WHAT! That predates Mario WOAH....

This is a spin off from the greatest platformer thread. Playing devil's advocate I found quite a few games that did alot of what the classic Mario did BEFORE Miyamoto even did it. Even some revolution games from Nintendo that were made BEFORE Mario 1. Sentimentally Mario 1 has a special place iN ALL our hearts but just how revolutionary it was is something we can now question knowing what actually came before it.

Excitebike- From what I've gathered the first game to use saves and a level editor has a Year on Super Mario Brothers (1984 where as Super Mario Brothers was released in 85) From what I can tell this is probably the most influential title that predates Mario.

Lode Runner- Another platformer also one of the first to have a level editor.

Arabian/Super Arabian- Simular to donkey kong but it also has other early platform elements it's also not THAT well known.

Legend of Kage- Tatio's fast pased Ninja Game predates Mario 1 by at least a year.

Elevator Action- Another Great Taito game and also one of the first to have Scrolling levels.

I probably missed some but there's alot of Marioesque games that predate Mario. I'm not trying to refute any claims about the greatness of Mario we all love that game even if we have it memorized by now but...the idea had to come from SOMWHERE so we can all speculate which of these games may have helped influence Super Mario Brothers.

 

Excitebike was SMB's biggest influence?

How do you come up with this shit?

 

I think you took that out of context. What I mean is from it's features and even the graphical appearance of the game you would think it came after SMB but it was actually a game produced before. I wasn't implying it influenced SMB in anyway just that it's probably the most revolutionary pre SMB game.

 

Mario Brothers probably influenced Super Mario Brothers a lot.

Seriously though, I think Popeye (1982) should be mentioned here. It predates the first Mario Bros yet has a quite resembling gameplay. The port was one of the Famicom launch titles as well.

 

I was tempted to mention popeye Word has it Donkey Kong was going to be a Popeye game

 

Man, that brings back memories. Give us the ship level already :love2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf3161wYpso

quality

 

What I find funny is that my favourite mario is Super Mario Land 2, and Miyamoto didn't work on it. Lol!

 

A fine portable Mario indeed.

Punch Out also predates SMB, the Arcade Game that is which ALSO was one of if not the first dual screen game.
Not marioesque but a very important game from Nintendo that predates SMB.

 

that popeye game is amazing, i played it for hours on famicom

 

All your examples are just showing the slow evolution of games that was taking place at the time. I don't see how they have anything to do with SMB other than being on the Nintendo.

 

Actually I wanted to demonstrate that there were games doing what SMB was doing before SMB. Then I veered off and found games predating Mario that were awesome.

How about some of the games Sega had? Flicky, Congo Bongo both predate mario and Flicky did the same scrolling deal that Mario did only in both directions. Flicky would later morph into Sonic. Congo Bongo was just a really unique game that one upped Donkey Kong

I also JUST found out the SG-1000 launched the Same day as the Famicom

 

I dunno about Legend of Kage, I think that's post SMB. Sure lots of the graphic effects were used before Mario in arcades (not so much in the two FC years before Mario), but it's pretty hard to say what influenced Mario, it was more original than imitator.

 

I checked again on Legend of Kage it came out around the same time as SMB.

and you're right it is hard to tell where the ideas from SMB came from. Miyamoto didn't really start actually PLAYING games until recently from what I heard (and as I understand he's a huge fan of God of War)

 

Not to piss on your fire again, but I remember reading that Miyamoto's favourite game is Pac-man.

I think it's safe to assume he's played a fair few games in his time, anyway.

 

I was just saying he is a fan of God of war. HOWEVER the quote about miyamoto being a fan of God of War came from Kojima...so grain of salt there.

But yeah I at least know Miyamoto himself isn't a huge gamer and his game ideas come from other things. Like Zelda came from his childhood and love of exploring caves.

I can't dispute he's a genius and we really can't say where his ideas come from either. but we can guess.

 

Man, C64 and even Atari 2600 were FULL of platformers..

 

well, to be honest I was surprised as well that Excitebike came before SMB... very much so, actually. That might be shaped by me, like pretty much everybody I know, playing SMB before anything else on NES, but still.

 

if you want to look into pre-mario platformers, i'd suggest looking at jump bug and pac-land (both arcade). pac-land in particualr seems like a clear inspoiration for smb's blue skies and rightward scrolling levels... maybe it's jsut me.

 

Yeah Pac Land for sure.

I think SMB owes alot to Pitfall as well.

 

SMB owes to your grandma

Really, SMB wasn't the first 2D left-to-right scroller/platformer. It was however one of the best at implementing proper running/jumping "physics" and that is why even today it is remembered so fondly.

mkay?