35th Anniversary Super Mario Bros Game And Watch Unboxing & Review

In this video, we unbox and check out the 35th anniversary Game & Watch featuring Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros the Lost Levels, and Ball.Show more

In late 2020, Nintendo announced the year of Mario to celebrate the 35th Anniversary. There were many things announced in this Nintendo Direct, including Super Mario 3D All Stars, Mario Kart Live, and the most recent one, the Game & Watch version of Super Mario Bros. Priced at $50, it was interesting that no retailers offered pre-orders in the US. We were lucky enough to get two of them, one on Best Buy's website, and one by walking into our local GameStop. we ended up canceling our order for the one from Best Buy, this way hopefully someone else will be lucky enough to get one.

The overall size and layout is pretty similar to other Game & Watches I have seen over the years. The face of the unit has a D-Pad on the left side, B and A buttons on the right hand side, and three buttons on the upper right hand side to toggle between game mode, time mode, and a pause set button. Sandwiched between these two sides of the system is a beautiful backlit LED display. The brightness, vibrancy, and clarity of this display cannot be understated, it's really quite exceptional! A single mono speaker lies on the left hand side of the system, while the power button in USB-C charge port are both on the right hand side. Nintendo does include a short USB-C charge cable, but no power supply is included.

It took me just a few minutes to figure out how to go ahead and set the clock, and I was quickly into game play. Super Mario Bros. played beautifully, the D-Pad felt very responsive, and the B & A buttons were terrific as well. Resetting the game is a little bit weird, as you actually have to go into the pause set menu to reset the game to start over. Changing games is as easy as hitting the game button, and scrolling up or down to select the game you want to play.

While most will probably play the original Super Mario Bros, having both Super Mario Bros 2 The Lost Levels and Ball are nice bonuses on here. Super Mario Bros 2, the Japanese version, is incredibly hard. I've never been very good at this version of the game and much prefer the American version I will admit. Ball is incredibly reminiscent of Game & Watch handhelds that we would have gotten back in the early 80s, based around a simple LCD display. It's fun, but not something I think you'll spend a whole lot of time with.

Why it RoX:
- Terrific Emulation
- Good D-Pad & buttons
- Gorgeous display
- Box designed for collectors
- Loud speaker

What could be improved?
- Seems overpriced
- Limited Quantities
- Where are Super Mario 2 & 3?
- Single mono speaker
- Resetting games isn't obvious
- Battery seems to drain quickly

Should you buy one?
If you are a hardcore collector of all things Super Mario, this will be a terrific addition to your collection. It looks and plays great, and even for a mono speaker the audio is clear and precise. I did not feel any lag or latency while playing either. I do feel that the limited nature of this will drive the prices up on the secondary market, thankfully it appears that inventory is available at least as of right now. I do wish that they would have included the US version of Super Mario Bros 2 and Super Mario Brothers 3, at $50 that would be a must-own unit period but as it is, I have so many other ways to play this on other systems that this just feels like a nostalgia grab to me.

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