed with the fire flower or invincibility star, and the underwater stages still stress me out. The game is extremely well designed, and all of the high points carry over nicely to this newer version of the classic release. This isn’t just a graphical swap though; the developers implemented several gameplay changes which do alter the experience. Some are good, and some are bad.
The very first change you’ll notice is that from the title screen you can choose to play as Mario or Luigi. This harkens to the original Japan only sequel, and is functionally the same. Mario controls just as he did in the base game, but Luigi is a different story. He retains his higher jump and more slippery controls. It sounds like a small alteration, but it adds new dimensions to the original stages because you can access areas previously impossible as just Mario, and other places that require more precision are made much more difficult when you’re slipping around all over the ground. The next change you’ll notice is that the items have been switched around.
Everyone knows that in the first few blocks you encounter the mushroom is always in the right one, and I was shocked to find that this now has a coin. The power-up has now been moved to the top one. That 1up in the ceiling of the first castle stage? Gone. Needless to say my mind was a little blown. In every returning stage it’s a similar story. I used to bypass certain blocks because sometimes I don’t like being held up collecting the coins and now I’m not able to do so. It’s a pretty cool change that makes the game seem more like a remix.
The only thing I didn’t like about this release is the fact that some of the stages didn’t make the cut. What the developers did is replace many of them with levels from the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2. I would have preferred they didn’t go this route.
I went into this game expecting only a few of the graphics to be changed around to represent the All Night Nippon theme. The developers actually took this a step further by using the engine for the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2. The color palette is a bit richer, and there are more background details than what we previously had. It looks really good and it’s cool that they took advantage of the slightly more powerful Famicom Disk System. Additionally the previously daytime stages are now night as a nod to the radio station’s name, and though not all enemy sprites have been changed a good portion of them have. You won’t find any goombas here; now they’re represented with a smiling face with sunglasses. It’s the same story for the piranha plants which is pretty comical.
Other foes such as cheep cheeps, koopa troopas, and more use the same exact sprites as in the original release. While I prefer the basic game’s visuals over those of this one it’s still plenty charming and funny to notice all the changes. The soundtrack remains unchanged which is kind of questionable considering the radio show theme. Some new mixes are more than warranted. Unfortunately the developers didn’t bother. Either way it’s still some of the most iconic music across the entire medium. There might be a bit more depth to each melody but I could only notice when I was focusing on it. It’s perfectly sound but I was hoping for more.
All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. is a pretty difficult game to find. Unfortunately you also need a Famicom Disk System to play it. It isn’t vastly different from the original Super Mario Bros. and so it’s a bit of a tough sell. Diehard fans of the franchise will absolutely love this release. There’s something very strange about seeing graphical changes in an actual retail release of Super Mario Bros. It’s silly and fun, and the changes make it worth playing especially for those who have the original release memorized inside and out. All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. is a remix of sorts, and a highly collectible item because of it. It’s not worth a high price though, and should only be picked up if you already have the FDS add-on.
