While the first Super Mario Bros. was a landmark debut on the NES and the savior of the video game medium, it’s hardly considered the best Mario game. The only people who argue for it are merely crediting its accomplishments and historical significance. The game itself is so rudimentary that I’d be surprised if anyone legitimately enjoyed playing it even a couple of years after the NES’s library expanded. Sure, it’s still a competent game, but to say that the game hasn’t aged gracefully is still fairly diplomatic. This is also not a case of every subsequent Mario game that comes out toppling over the previous entries in quality. A common contender for the greatest Mario game, the one deserving of Super Mario Bros. early legacy, is Super Mario Bros. 3. Unlike the bizarre reskin of another game that was Super Mario Bros. 2 in the USA and the uncanny, blisteringly hard more of the first game that was Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3 was the true successor to the first Super Mario Bros. game. Super Mario Bros. 3 had all of the familiar elements from the first game without seeming derivative. This natural evolution of the series was all the third game needed to cement its stellar reputation. Super Mario Bros. 3 is not only considered the greatest Mario game, but it’s often considered to be the greatest game in the NES library. Popular gaming publication IGN even claimed it as the greatest video game of all time, the one game to represent Mario’s unparalleled, indelible mark on gaming. I’ve even claimed this to be Mario’s finest outing at some point in time. After replaying it again for this review, I have a few new insights about all of this colossal praise for Super Mario Bros. 3. I’ve concluded that the adulation everyone, including myself, has given Super Mario Bros. 3 isn’t 100% fresh.
Could one still argue that Super Mario Bros. 3 is the greatest game of all time? Maybe, but it could easily be many other Mario titles. Putting Mario at the top would make sense on an objective scale, and this is one of the proper games to honor the iconic plumber. It doesn’t have the same historical weight as the first one, but it comes fairly close. Super Mario Bros. 3 didn’t need to save the video game industry from collapsing to eclipse the first game’s impact. It took all of the familiar and gameplay elements from the first game and expanded upon them superbly, and even that’s an understatement. The game begins like any other Mario game, with Princess Peach getting kidnapped by Bowser. It’s a series staple that verges on being the oldest of Mario cliches at this point, but repeating this from the first game meant that this would be a recurring catalyst to a Mario game. Remember that the last time we Americans were treated to a new Mario game, Peach was just as front and center as Mario was. Peach getting kidnapped wasn’t a prime element to the stories of Mario games, but repeating it here most likely set a course for the rest of the series to follow. The first level features Goombas and Koopas instead of Shy Guys and Snifits. Piranha Plants pop out of pipes, and blocks with question marks make up the foreground. When Mario hits those blocks, the familiar mushrooms fire flowers and start to occasionally pop out. Mario’s offensive strategy goes back to jumping on the heads of his enemies instead of picking them up after riding around on them. I’d say this sense of familiarity is enlivening, but I can only claim this in retrospect after so many Mario games with these elements have been released. At this point in the late 1980s, the only distinguishable Mario series identifiers were the characters. The American Super Mario Bros. 2 shook things up enough to the point where using the familiar characters would've been enough to make a Mario game. It was Super Mario Bros. 3 that put its foot down and decided that the world of Mario needed a concrete identity. Most of these characteristics may have been established in the first Super Mario Bros., but it was in Super Mario Bros. 3 which they were solidified. This was the official beginning of the Mario franchise's distinctive properties, and we haven’t deviated too much from this. In fact, the influx of modern 2D Mario games seems to be shameless rehashes of Super Mario Bros. 3 with more animated graphics. Even after generations of progress, the formula laid out by Super Mario Bros. 3 remains strong.
The return to a more recognizable form of the first game was certainly beneficial, but this wasn’t a case of Nintendo giving up on providing variety and an evolution of ideas for the franchise. They didn’t just repackage the first game with a few new features as they did with the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2. Super Mario Bros. 3 is a bonafide sequel with a myriad of new elements that enhance the Mario experience. One of my main criticisms of the first game was that every level throughout the eight different worlds was so similar that it verged on monotony. Super Mario Bros. 3 organizes the eight different worlds by a theme. Suppose anyone wondered where the platformer trope of theming levels by geographical location came from. In that case, it most likely stems from Super Mario Bros. 3. The desert, water, sky, fire, and ice worlds may be one of the most tired cliches in platformers nowadays. Still, they were an invigorating change of pace from the consistent pattern of the overworld, underground, underwater, and castle set that made up the entirety of the first game. These types of level foregrounds are present here but are sprinkled amongst the consistently themed levels. Each world will always end at a castle icon on the map where Mario has to retrieve the power scepter of that world’s king from the clutches of one of Bowser’s children, the final boss of each world. Each Koopaling mans its own airship, complete with a heavy defense system. Once Mario defeats that world’s Koopaling, he’ll move on to the next level. It’s a little more involved than getting siked out by a Toad after encountering Bowser repeatedly. While I say this, the Koopaling bosses are only physically different in design as none of them are any more difficult than the other. It’s a familiar sore spot of repetition in a game that accomplishes so much to deviate away from the repetitive hiccups of the first game. The even worse offender is the Boom Boom encounters in every single castle.
Instead of being presented in a linear pattern, the levels in Super Mario Bros. 3 are organized through a means of a world map. A Mario icon moves in a restricted range of movement through a series of simple, constructed paths. The theme of the world is presented all over, and the order of the levels is represented with numbers. To break the course of linearity even further, the world map is designed so that the player can skip some levels if they so choose. Of course, the player might have to play these levels anyways due to the final level’s airship moving erratically throughout the world map, so there is a bit of strategy to consider with this mechanic. The world map also feels very lively as there are also enemy encounters, toad houses, and warp pipes on the map amongst the level placements. While several other NES games, like the first Super Mario Bros., presented the course of a game through strict linearity, this world map gave players more freedom. The only other NES game I can think of that offers this sense of nonlinearity is Mega Man, but that game’s direction still seems restricted compared to the world map of Super Mario Bros. 3.
The more nuanced approach to level design and direction also carries over to the gameplay of Super Mario Bros 3. Mario’s range of movement in the first game was as rudimentary as every other aspect. He was confined to a single, stilted jump, and his running was difficult to accelerate properly. In Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario had never felt so fluid and capable up to this point. Mario can still only jump once, but his jump feels much smoother to properly navigate when jumping on enemies and or platforms. His running is gauged by a meter and can be halted when needed. Mario can also throw blocks at enemies and slide down steep inclines to dispatch a large array of foes (while this is fun and displays the fluid movement of, Mario, I often had some trouble maintaining Mario’s sliding stance and died as a result). This nuanced level of movement and combat is further supported by the new power-ups that are at Mario’s disposal. The frog suit is a new power-up that allows Mario to swim more gracefully and allows him to jump higher. The green goomba boot lets Mario jump higher and walk over some hazards, but it’s only available on one level. The Hammer Brothers suit acts similarly to the fire flower, launching an array of projectiles from an overhead angle instead of a straight one. The most iconic new powerup (considering Mario has it on the box art of the game) is the tanooki suit. In its most underdeveloped form, the tanooki suit will only take the form of a tail represented with a leaf icon. This allows Mario to glide downward, which is useful enough for traversing the grounds of most levels. With the complete suite, Mario can launch himself up to the sky and uncover the hidden secrets the levels offer, signifying the level of depth the developers implemented. A “P badge” that comes with the Tanooki suit allows Mario to fly at will, giving him the potential to skip entire levels.
Given that Super Mario Bros. 3 is a far more sizable experience than the first game, it’s also much more difficult because of it. This isn’t a case of the levels being consistently more hectic, but rather because the game is sizable to a fault. One unfortunate thing about Super Mario Bros. 3 is that the game does not come with a save feature. Every world has about seven to twelve different levels, so one would think being able to save would be necessary. However, this was obviously not an idea Nintendo had in the game’s development, so NES owners had to leave their console on all night to save their progress. If the player gets a game over, they no longer have to restart the entire game but instead, have to start the world over again. This may seem like a relief until one realizes how many levels there are in each world. It becomes a grind to work up to, especially without a save feature. I think an appropriate time to implement saving in this game would be after defeating Boom Boom in a castle. The castle levels are often right in the middle of a world after three or four stages. Having the player work up to that milestone and relieving them with a chance to save their progress does not mitigate the difficulty. One also has to keep in mind that the player only has a mere five lives to complete all of these levels. Again, this amount seems paltry stacked against the number of levels one has to endure. The game gives the player plenty of chances to earn extra lives in the toad houses, and power-ups can be used before entering a stage, but the game still seems to ask a bit too much from the player.
Besides that aspect, Super Mario Bros. 3 has a fairly consistent difficulty curve that increases appropriately as the game progresses. The first level is an unassuming grassy plain that eases the player into the gameplay. The second and third worlds are more feverish as they add a sort of “stalking mechanic” in which Mario is chased down by an angry sun in the desert and a giant, carnivorous Cheep Cheep dubbed by players as “Big Bertha.” The “Giant World” is a fan favorite where the size of enemies and objects becomes a new gimmick to hurdle over. Worlds five and six add air and ice and are quite extraneous in length. In World 7, known as “Pipe World,” this consistent curve hits a brick wall. This was the one world that made me give up this game as a kid, and I thought I would excel here as an adult. I, however, had the same trouble I did but persisted nonetheless. I realized that this wasn’t due to a larger amount of enemies per level but because the design of most of these levels was unfairly obtuse. I even had to look up what I had to do in one level to complete it because it was so obtuse. I appreciate the variety of level design the developers implemented, but the execution is much too abstract for a Mario game. This would’ve been better implemented in a bonus world for an extra level of difficulty for more incentivized players.
Carrying over the elements of the first Super Mario Bros. isn’t what makes Super Mario Bros. 3 a considerable contender for the best Mario game. Otherwise, everyone would most likely only sing the praises of the first Super Mario Bros. Retaining the same elements from the first game was definitely important to the mix of Super Mario Bros. 3. Still, it’s the changes that made a world of difference, and elevated it in terms of quality. Super Mario Bros. 3 is much more organized, fine-tuned, and vaster than the first game. In fact, this proved to be the case compared to every other NES game at the time. It was groundbreaking because gamers had never experienced a video game with so much graphical polish, fluid control, nuanced level design, and considerably lengthy playtime. Gamers were practically spoiled by the capabilities of Super Mario Bros 3., and it made every other NES title pale in comparison. Its spectacular, timeless presentation, matched with its fluid gameplay and level design, makes it easy to mistake it with the quality of a game from the technically superior SNES. Declaring Super Mario Bros. 3 as the greatest NES game seems like an objective statement, one that can be supported with clear evidence that proves itself. On a more subjective scale, my opinion about Super Mario Bros. 3 standing as the reigning champ of all Mario titles isn’t as concrete as it used to be. I now find fault with being unable to save one’s progress, especially considering how long this game can be. I’m also not a fan of the steep difficulty curve and the obtuse level design in world 7. With all of these new criticisms coming to light for me, Super Mario Bros. 3 is still incredibly impressive in many ways and has aged better than any of its NES contemporaries.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
Could one still argue that Super Mario Bros. 3 is the greatest game of all time? Maybe, but it could easily be many other Mario titles. Putting Mario at the top would make sense on an objective scale, and this is one of the proper games to honor the iconic plumber. It doesn’t have the same historical weight as the first one, but it comes fairly close. Super Mario Bros. 3 didn’t need to save the video game industry from collapsing to eclipse the first game’s impact. It took all of the familiar and gameplay elements from the first game and expanded upon them superbly, and even that’s an understatement. The game begins like any other Mario game, with Princess Peach getting kidnapped by Bowser. It’s a series staple that verges on being the oldest of Mario cliches at this point, but repeating this from the first game meant that this would be a recurring catalyst to a Mario game. Remember that the last time we Americans were treated to a new Mario game, Peach was just as front and center as Mario was. Peach getting kidnapped wasn’t a prime element to the stories of Mario games, but repeating it here most likely set a course for the rest of the series to follow. The first level features Goombas and Koopas instead of Shy Guys and Snifits. Piranha Plants pop out of pipes, and blocks with question marks make up the foreground. When Mario hits those blocks, the familiar mushrooms fire flowers and start to occasionally pop out. Mario’s offensive strategy goes back to jumping on the heads of his enemies instead of picking them up after riding around on them. I’d say this sense of familiarity is enlivening, but I can only claim this in retrospect after so many Mario games with these elements have been released. At this point in the late 1980s, the only distinguishable Mario series identifiers were the characters. The American Super Mario Bros. 2 shook things up enough to the point where using the familiar characters would've been enough to make a Mario game. It was Super Mario Bros. 3 that put its foot down and decided that the world of Mario needed a concrete identity. Most of these characteristics may have been established in the first Super Mario Bros., but it was in Super Mario Bros. 3 which they were solidified. This was the official beginning of the Mario franchise's distinctive properties, and we haven’t deviated too much from this. In fact, the influx of modern 2D Mario games seems to be shameless rehashes of Super Mario Bros. 3 with more animated graphics. Even after generations of progress, the formula laid out by Super Mario Bros. 3 remains strong.
The return to a more recognizable form of the first game was certainly beneficial, but this wasn’t a case of Nintendo giving up on providing variety and an evolution of ideas for the franchise. They didn’t just repackage the first game with a few new features as they did with the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2. Super Mario Bros. 3 is a bonafide sequel with a myriad of new elements that enhance the Mario experience. One of my main criticisms of the first game was that every level throughout the eight different worlds was so similar that it verged on monotony. Super Mario Bros. 3 organizes the eight different worlds by a theme. Suppose anyone wondered where the platformer trope of theming levels by geographical location came from. In that case, it most likely stems from Super Mario Bros. 3. The desert, water, sky, fire, and ice worlds may be one of the most tired cliches in platformers nowadays. Still, they were an invigorating change of pace from the consistent pattern of the overworld, underground, underwater, and castle set that made up the entirety of the first game. These types of level foregrounds are present here but are sprinkled amongst the consistently themed levels. Each world will always end at a castle icon on the map where Mario has to retrieve the power scepter of that world’s king from the clutches of one of Bowser’s children, the final boss of each world. Each Koopaling mans its own airship, complete with a heavy defense system. Once Mario defeats that world’s Koopaling, he’ll move on to the next level. It’s a little more involved than getting siked out by a Toad after encountering Bowser repeatedly. While I say this, the Koopaling bosses are only physically different in design as none of them are any more difficult than the other. It’s a familiar sore spot of repetition in a game that accomplishes so much to deviate away from the repetitive hiccups of the first game. The even worse offender is the Boom Boom encounters in every single castle.
Instead of being presented in a linear pattern, the levels in Super Mario Bros. 3 are organized through a means of a world map. A Mario icon moves in a restricted range of movement through a series of simple, constructed paths. The theme of the world is presented all over, and the order of the levels is represented with numbers. To break the course of linearity even further, the world map is designed so that the player can skip some levels if they so choose. Of course, the player might have to play these levels anyways due to the final level’s airship moving erratically throughout the world map, so there is a bit of strategy to consider with this mechanic. The world map also feels very lively as there are also enemy encounters, toad houses, and warp pipes on the map amongst the level placements. While several other NES games, like the first Super Mario Bros., presented the course of a game through strict linearity, this world map gave players more freedom. The only other NES game I can think of that offers this sense of nonlinearity is Mega Man, but that game’s direction still seems restricted compared to the world map of Super Mario Bros. 3.
The more nuanced approach to level design and direction also carries over to the gameplay of Super Mario Bros 3. Mario’s range of movement in the first game was as rudimentary as every other aspect. He was confined to a single, stilted jump, and his running was difficult to accelerate properly. In Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario had never felt so fluid and capable up to this point. Mario can still only jump once, but his jump feels much smoother to properly navigate when jumping on enemies and or platforms. His running is gauged by a meter and can be halted when needed. Mario can also throw blocks at enemies and slide down steep inclines to dispatch a large array of foes (while this is fun and displays the fluid movement of, Mario, I often had some trouble maintaining Mario’s sliding stance and died as a result). This nuanced level of movement and combat is further supported by the new power-ups that are at Mario’s disposal. The frog suit is a new power-up that allows Mario to swim more gracefully and allows him to jump higher. The green goomba boot lets Mario jump higher and walk over some hazards, but it’s only available on one level. The Hammer Brothers suit acts similarly to the fire flower, launching an array of projectiles from an overhead angle instead of a straight one. The most iconic new powerup (considering Mario has it on the box art of the game) is the tanooki suit. In its most underdeveloped form, the tanooki suit will only take the form of a tail represented with a leaf icon. This allows Mario to glide downward, which is useful enough for traversing the grounds of most levels. With the complete suite, Mario can launch himself up to the sky and uncover the hidden secrets the levels offer, signifying the level of depth the developers implemented. A “P badge” that comes with the Tanooki suit allows Mario to fly at will, giving him the potential to skip entire levels.
Given that Super Mario Bros. 3 is a far more sizable experience than the first game, it’s also much more difficult because of it. This isn’t a case of the levels being consistently more hectic, but rather because the game is sizable to a fault. One unfortunate thing about Super Mario Bros. 3 is that the game does not come with a save feature. Every world has about seven to twelve different levels, so one would think being able to save would be necessary. However, this was obviously not an idea Nintendo had in the game’s development, so NES owners had to leave their console on all night to save their progress. If the player gets a game over, they no longer have to restart the entire game but instead, have to start the world over again. This may seem like a relief until one realizes how many levels there are in each world. It becomes a grind to work up to, especially without a save feature. I think an appropriate time to implement saving in this game would be after defeating Boom Boom in a castle. The castle levels are often right in the middle of a world after three or four stages. Having the player work up to that milestone and relieving them with a chance to save their progress does not mitigate the difficulty. One also has to keep in mind that the player only has a mere five lives to complete all of these levels. Again, this amount seems paltry stacked against the number of levels one has to endure. The game gives the player plenty of chances to earn extra lives in the toad houses, and power-ups can be used before entering a stage, but the game still seems to ask a bit too much from the player.
Besides that aspect, Super Mario Bros. 3 has a fairly consistent difficulty curve that increases appropriately as the game progresses. The first level is an unassuming grassy plain that eases the player into the gameplay. The second and third worlds are more feverish as they add a sort of “stalking mechanic” in which Mario is chased down by an angry sun in the desert and a giant, carnivorous Cheep Cheep dubbed by players as “Big Bertha.” The “Giant World” is a fan favorite where the size of enemies and objects becomes a new gimmick to hurdle over. Worlds five and six add air and ice and are quite extraneous in length. In World 7, known as “Pipe World,” this consistent curve hits a brick wall. This was the one world that made me give up this game as a kid, and I thought I would excel here as an adult. I, however, had the same trouble I did but persisted nonetheless. I realized that this wasn’t due to a larger amount of enemies per level but because the design of most of these levels was unfairly obtuse. I even had to look up what I had to do in one level to complete it because it was so obtuse. I appreciate the variety of level design the developers implemented, but the execution is much too abstract for a Mario game. This would’ve been better implemented in a bonus world for an extra level of difficulty for more incentivized players.
Carrying over the elements of the first Super Mario Bros. isn’t what makes Super Mario Bros. 3 a considerable contender for the best Mario game. Otherwise, everyone would most likely only sing the praises of the first Super Mario Bros. Retaining the same elements from the first game was definitely important to the mix of Super Mario Bros. 3. Still, it’s the changes that made a world of difference, and elevated it in terms of quality. Super Mario Bros. 3 is much more organized, fine-tuned, and vaster than the first game. In fact, this proved to be the case compared to every other NES game at the time. It was groundbreaking because gamers had never experienced a video game with so much graphical polish, fluid control, nuanced level design, and considerably lengthy playtime. Gamers were practically spoiled by the capabilities of Super Mario Bros 3., and it made every other NES title pale in comparison. Its spectacular, timeless presentation, matched with its fluid gameplay and level design, makes it easy to mistake it with the quality of a game from the technically superior SNES. Declaring Super Mario Bros. 3 as the greatest NES game seems like an objective statement, one that can be supported with clear evidence that proves itself. On a more subjective scale, my opinion about Super Mario Bros. 3 standing as the reigning champ of all Mario titles isn’t as concrete as it used to be. I now find fault with being unable to save one’s progress, especially considering how long this game can be. I’m also not a fan of the steep difficulty curve and the obtuse level design in world 7. With all of these new criticisms coming to light for me, Super Mario Bros. 3 is still incredibly impressive in many ways and has aged better than any of its NES contemporaries.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com