VS. Super Mario Bros.

Vs. Super Mario Bros. is a two-player arcade version of Super Mario Bros. (1985, NES) which was released in 1986.

Story
Mario (or Luigi) sets out on a quest to free Princess Toadstool from the evil Bowser and restore the fallen kingdom of the Mushroom People. The player's character moves from left to right over a horizontally scrolling terrain. They must avoid obstacles, destroy enemies by jumping on them, collect coins and power-ups and reveal several hidden items throughout the various levels.

Differences
This game is harder than the original Super Mario Bros., with fewer warp zones and power-ups, and more enemies. Some of the courses were even taken from the sequel, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, which wasn't released outside of Japan for fear it would be too hard for Western gamers.

Detailed set of level differences
The original NES version of Super Mario Bros. has some levels repeat, with an easier version with some obstacles removed (fire bars in the castle, fewer enemies, etc) earlier on, and then a later "full" version, e.g. 1-3 is the easier version of 5-3; 1-4 is the easier version of 6-4; 2-2/2-3 are the easier version of 7-2/7-3; and 2-4 is the easier version of 5-4.

In the arcade version, all of the "easier versions" are replaced by the "harder version" to make way for the new levels:


 * 1-4 is replaced by 1-4 of The Lost Levels.


 * 3-2 is replaced with the Lost Level's 's 2-2, which is similar, but with more obstacles such as open gaps and a floating pipe towards the end that the player has to use hidden blocks to reach in order to make the jump across a wide gap.


 * 5-3 is moved back to 1-3 so that 6-3 could take its place, and level 4-3 from The Lost Levels is then moved to 6-3. This has extremely long jumps to the platforms, and in one case, the player has to hop onto a Parakoopa next to the bluff (when it's at the right height) to reach the platform.
 * Since 6 is a night world in both the NES and the arcade version, yet 4 is a day world in all three games (including the Lost Levels), the level is converted from a grassy daytime scene to a white-grounded night scene.


 * 6-4 is moved to 2-4 and replaced by 5-4 from the Lost Levels, which also has a lot of long, hard jumps (and some tricky small ones), and an extra long firebar (which do not appear in the original NES version).


 * 7-2/7-3 move up to replace 2-2/2-3, and have their slots filled by 6-2/6-3 of the Lost Levels. These are harder and longer versions of 7-2/7-3, with -2 (a water world) having very little floor, with stretches of low hanging reef, and -3 being an extra long bridge (with lots of gaps) and many more jumping Cheep-Cheeps (with flying Koopas as well).


 * 4-4 and 5-4 trade places in the arcade version.

In VS Super Mario Bros., the player can only warp up to World 6, (whereas in the NES version, the player can warp to 6, 7 or 8 from the Warp Zone in level 4-2), so there is no way around these extremely difficult levels imported into Worlds 6 and 7.

Pre-production
At some point in the North American localization of Vs. Super Mario Bros., the game was to be called Mario's Adventure. The only remnant of this earlier title is an arcade flyer with a trademarked name.