1. Starting Screen
When I mean basic, I mean basic. The very first thing you see when you pop up the game. First of all it's not a black screen. For a quite a while, Famicom title screens were really just that; a black screen with a title. Later games had different colors and fancier screens and most didn't serve much surface. But in SMB it does. It eases the player on a lot of things while they are not being aware about it. The player character, the graphics, the art style. If no input is given for a few seconds, Mario starts to play the level itself for near a minute, showing player basic stuff.And first couple of minutes of the game is an amazing tutorial. It establishes you can only go to right, if you touch moving things you die, expect mushrooms, it clearly establishes the difference between background sprites from places you can land on - something a lot of Famicom and Super Famicom games struggled to do - you can collect gold, hitting bricks break them but when only you are big, power ups and you will die if you fall in empty space. These all seem rather obvious but remember, in 1985, people who haven't seen any video game ever were the norm, so even most obvious looking game concepts had to be introduced to the player for the first time.
2. Art Style
Super Mario Bros didn't just try to have the best quality graphics around - mind you, the game was quite good technically when it was released - it had a coherent art style and used colors that would look pleasant and warm to players, and you can easily separate background from the platforms. You can easily take two sprites from the game and know they belonged in the same game. Its graphics aren't just functional, it has a character. Perhaps the most revolutionary thing about that is however, it is able to give a feeling of actually being in a fantasy kingdom rather than just being a game world.3. Simple and Fluid Presentation
Sprites, especially Mario's sprites are never excessively big and the view is centered around the middle of the screen, rather than player, giving player a breathing space and made the movement feel more fluid. Many sidescrolling games either made screen too small or sprites too big and animations too detailed, making game feel cramped and slow.4. Excellent Controls
Not only controls of SMB were just well programmed and optimized but they were just designed to make player feel good. Players are able to adjust the acceleration of Mario and fully control Mario's jump on the air with game responding player's direction perfectly. The controls eschews realism for giving full power to player, this was one of the things that really defined platforming genre. No shiny graphics simply gave the joy of controlling your character's feeling.5. Power Ups
Growing mushroom was another simple but amazing decision. Making the sprite grow itself communicates the effect of change very well. Fire flower and the star feel all different, both in look and the game play. The game in general is very communicative to player and power-ups are just one just thing that helps that.6. Sound Design
The sounds in video game are positive, energetic and responsive to the player. If you don't know or want a refresher about this, here is some gameplay sample. I am not a huge sound expert so I can't exactly break down it's design, but all I can say is, everything feels just right and they also maintain some internal consistency.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qirrV8w5SQ
7. Music
You can't praise the music of this game enough. Unlike most video game music of the time, it is deliberately designed so that it could be listened for a long time without tiring the player. It adds to the fantasy kingdom feeling and feels casual and pleasant, mysterious, slow and dreamy, energetic and celebratory or serious, all appropriate for their level, while having their fast version when player is running out of time. They are all just brilliant.8. Content
For the time it's released, SMB actually offers a lot of content, 32 whole levels, with their hidden paths, skips and bonus sections. Even considering the frequent reuses of sprites, the game was full of content for the player, you can even play the harder versions of the levels when you complete the game. The designers knew adding just enough variety to levels so players wouldn't catch the repetition. You can get 10- 40 mins out of the game in a single playthrough, which is nothing to scoff at.9. Good Difficulty Curve
Quite a few Famicom games have a reputation of unfair difficulty, but Super Mario Bros was able to find a good balance. The good design of the first level can be seen other levels, where concepts are introduced one at a time.
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For example, Spiny (the spiky cuties in the pic) is introduced in level 4-1. Despite being in the middle of the game, the level itself is quite simple so that player can learn the new enemy with ease. And when the game wants the challenge to the player, it can do that mostly fairly. I think one reason repeating levels is in favor of the game is it keeps upping the challenge much for obvious. 2-4 felt like a breeze? Well how about having fire chains everywhere a long with a giant one at the beginning in 5-4?This is also one of the things that shows that SMB was definitely a console title, it didn't need the crushing arcade difficulty to empty the player's pockets, so it could focus on delivering challenging but a still pleasant experience. It's one of the reasons I have an issue with complaints about games being "too easy for masses", when developers trusted their content and game design alone, they often didn't need to make the game punishingly difficult, this was as true in 1985 as it's now.
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