The year is 1987. Beverly Hills Cop II is the highest-grossing movie. “Walk Like an Egyptian” is the hottest song. The Iran-Contra scandal dominates American political headlines, while Konami’s Contra sucks up coins in arcades. But towering above them all is the watershed moment of Jaws arriving on the NES. (“This time there’s no escape!”, warned the box art.) Now, 38 years later, the 8-bit game is returning as a Limited Run Games physical re-release.
The retro release coincides with the Spielberg movie’s 50th anniversary. From December 19 to January 18, you can pre-order a physical copy for Switch and PS5.
It will be available in two physical editions: a standard (“Retro Edition”) one for $35, and a deluxe (“The Bigger Boat Edition”) one for $100. The latter adds an NES-inspired box, a physical CD of the game soundtrack, a keychain and — best of all — a pixelated shark lamp. Both versions include original and “enhanced” versions of the 1987 game.
Promo art for the Jaws NES reissue (Limited Run Games)
The game is split mainly between a birds-eye view (where you pilot your boat around the map) and an underwater side view (where you harpoon the shit out of marine wildlife). Eventually, you’ll encounter Jaws. After several of these encounters, gradually diminishing his hit points, you’ll try to finish him off in a faux-3D perspective on the water’s surface. If you think this sounds like a minor variation of what you found in a handful of other licensed NES games from that era, you wouldn’t be wrong.
You can pre-order the Jaws re-release from Limited Run Games’ website, starting on December 19 at 10 AM ET. In the meantime, you can refresh your memory of the 8-bit game with the video below.
Roughly 70 parents and two dozen children gathered outside Crockett Elementary Monday morning to protest the administration’s decision to remove campus principal Dr. Alexis Clark Vale.
Chants such as “Who do we want? Dr. Vale,” — and the Spanish translation “¿Quién queremos? Dr. Vale” — rang out from the group as many passersby on their way to work honked in solidarity with the protestors’ messages.
Most students and family members were notified last week that Vale would not return next school year amid a wave of principal and teacher contract non-renewals due to what the administration referred to as not sufficiently meeting Superintendent Mike Miles’ employment criteria.
These contract non-renewals come roughly a month before the district’s last day of school, which Cynthia Marquez, a godmother of a kindergartener at the arts magnet, says does not appear to be a coincidence.
“It buys them time to be able to do what they need to do, and we have time to forget about it,” Marquez said. “HISD doesn’t realize that parents actually do care and have a voice.”
Marquez brought her godson to Monday’s protest. He was among the crowd, not wearing the arts magnet’s uniform. She chose to keep him out of school for the day, joining many parents and other family members objecting to the administration’s decision by allowing their children to not attend class.
Alana Holmes, also present at the demonstration, gave her first-grade and fourth-grade daughters the option to stay home for the day or attend school. Holmes said her children planned to attend class after participating in the protest to support their friends who were sad about Vale’s removal.
According to one source who did not want to be identified for this article and who has ties to the district, about 20 to 25 children, or a quarter of students from each grade level, showed up for school. There were 15 kindergarteners and 11 pre-kindergartners present in their respective classes.
Another source said the administration threatened to revoke the teaching licenses of instructors planning to call in sick from Crockett and several other campuses where protests occurred.
The Houston Press contacted the district for a response to this claim. HISD senior media relations specialist Jose Irizarry replied in an email that the students and staff absent on Monday are subject to the district’s absence policies just as they would be on any other day.
The district’s statement:
To become a district that serves all students well, HISD must use data and on-the-job observation to staff every school with a leader who will ensure consistent, high-quality instruction at their campus.
When making decisions about school leaders, the first – and in some ways, most critical – piece of data HISD evaluates is the quality of a school. In most cases, if a school has an A or B rating, that is a strong indication that the principal is creating the kind of learning environment students need. When a school is rated C or lower, it often means the school is not serving students well on a consistent basis. And where campuses are not meeting the needs of all kids, HISD must examine what is happening at the school. That starts with the school’s leadership.
HISD, like all other districts, is making decisions about staffing for the 2024-2025 school year. All contract non-renewals for principals are unrelated to HISD’s overall budget challenges. Instead, these contract decisions are being made – again – with the goal of ensuring every student receives high-quality instruction, every day. In some cases, we hope principals who do not retain their current position for next school year will apply for assistant principal or other roles within HISD that will help the educator grow their instructional leadership.
The district understands that leadership transitions are disruptive for the impacted school communities, and that the principal is often the most visible and accessible person on a campus. Division leaders will work with every impacted campus to identify each community’s priorities for their next school leader. That process will involve surveys, community meetings, and opportunities over the summer to meet with incoming principals.
In all cases, we are asking our principals to finish the school year strong. HISD students need and deserve a full year of high-quality instruction in supportive, productive school environments.
With regard to teachers, the District did not cut teaching positions as part of its work to right-size the HISD budget. In our non-NES schools, most decisions to retain or release a teacher are made by the principal and are based on data and classroom evaluation. Campuses that saw enrollment declines may have had to adjust their staffing for next school year, but – again – teaching positions were not cut in the HISD budget.
At the District’s 85 NES and NES-aligned campuses, principals used data to determine which teachers are eligible to continue working in the NES and will be retained in their current positions based on the school’s projected enrollment. Employees who are not eligible to continue working in the NES but meet the requirements for non-NES positions in HISD are encouraged to apply for those available roles.
One protestor who requested anonymity said the challenges principals face daily to meet students’ real-life needs far exceed the instructional quality and student achievement Miles’s evaluation system is built on.
“He’s taking what until 2035 for his plan, but he wants them to do it in less than a year,” the demonstrator added. “That is such a double standard, Mr. Miles.”
Crockett Elementary community members, including students, stood outside of the school for several hours Monday morning.
Photo by Faith Bugenhagen
Holmes said when the administration announced in January Crockett would become one of the NESschools in 2024-25, Vale was promised she would retain her position. Valle’s remaining in leadership encouraged parents and instructors to stay.
All but three teachers signed contracts for the next school year, a testament she noted to the school community’s trust in Vale. Those that didn’t were leaving for reasons unrelated to the system change.
“We knew that if she [Vale] stayed, she would have been able to implement his [Miles] desires while also protecting and honoring the culture that we’ve created at Crockett,” Holmes said. “The idea that he’s changing the script is not surprising, but it’s still very upsetting. It’s hard for us to come up with reasons to stay.”
Marquez echoed Holmes’s sentiment, acknowledging that if she knew the administration’s promises would be broken, she would’ve opted to relocate her godson to another campus or to another school outside the district.
She said families couldn’t choose to move to another HISD school because Vale was let go after school choice closed. Marquez added that if the community’s effort to fight for Vale’s return were unsuccessful, she would look for another arts-centric program outside of the district.
“We believed that if the teachers were able to pacify them with enough benchmark numbers, we would be left alone,” Marquez said. “Unfortunately, nothing that the school did was going to be enough. That was to keep us at bay so we wouldn’t go to HISD and do what we are doing today.”
The attack of the children. That’s how it started Thursday night and it was like watching a sci-fi horror film when some cute little alien buggers suddenly bare their teeth and try to take a chomp out of the human.
The object of their wrath? Houston ISD Superintendent Mile Miles who sat there through most of the 190 public speakers who came to complain about the dismantling of libraries, who did or did not want Wharton and Helms with their dual language programs to become magnet schools, and relaying even more reports of teachers saying they are planning to leave the district, tired of what they see as a hostile, bullying workplace.
It was another lengthy and packed meeting (the overflow room was filled as well) in which, per usual, complaints about the New Education System with its timed tests and prescribed coursework from Central Office that Miles has brought to HISD. In fact it went on so long (till after midnight) that some of those in it for the long haul ordered in pizza.
“My name is Enrique [Ubiera] and I am in the fifth grade. Please fire Superintendent Miles. Not one decision he has made has been good. He is too focused on test scores but he has never done anything effective about them. You can’t magically learn by taking the same test over and over again. We need to actually do something about the problem. Maybe one reason for the failure is the low budget for most schools. Giving them 12 percent less (projected budget cuts for non-NES school next year) would really do something. Something bad.”
Interwoven through all of this, especially among the adult speakers who followed the children, was the slogan: “No trust, no bond.” (Followed by a few references to “We’re going to burn it down.”) And although the board voted to begin the procedure for a bond election next fall to tackle much needed renovations throughout the district, this had to at least give Board of Managers members pause that they might suffer an embarrassing defeat come November.
Once again, board members did not escape criticism either, mostly of the variety that their usual lockstep compliance with Miles’ policies is not going unnoticed.
Designating Wharton and Helms “special and unique schools” enabling the district to avoid installing an English-only Pre-K in them initially sounded like a bright idea for all, satisfying the demands of parents to keep the Spanish-English dual language programs at those schools. Problem is, as a subsection of parents explained, they’d bought homes in the zoned areas around these schools and their children would no longer be granted automatic admission based on where they lived. Only one person asked that the English-only pre-K be installed, to scant applause.
The librarians issue which has been a red hot subject early in the school year, but died down a bit in recent months, resurfaced with a vengeance at Thursday night’s meeting mainly because with the expansion of no-place-for-librarians NES schools in the coming school year, what was once seen as a discouraging “other” has now become a not in our schools rallying cry.
In addition, reduced school budgets in 2024-25 for non-NES campuses do not forbid but make it more difficult to hold onto the position of a librarian. As residents have come to realize, the effects of NES extend far beyond just those schools with their timed tests and rigidly proscribed course work.
“Hi, my name is Nova [Uribe] and I practically grew up in the school library. April is school library month so let’s celebrate by not removing certified librarians from HISD schools. Mike Miles’ new compensation plan does not include librarians at all,” she said. “Board members, some of you have children, some are even HISD parents. Would you want your children to go to a school without access to books?
“Don’t remove libraries or librarians. Remove Mike Miles.”
Student Ashlyn Morton challenged Miles and the Board. “You may be able to threaten principals and fire our teachers but theee is nothing you can do about the youth
“The youth want a democratic system because this district is no longer here to support us,” “The. youth will burn it down until it is made for us.”
Seven-year-old Olivia spoke about the importance of the book club operated through the library at her school and urged the superintendent to leave her librarian alone. “I’m sorry sir but you picked the wrong city to mess with. This is Houston.”
Students and parents also criticized the reduction in stipends paid to arts and debate coaches, the fact that in HISD teachers of the arts including theater will be paid “less than a first year teacher” as one speaker put it and the way teachers are not accorded the respect they deserve by the administration, according to teachers, parents and students.
“One time when my teacher was teaching me and my classmates we were astonished when a stranger entered our classroom, interrupted our teacher and ordered him to cut the magnetic borders around the material on the bulletin board, fifth-grader Alejandra Ubiera said. “Was the magnetic strip more important than our learning? Not only was this embarrassing to my teacher, it was disrespectful. We deserve better. Please change the system to be more respectful to me and my teachers.”
In one teacher story, relayed by education activist Ruth Kravetz, a student’s baby sibling died recently. The school counselor asked if she could skip the regular Thursday afterschool meeting of teachers to show support for the student and his family at the wake.
The principal denied her request saying “they shouldn’t have scheduled it on a Thursday.”
Not surprisingly gasps were heard around the room.
There were more third party accounts of teachers feeling so depressed, harassed and overwhelmed by the new regime, that they either left their jobs after a few days, quit over the winter break or plan to tell the district they’re gone by June and already have jobs in other districts lined up.
Miles, of course, has said that teachers and other employees who do not want to work in his system should leave, that he doesn’t want people in HISD that are not on board with the significant changes he is making. The question, of course, is how many people will that be after June and if the administration already dealing with an expanded summer school session, will be able to cope with filling spots for the upcoming school year.
In a Monday press release that the district was clearly happy to generate, Houston ISD administrators today announced that the majority of their teachers say they are staying for the 2024-25 academic year. How much of that depends upon the higher salaries for teachers at the New Education System schools is anyone’s guess.
Salaries for high school NES teachers, for example, start at $82,816, and go up to $88,816 for a teacher with five or more years of experience, the press release stated. NES schools also receive more support and lesson plans generated by Central Office — something that has received both accolades and complaints.
As part of an annual survey, HISD asks teachers what they plan to do for the next school year. Of the 93 percent of HISD teachers, or 10,230 teachers, who responded this year, 96 percent said they want to continue teaching in HISD. According to HISD this was a higher number of respondents than previous years.
Also, 97 percent of teachers who work at a NES school with its more structured day and constant testing, campus want to stay in the NES. Of the teachers at non-NES schools that will be part of the NES system in the fall, 90 percent want to stay at the same campus.
In addition,14 percent of teachers who work at a non-NES school want to transfer to an NES campus, the district says. Superintendent Mike Miles installed the system at the beginning of this school year at a select number of schools and has greatly expanded it for next year.
“These numbers clearly show our teachers are dedicated to their students and want to be a part of the most important transformation effort in the country,” said Miles. “We’ve said that HISD is building an elite team. As part of the survey, we shared our new Employee Value Proposition that outlines why the District is a uniquely great place to work and what we expect from our employees. The 96 percent of teachers who want to stay in HISD see what we offer that other districts don’t.”
Mario gave a healthy injection of life to the gaming industry in 1985 with the first Super Mario Bros. on the Famicom (NES) in Japan. Since then, Mario has introduced many new consoles and has pushed tech-forward into the 3D space and even jumped into space itself.
There’s hardly a more rich and historically significant legacy than Mario in gaming, so collectors have naturally held great interest in the storied franchise. Here are 10 of the rarest and most expensive Mario games that will empty your pockets.
Like our previous lists, PriceCharting is the source used for new and used game values. We’re ranking these Mario gems using the New Price listings, from lowest to highest. We include the average used price as well based on the “Loose Price” from PriceCharting. Console bundles are not included since they typically top these lists and skew individual game values.
10. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (SNES)
$1,156 New | $38.86 Used
Image Source: Nintendo
Nintendo’s follow-up to Super Mario World didn’t come until the Super Nintendo was four years old. The game is titled Super Mario World 2 despite not starring Mario as the main character. This title was contentious to players since Yoshi’s Island is a prequel to existing Mario games and only featured Mario as a baby. regardless, Nintendo considers it as Super Mario World 2, and its quality certainly reflects that.
The title is not the only thing that put some players off of Yoshi’s Island. The Super Nintendo was nearing the end of its life cycle when Super Mario World 2 was released. Some players were already fixated on Nintendo’s leap to 3D with the upcoming Nintendo 64, and as a result, Yoshi’s Island became one of a handful of games to become somewhat rare and underrated.
Despite the name confusion and release so close to Nintendo’s new 3D console, Yoshi’s Island remains one of the most beloved Mario games. Yoshi’s Island’s quality can be attributed to Nintendo EAD spending a full 4 years to develop the game, an unprecedented development cycle back then. Now, sealed copies of this Super Nintendo classic fetch a premium with recent sales eclipsing $1,000.
9. Mario Kart 64 [Player’s Choice]
$1,189 New | $39.75 Used
Image Source: Nintendo via TheVideoGameCavern
Releasing at the dawn of 1997 in America, Mario Kart 64 realized Nintendo’s push for 3D in high-octane kart racing form. The Nintendo 64’s emphasis on multiplayer games introduced four controller slots to consoles for the first time. Every 90s kid remembers just how fun get-togethers were with all the four-player party games the Nintendo 64 had in its lineup.
As such, the console capable of rendering 3D environments and four simultaneous players sold remarkably well. Mario Kart 64 would go on to hold the number two position in terms of Nintendo 64 game sales with a whopping 10 million units sold as of November 2023. But there’s one edition of the game that became a bit less common.
Player’s Choice was a label Nintendo used to advertise games that sold the most copies on the console. As such, these copies often came later in the console’s life cycle after the initial fervor of the game died down. The relative scarcity of Mario Kart 64 Player’s Choice Edition help make it one of the most expensive Mario games with a recent example being sold for $2,500 in April 2023.
8. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
$1,700 New | $18.44 Used
Image Source: Nintendo
The West didn’t get Super Mario Bros. 3 until early 1990, a full year and a half after the initial Japanese release of the game. Despite being released close to the new Super Nintendo console, Super Mario Bros. 3 proved to be one of the all-time greats in terms of quality and sales.
Super Mario Bros. 3 marked the moment the series came into its own. It firmly takes everything that came before and does a masterclass with it. Levels no longer followed each other in a locked linear pattern. Mario 3 instead gave players a lively overworld dotted with branching paths and hidden secrets. The explorative nature of Super Mario Bros. 3 became a definitive carryover for the games that followed, including the wildly popular Super Mario World.
Because of its reputation as one of the all-time greats in the series and its progressive popularity in the West, North American sealed copies of Super Mario Bros. 3 fetch the highest price of them all.
7. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES)
$1,916 New | $89.99 Used
Image Source: Nintendo
Releasing just four months before the Nintendo 64 console was the new Mario RPG co-developed by SquareSoft on the Super Nintendo. Everything about this game was bizarre and amazing in equal measure. This would mark the first time Nintendo collaborated with RPG giant Square while they were at the height of their craft.
Because of the late release and the unconventional genre coming from Nintendo, Super Mario RPG became a very rare and hot item on the collecting scene. This is one of those games that even sells well used. If you have a beat-up old copy of this game for Super Nintendo lying in a closet like I do, you could easily get $100 for it.
The new Super Mario RPG Remake of the same game has since boosted awareness of the old Super Nintendo classic. Now, sales for the game are projected to increase even more than they were before. A new copy of the SNES game sold for $1,532 the same month the Remake was released.
6. Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES)
$2,375 New | $21.92 Used
Image Source: Nintendo
Super Mario Bros. 2 was actually based on a prototype tech demo for the Family Computer Disk System. Presented at the Yume Kōjō ’87 media technology expo, Doki Doki Panic used festival theming for the characters and environments. Super Mario Bros. 2 would develop from this prototype, eschewing the difficulty of Lost Levels and creating a much more polished and unique game.
Like most video games released before the year 2000, the true sequel to the first Super Mario Bros. came to the West after its initial Japanese launch. Today, English versions of Super Mario Bros. 2 sell for over $2,000, granted it’s a sealed copy of the game. Out of all the games on this list, Super Mario Bros. 2 has been one of the most consistent sellers with continuous sales at the thousand-dollar mark month after month.
5. Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64)
$2,557 New | $32.36 Used
Image Source: Nintendo
Long considered one of the most revolutionary games of all time, Super Mario 64 launched with the forward-thinking Nintendo 64. Super Mario 64 rendered complex platforming stages in full 3D and yet somehow still retained that Nintendo quality we’ve come to rely on.
Well, collectors love it just as much as we gamers do, as the English edition has become one of the most valuable Mario games. A bit part of the reason for its high value can be attributed to the simple fact that Mario’s first foray into 3D generated much hype and popularity. Super Mario 64 is the best-selling game on the Nintendo 64 console, and finding a sealed copy is like running into a gold mine today.
4. Mario Bros. Arcade Classic Series (NES)
$3,259 New | $32.02 Used
Image Source: Heritage Auctions
The original Mario Bros. on the Atari 2600 wasn’t the revolutionary hit that Super Mario Bros. would go on to be, but it was still popular. Mario Bros. wasn’t a platformer at all, but rather a bout of combat in a vertical arena. Versions of Mario Bros. would be included in many Nintendo games to come such as the Mario All Stars version of Super Mario. Bros 3.
While the original Atari Mario Bros. is worth a pretty penny averaging around $800 for a new copy, its NES sibling version would go on to be truly valuable. The Nintendo Entertainment System released a series of classic arcade games with touched-up visuals and controls titled the Arcade Classic Series. Mario Bros. was one such game to grace the lineup and has since rocketed in value becoming the fourth highest-selling Mario game on the market.
3. Super Mario Bros. YM-901 (Game & Watch)
$3,487 New | $750 Used
Image Source: Ebay via samuraisellercooljapanc.t
This one’s wild. Most gamers today know Game & Watch from Smash Bros. The odd character’s stilted movements echo the hardware it was based on. Game & Watch was a portable machine used to play first-party arcade games with a watch built in to tell time and set alarms to. It became a hot seller in Japan due to the nature of commuting and the need for handheld devices.
Game & Watch was usually packed with just one or two games installed, which entailed many many versions tailored for specific games. One particularly popular Game & Watch title was Super Mario Bros. No, not that Super Mario Bros., a completely unique Game & Watch version with all the stilted animation and quirkiness that comes with it. It’s a completely different game from the classic we’ve come to know, as can be seen in this playthrough of the game:
Super Mario Bros. for the Game & Watch still retained that eight world platforming structure the original had, but everything from platforms to Mario himself was designed in the Game & Watch style. The YM-901 release of Super Mario Bros. had a unique yellow “Mr. Famicom” game case with googly eyes on the front. Only 10,000 of these limited edition Game & Watch copies were printed, and could only be obtained by winning Nintendo’s Japanese raffles from 1987.
2. Super Mario Bros. (NES)
$3,692 New | $13.33 Used
Image Source: Nintendo
The game that legitimized video gaming as a thing, Super Mario. Bros single-handedly saved the gaming crash of the 80s. It was one of the first platforming games to connect dozens of unique levels across a single campaign. Most games up to that point were known for their brevity and short-term playability from the arcade format. Super Mario Bros. gave players a lengthy game with unique design from start to finish right from the comfort of their home.
This popularity would continue on into the 2000s when the earliest sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. was sold for a whopping $2 million on the Pawn Stars show. While that $2 million price was in fact an anomaly based on the first edition grading of the cartridge, sealed copies of the game still sell well over $3,000. As of 2023, NES copies of English versions of Super Mario Bros. sell for $3,500 new.
1. Super Mario World (SNES)
$4,200 New | $16.50 Used
Image Source: Nintendo
Super Mario World introduced the world to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1991 as a launch title. The game would outsell every video game at the time. Not only has Super Mario World stood the test of time on the resell market, but it’s held up as one of the best platforming games of all time.
Whether it’s because of its popularity on the Super Nintendo, or because Super Mario World is still highly regarded as the best Mario game today, copies sell for insanely high amounts new. Super Mario World is a very rare game to find unopened because it was such a darn fun game that demanded to be played. Because of this, the discrepancy between new and used prices is laughably wide. Used copies of Super Mario World can be found in every retro game store imaginable fetching prices as low as $15, yet sealed copies remain a distant dream for collectors demanding $4,000 and up.
That sums up the top 10 rarest and most expensive Mario games we’ll never get our hands on. What are some valuable games you own? Check out our other rare games lists here on Twinfinite.
About the author
Matthew Carmosino
Matthew Carmosino is a freelance writer for Twinfinite. He started gaming in the mid-90s where his love for SquareSoft RPGs like Chrono Trigger changed him forever. Matthew has been working in the game industry for two years covering everything from story-rich RPGs to puzzle-platformers.
Listening to piano music on a rainy day is his idea of a really good time, which probably explains his unnatural tolerance for level-grinding.
