Issue #48: The Legacy of Super Mario Bros. – September/October 2020

An anniversary is upon us!

. . . Well, OK, when it comes to Mario, some kind of anniversary is always upon us. His career has been so long and so varied at this point that you could find a new major milestone to celebrate for one or more of his classic adventures any time you wanted to, really, in any given year. But this year is a big one! This year is when Super Mario Bros., the original masterpiece that first spun “Super” Mario and his brother Luigi off into their own epic adventures, is turning 35.

The exact birthday we’re looking at is September 13, because that’s the date in 1985 when Super Mario Bros. first went on sale as a Famicom game in Japan. The NES hardware had not yet launched in the United States at that point, but it did just one month later on October 18, 1985, so that’s the secondary date to celebrate. And since this is our September/October issue, it only made sense to dedicate this NF edition to praising that first-ever trip into the Mushroom Kingdom!