Mario Bros.
- For the arcade game, see Mario (universe)#Mario Bros.. For the team in Super Smash Bros., see Mario Bros. (team).
| Mario Bros. | |
|---|---|
 File:MarioSymbol.png | |
| Universe | Mario |
| Appears in | SSBB |
| Availability | Unlockable |
| Unlock criteria | Clear Event 19: Wario Bros. |
| Crate type | Normal |
| Tracks available | Mario Bros. Gyromite Famicom Medley Power-Up Music Douchuumen (Nazo no Murasamejo) Bolded tracks must be unlocked |
| Article on Super Mario Wiki | Mario Bros. (stage) |
The Mario Bros. stage appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and is based on the arcade game of the same name. The versus mode level in Super Mario Bros. 3 (and its SNES/Wii Super Mario All-Stars counterpart) and in New Super Mario Bros. Wii for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Wii, respectively, were also designed after this game.
Due to the fact that this stage has narrow KO zones and no lower blastzone, it is difficult to score a normal KO. Sakurai himself said, "Speaking frankly, this stage throws all the basic rules of Smash out the window!" The best way to KO someone is to hit a Shellcreeper or a Sidestepper from below (through the floor) or attack one, pick it up, and throw it at someone before the player can get a KO.
The presence of the Shellcreepers, Sidesteppers, and the flame, as well as the size of the stage, the fixed camera, the ability to chaingrab someone off the side of the stage, and the lack of both passable platforms and a lower blast line results in this stage being banned in most tournaments (a fate shared by seven other Mario-related stages [out of the 12 in Brawl] each to some extent, despite that series being Nintendo's flagship franchise).
Origin
![[1]](/File:MarioBros.png)
This stage is based on the first two levels of the arcade game Mario Bros. In Mario Bros. there are these turtle enemies called "Shellcreepers" and crab enemies called "Sidesteppers"; however, the Sidesteppers don't appear in the game until level four. In Mario Bros. Shellcreepers and Sidesteppers would come out of the top pipes and go in the bottom pipes. In this stage in Brawl this is still true. In Mario Bros. the player has to jump to hit Shellcreepers and Sidesteppers from underneath the platform, after which the player would have to kick them from the top of the screen. In this stage this is retained and the enemies can get kicked off the stage, but not in the same manner as in Mario Bros. and the player can also hit the enemies from on top the same platforms as the enemies are on. If the player in Mario Bros. doesn't defeat the enemy in time the enemy would simply get back up, change color, and go faster. This is still true in this stage. Also the way Mario Bros. worked was that if the player or the enemy were to walk of the side of the screen they would appear on the opposite side. Obviously due to the nature of the Smash Bros. games this could not be true for the players, but the enemies are still able to do so.
Mario Bros. was also a two player game where the two players could either work together or battle each other (which involved trying to get the highest score). In Mario Bros. if one of the players were to hit his or her opponent from under the platform the opponent would just go upward a little bit. In this stage in Brawl this is retained. If the player in Mario Bros. has trouble beating a level he or she has a choice to jump and hit the POW Block. The POW Block stops the enemies and the player has to try and go around to knock the enemies off the stage. In two player mode the POW Block sends the other player upward a little bit also. In this stage both of those are retained. As the player gets further into Mario Bros. there would be these red and green fireballs that would go across the stage. The red fireballs bounces off the ground as it goes by, while the green ones don't succumb to gravity. This stage has only the green fireball, but the green fireballs still don't succumb to gravity.
Stage Mechanics
A POW block features on this stage at the center of the bottom floor. Jumping into it from below or attacking it will result in it knocking every Shellcreeper, Sidestepper and character on the ground upwards. Characters do not take damage from this, and cannot be KO'd by the knockback, as the knockback is set at a very low height, making the only point of using a POW Block to flip a character would be as a disruption.. The POW block takes 3 hits to destroy and respawns exactly 30 seconds after being destroyed.
Shellcreepers and Sidesteppers are the main hazards on this stage. They spawn from the top pipes in ten second intervals (the first one spawning exactly 10 seconds after the match has started). There can only be 4 of these hazards on the screen at a time. Once this limit has been reached and a hazard is thrown off of the screen, another one will spawn to take its place almost immediately (withing 5 seconds).
A Shellcreeper/Sidestepper can be "flipped" by either attacking them, jumping into the ground they are standing on from below or hitting the POW block. A Shellcreeper/Sidestepper will change color if it is flipped over and allowed to get back up by itself (a flipped Shellcreeper/Sidestepper will flip itself back over after 10 seconds of being knocked down. This 10 second time period is not reset by picking up the flipped hazard). A player can pick up a flipped Shellcreeper/Sidestepper as an item. It will always deal 16% damage for a Normal Throw, and 18% for a Smash Throw (regardless of color). They have the same traction and knockback as the stray ones, however.
If a Shellcreeper/Sidestepper runs into another Shellcreeper/Sidestepper (flipped or unflipped), or a player, it will change direction. Shellcreepers/Sidesteppers always spawn from the pipes at the top of the screen, and exit through the pipes at the bottom. The bottom pipes warp the critters back to the adjacent top pipes. This effectively creates a "safe-zone" where players can constantly avoid the Shellcreepers, at the cost of being considerably closer to the blastlines. In-between the edge of the stage and the side blast lines, there is a "warp zone". Any Shellcreeper/Sidestepper that goes through this zone (except when thrown) will warp to the exact opposite warp zone and continue moving.
Shellcreepers take one hit to flip over. Green Shellcreepers deal 11% damage, walk at a slow speed, deal (relatively) low knockback and have high traction. Purple Shellcreepers deal 13% damage, walk at a medium speed, deal medium knockback and have average traction. Red Shellcreepers deal 15% damage, walk at a fast speed, deal high knockback and have low traction.
Sidesteppers take two hits to flip over, a Sidestepper who has been hit once will have an angry expression on its face. Red Sidesteppers deal 13% damage, walk at a medium speed, deal medium knockback and have medium traction. Blue Sidesteppers deal 15% damage, walk at a fast speed, deal high knockback and have low traction. Pink Sidesteppers deal 17% damage, walk at a very fast speed, deal very high knockback and have very low traction. Sidesteppers use the slash effect.
The final hazard is the Flame. Flames always appear in one of eight places (just above each of the platforms and the ground on the left side, and ditto for the right side), deal 20% damage on contact and have knockback that scales considerably with the player's damage percentage, becoming very strong at high percents. There can only ever be one Flame on screen at a time and they cannot be destroyed, stopped, reflected or absorbed. They materialize and dematerialize in about 1.5 seconds and are unable to damage players while appearing/disappearing. After spawning, they travel in a wave motion horizontally to the opposite spawn point (about equal vertically to where the wheel is on the pipes), and then disappear. Flames appear to have no set timer for appearing and do not interact with the POW block or the Shellcreepers/Sidesteppers.
Shellcreepers, Sidesteppers and the Flame are all completely 2-Dimensional.
Competitive play
Contrary to popular belief, Mario Bros. is not banned for its caves of life or circle camping; Circle camping around the central platform is almost impossible against an opponent who uses the hazards wisely (flipping over the hazards until they reach their strongest forms and then letting them loose across the stage), and this also holds true for walk off camping. Claims that the abundance of ceilings leads to a "cave of life" effect are mitigated somewhat by the incredible strength of the hazards (though players can still tech the ceilings and live to abnormally high percents). However, Mario Bros. is still banned universally for poor matchup balance (characters with reflectors have a huge advantage over characters that lack them), the over-centralization on the use of the hazards, and because of the bizarre metagame for the stage which is very alien to the rest of competitive Brawl.
Trivia
- Even though this is the original Mario Bros. stage, it is home to R.O.B. in All-Star mode due to the fact that there is no stage created specifically for him and a medley of tracks from the two NES/Famicom games that used R.O.B. (Gyromite and Stack-Up, though only the former is mentioned in the track's title) is available in this stage. When this stage isn't unlocked, Delfino Plaza is R.O.B.'s home stage. Of note, R.O.B. also appeared as a playable character in a recent Mario game, Mario Kart DS, wherein he is unlockable (just like his appearance in Brawl).
- All the music pieces on the stage are derived from at least one NES/Famicom game.
- On most stages, the camera will zoom in and out during gameplay depending on how close or far the characters are from each other. Mario Bros. and Flat Zone 2 are exceptions to this rule; the camera stays in a fixed position to give a view of the entire stage.
- Interestingly, two enemies, the Fighter Fly and the Freezie, do not appear on this stage. Freezies, however, appear as items. It is not known why the Fighter Flies do not appear.
- In the Mario Bros. game, the sides of the stage "wrapped," allowing characters to exit on one side and reenter on the other side. This feature was removed in Brawl to allow KOing opponents on the side blast lines. Shellcreepers and Sidesteppers however, are able to use this function and appear on the opposite side of the stage when they reach the edge of it.
- While this stage is based on Phase 1 of Mario Bros., Sidesteppers didn't appear on that level; only Shellcreepers did.
- It is one of only two stages in Brawl to be based on an arcade game (75 m is the other). They are also not in 2D, which is different from the arcade versions (and the Flat Zone stages, which are also based on early 1980s games, predating even the Mario series). 75 m also shares the same fate that Mario Bros. had regarding use in competitive play (being banned).
- It is possible to stand in-between the Shellcreeper/Sidestepper warp zone and blast line as most characters and thus be completely invulnerable to stray Shellcreepers/Sidesteppers.
- There is a glitch that will turn Shellcreepers and Sidesteppers invisible while flipping them until they flip themselves back over. It is not yet known how this glitch is triggered.
Gallery
A Shellcreeper and a Sidestepper.
Donkey Kong bumping a Shellcreeper and Sidestepper from below.
Kirby being hit by the flame.
External links
