Super Mario Bros. 3

In the world of Super Mario Bros. for the NES console, the third and final sticks out to most as one of their all time favorite games, I am no exception. When Super Mario Bros. 3 hit the market it hit with a huge backing of products, a cartoon series and a game to backup all the hype! This game was also in a movie called The Wizard starring Fred Savage, before it was even released in the US. Who doesn’t remember rushing to the toy store to purchase this game when you first seen it on tv? Well, I didn’t because I was still stuck with an Atari 2600 but that’s neither here nor there for this review.

For many people this game is special for many reasons, this game is special to me for more than just one reason but most importantly it lead us back into the true world of the Super Mario Brothers after we were lead astray in Super Mario Bros. 2. The graphics were enhanced beyond our wildest imagination, the worlds seem to come alive as they never had before, the controls were fluid and very responsive and don’t forget all the awesome suits Mario got to wear in this game! This time Mario could fly as a raccoon, swim as a frog, turn into a statue while wearing the Tanooki suit, hop into a boot, throw hammers or even simply throw fireballs as he did back in the first Super Mario Bros.

Instead of the original black label or the moderately colored blue on Super Mario 2, Super Mario 3 was a bold yellow! The worlds were brightly colored as well and everything came to life in a new manner. This time Mario and Luigi were on a mission to save the Mushroom Kingdom from Bowser by defeating his Koopalings and restoring power to each world’s King. Each world has it’s own theme and inside each world it is broken down into numerous levels, more so than the previous games. After restoring power through 7 worlds they must defeat Bowser himself to save Princess Toadstool.

Inside each level there were many mysteries to find, 1ups, hidden coins in the sky, hidden power ups, etc. To finish each level you had to jump through a rotating symbol of either a Mushroom, Invincibility Star or Fire Flower and after you had collected 3 symbols you got various 1ups based on what you had collected. Spread out through the worlds were Toad’s House, in which you could pick a chest and it would give you a power up. Matchups where you would have to match 3 pieces of a symbol to get 1ups. There were card games where you had to match cards to gain extra power ups and also there were Hammer Brother battles to gain even more power ups! It seems as if Nintendo really wanted us to beat this game! Although it was the last for the NES console it has lived on in many remakes; Super Mario All-stars and even a version for the Gameboy Advance titled “Super Mario Advance 4, Super Mario Bros. 3“. Super Mario Brothers 3 lives well beyond it’s days as just an NES game and still to this day is as challenging and clever as the day you brought it home.

Posted August 21st, 2010

About the author

Samuel Floyd first fell into video gaming with the Atari 2600...in the mid-90s! Always late into the system wars, Samuel enjoys that as he acquires them when they're cheap and the hot titles of yesteryear are bountiful. Samuel loves RPGs, his favorite being Crystalis for the NES.


Comments

William August 22, 2010

Haha, I got this game shortly after it came out, but I ended up returning it because some of the flashing effects made me feel funny! My parents got freaked out, afraid I was gonna have a seizure, so back it went! I thought it was pretty fun, but didn't get to play it again until many years later when I realized IT WAS AWESOME!! I wasn't too upset though, the money from SMB3 went into getting Dragon Warrior III, which was even awesomer. ;)

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.