A tireless developer, working for nearly seven years, has created a perfect recreation of Super Mario Bros. for the Commodore 64. This would have been huge in 1985. Today, it’s still pretty darn cool.
This week, a developer called ZeroPaige released Super Mario Bros. 64, which he bills as a 1:1 recreation of Super Mario Bros. for the Commodore 64. It’s the result of seven years of game development and a tantalising look at what could have happened had the early console wars gone differently.
Super Mario Bros. 64 contains the American, European and Japanese versions of the game. The files have been released for free and can be played on original hardware or via emulation.
The Commodore 64 was released in August 1982, a little less than a year before the Famicom went on sale in Japan. It was a successful home computer with games such as Maniac Mansion and Sid Meier’s Pirates! Many of these games were later ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System.
ZeroPaige’s project flips the dynamic, bringing a popular Nintendo game to the Commodore. The Commodore 64 had Mario clones such as The Great Giana Sisters, but never anything as perfect as ZeroPaige’s port.
If you’ve been dying to play a “new” version of Super Mario Bros. and don’t want to play it on your Wii U, Nintendo Switch or Game Boy, this is your chance. Just bust out that Commodore 64 from the attic and enjoy.
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5 responses to “It Took 7 Years, But Now You Can Play Super Mario Bros. On The Commodore 64”
Holy Great Gianna Sisters!!!!
I came to say exactly this. These young whippersnappers have no idea though.
Nintendo lawyers incoming in 3…2…1…
This is really cool. I guess one of the reasons it works so well is because the NES and the C64 are from similar eras and have roughly similar processing power (I think the NES is slightly more capable in terms of CPU and GPU but the C64 has more RAM and better sound, maybe?)
Also, the audio in the embedded video is broken, but here’s a fixed version of the demo with correct audio:
It’s actually very surprising the C64 can do this. When you look into how it had to render its sprites, this is quite an accomplishment.