It would be crazy of me to do a month of iconic video games and video game
characters without talking about a Mario game. There’s been so many over the
years and like I said before, Mario titles are usually the “killer app” for a Nintendo
console.
Of course the first Mario game that comes to mind for most people when they
think retro is Super Mario Bros. 3. It’s arguably the best game on the NES. It
wouldn’t surprise me if someone said it was to the NES what “Hey Jude” was
to the Beatles or “Stairway to Heaven” was to Led Zeppelin or something like
that.
I might have a bit more nostalgia for Super Mario 2 USA, but I do love Super
Mario 3. I have the original cartridge, I have the original Famicom cartridge, I
have it on Virtual Console, I have the Game Boy Advance version, and I have
Super Mario Collection, the Japanese version of Super Mario All-Stars. You can
say I’m slightly obsessed.
With all the promotion Nintendo put behind that game back in the day, it’s no
surprise. On top of a fairly memorable tv commercial, Nintendo put a feature
length commercial in theaters in the form of the movie The Wizard. The most
memorable parts of that movie are the debut of the game and the character
Lucas and his power glove. Simply put, it’s so bad. To further promote the
series, paired with Captain N on Saturday mornings was The Adventures of
Super Mario Bros. 3, a cartoon flat out bearing the name of the game.
Basically what Nintendo did here was take the foundation that the first game
laid down and built upon it. Better graphics and sound, more levels more power
ups, more secrets, more fun to be had by all. The graphics are some of the best
on the console thanks to the MMC3 chip that was also used on Mario 2, many of
the Mega Man games and Kirby’s Adventure. Each level of the game is laid out
like a different world of its own. Each one has its own personality and flair and
each stage fits together like pieces of a puzzle to make some of the best level
design in a 2D platform game. The stages are all fairly short, there are no mid-
points in any of them, and the level maps weren’t linear, so often you could skip
some stages in levels, and there are some items you pick up later in the game
to get you through quicker. On top of the warp whistles, which I’ll get into later.
Musically the game is a real treat. The jazzy themes are all instantly identifiable
as being from Super Mario 3. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you’d really want
to listen to outside of the game, but that’s just not my thing. But when I’m playing
Super Mario 3, I can’t imagine anything other than Koji Kondo wrote for this
game. Overall, I feel a lot about the game has aged remarkably well.
A few years ago there was some speculation going around on the Internet about
how Super Mario Bros. 3 was really a stage play. If you type Mario 3 stage play
into google you’ll find it, so I won’t go into that here. The way I see it, it’s already
a work of fiction, it’s a video game. I never heard anything about the designers
or developers speaking up on the subject. So it’s completely open to
interpretation.
This time around the story goes something like this: Bowser, the King of the
Koopas lets his Koopalings loose. Turning the chieftains of the lands of the
Mushroom Kingdom into animals. But after the seventh king was restored, a
note arrives stating that Bowser had kidnapped the princess again. So our
hero Mario goes right into the depths of the Koopa Kingdom to rescue the
Princess. But Koopa’s prepared with a literal army at his disposal mobilized
to take our favorite plumber down.
But things aren’t so bleak as Mario has a ton of tools at his own disposal, the
already familiar super mushrooms, fire flowers and star men return, and in
addition to those we also have a series of suits and the super leaf. The super
leaf turns Mario into raccoon Mario, he can melee enemies with his tail and
fly short distances after building up a full head of steam. He can also slow his
descent by repeated taps of the jump button. This comes in very handy in
stages which involve heavy platforming. These abilities plus the ability to
turn into a stone statue are available while using the Tanooki suit. Adopted
from Japanese folklore, just minus the ridiculously huge testicles. Other
suits include the Frog suit which is crap on land, but enables faster swimming
with more control. Also there’s the Hammer bros. suit, which allowed Mario
to throw deadly hammers and gave him a shell that made him impervious to
fireballs. There’s also a handful of other tools Mario can pick up including
music boxes and clouds to help him along.
One of my favorite features of Mario 3 is the ability to “bank” power ups picked
up in mushroom huts and bonus games, because no one wants to play as regular
Mario. One thing you may notice is how frequently you will pick up a star man
from fighting hammer brothers or their fireball or boomerang throwing
counterparts. At first you might think starting off a stage with invincibility for
maybe 30 seconds at most is kind of useless. But it’s the quickest way to jump
in and dispatch the roaming enemies on the level map. If you ask me it’s more
useful than wasting them in a stage.
This being a review, I guess the most stand out nit pick I could possibly make is
a pretty common one. That would be the lack of a save feature. With the
multitude of stages in each of the 8 levels, getting through them all in one sitting,
is kind of a pain in the butt for an adult with responsibilities and other stuff to do
than playing a video game all day—not that I regret doing just that for the purpose
of this review. I read somewhere that the developers included the warp whistles
as a way to make up for the lack of a game save or password feature. No idea
whether or not that’s true. But I guess you can run through the first level or so,
building up extra lives (which is very easy to do in the first two levels or so) and
banked power ups as best you can, and then warp to later stages to get through t
he game, but there is an air of satisfaction you lose out on if you skip over stuff.
I don’t think of myself as a completionist, but there’s that sense of discovery you
lose out on by warping past stuff. That kind of lessens the experience. Playing
the All-Stars or Super Mario Advance version of the game you get game saves,
and you can pick up where you left off with virtual console or playing on a Retron
5 which is pretty nice.
In speaking of different versions of the game, I don’t know how many of you are
familiar with the differences between the US and Japanese versions of the game.
The original Japanese version is a bit more difficult, with any time you get hit as
a powered-up version of Mario, you go back to regular small Mario, just like you
do in Super Mario 1. Also there’s this kind of cool animation of the suits falling
away from you body as you get it in the Japanese version instead of just a puff
of smoke. There are some other level design tweaks here and there, but many
of the changes seem to be to make the American version slightly easier than its
Famicom counterpart. However in Super Mario Collection, many of the tweaks
made to the NES version of Mario 3 are present. So I assume that Nintendo
decided they preferred the NES version to the Famicom. The Super Mario
Advance version is graphically based on the All-Stars version, but adds it’s
own little intro cinematic, and gives you the ability to bank more power ups than
you could in any of the other versions, which is a nice touch.
Oh, this me going totally off track, but am I the only one who thought the
boomerangs the boomerang bros throw look kind of like gym socks? Just
something about the stripe on the one side made them look kind of like socks
to me. I know, I’m weird. Another thing which might make me seem a little
weird is that I really prefer the look of the visuals on the 8 bit versions over the
fancier upgraded Mario Advance or All-Stars versions. Mario looks kind of like he
got a bad spray tan or something in these versions. The simpler graphics of the
8 bit versions just look cleaner and more appealing to me.
There’s quite the lasting legacy to Mario 3. A lot of the later games feature a
lot of elements introduced in Mario 3. The suits make a return in Mario 3D Land
and many later games have a similar level map setup. Personally I’d love for
some more elements from Mario 3 made a return. I think a raccoon tail in a New
Super Mario Bros game would be awesome.
Usually I end my reviews by saying whether or not I recommend a game. I don’t
really think that is all that necessary here. I spent a nice chunk of the beginning
of this review saying how much I like it. So I won’t repeat myself here.
What do you like or dislike about Super Mario 3? What elements from the game
would you like to see make a return in modern Super Mario games? Any fond
memories of this game you’d like to share. Feel free to leave a comment down
below. Hope you’ve enjoyed this look at Mario 3.
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