Also available on Super Nintendo, Game Boy Advance, Wii, 3DS, Wii U, and Switch Super Mario Bros was the game that put Nintendo on the map in 1985, but the sequel plan got a little murky after that. Japan got the exceptionally good but exceptionally difficult Super Mario Bros 2 (which we in the West know as Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels), and in the West, we got a reskin of Doki Doki Panic released as Super Mario Bros 2 (which Japan knows as Super Mario Bros 2 USA). Nintendo of Japan and Nintendo of America finally got their plans straight for the third game, though, and released Super Mario Bros 3 across all regions (with a few regional tweaks) to universal acclaim. This might actually be the greatest game in the entire NES library, and I'm not exaggerating. Super Mario Bros 3 set a lot of standards for Mario. We got a look at more recognizable versions of some of the Mario characters, we got a proper overworld, we got power-ups that could be held in storage, and we got a whole host of themed worlds and interesting new abilities. Like with the original games, you can skip through levels - through the use of warp whistles this time instead of warp pipes - and if you know where to look, you can skip from partway through World 1 all the way to World 8. Of course, you're missing almost all of the game if you do that, but hey, it's speedrunner friendly. One of the most impressive things to me is the visuals of the game. It looks NOTHING like the original Super Mario Bros. Despite running on the exact same console hardware, Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros 3 look IMMENSELY different, and they certainly look like their releases were separated by more than three years (in Japan, anyway). The leap in graphics is practically generational in its extent; I think the jump from Super Mario Bros to Super Mario Bros 3 looks more dramatic visually than the jump from Super Mario Bros 3 on NES to Super Mario World on SNES, although I fully admit that there's likely a bit of NES nostalgia talking there. Super Mario Bros 3 is pretty much just as legendary as Super Mario Bros, so talking too much about it is basically beating a dead horse. The dead horse may be Princess Celestia, but still. It is a testament to its greatness, though, that the film The Wizard is basically just an excuse to advertise Super Mario Bros 3 to Americans in theaters, and god bless them for doing it. I firmly believe that this is the best game the NES has to offer, and while I won't go as far as to say that it's the best 2D Mario game, was is my favorite 2D Mario game until Wonder came out. I can only actually beat it every now and then when I'm really on my A game these days, but I'll never tiring of revisiting Super Mario Bros 3 for twenty or thirty minutes now and then for some nostalgic comfort food. It is truly a perfect 8-bit game. My Rating - S |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
April 2024
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