Super Mario Bros. 3

"Three is the magic number!"

Super Mario Bros. 3. The undisputed heavyweight champion of all NES games, and the pinnacle of 8-bit platformers, and one of the greatest adventures Mario and Luigi have ever seen. This remains one of the best games of all time, and for good reason. Super Mario Bros. 3 has been the greatest selling standalone game for the NES ever, selling a world-record 15 million copies worldwide, and for pretty obvious reasons, too. The gameplay is extremely addictive, the many game modes to play are truly challenging yet fun, and all-around Super Mario Bros. 3 is great to play whether it is a 1-Player game by yourself, or whether you team up with a buddy to be your sidekick throughout this twisting complex of over 80 levels and non-stop side-scrolling action.

This is a game I have known and been well familiar with for a good few years now, ever since I first had a try some seven years ago. Mario's NES days were at their peak here before he moved on to SNES and appeared in the fantastic game of Super Mario World, somewhat an evolved version of SMB3. Released in 1988 Japan, 1990 US and 1991 UK, SMB3 was created to keep NES sales up as Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis had just hit the markets and the competition was starting to get more tense between them and Nintendo. So Shigeru Miyamoto has the answer, all bundled up in the form of red and green-dressed plumbers fighting a giant turtle while rescuing 7 kings, a princess, all bundled up into a yellow and blue cartridge.

I could just sit at my desk for a few minutes before I bundle out my NES and play this game for yet another time. I could sit for hours directing Mario and Luigi through many mazy, dizzying and supreme levels all just for another try at beating the game. You can take many a route to finish a level, even sometimes a kingdom in the Mushroom World. Playing the game straight through, each and every level, would take many hours, yet the variety of enemies, items, layouts of levels and ways you can go in completing them will just keep you playing until you have at last beaten Bowser. So it did take a couple years to get out of Japan. But was the wait worth it? Oh yes, it was.

Super Mario Bros. 3 has went back to the old antics of Super Mario Bros. 1, after the oddball SMB2 was released, yet it has kept some of the old enemies and items, but new stuff has been added into the game to keep it fresh, and something new for gamers instead of being too repetitive like the Japanese version of SMB2. You have all the memorable baddies from SMB1, like the Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Cheep Cheeps, and a few SMB2 enemies too, like the Bob-ombs. Each enemy has a better redesign and drawing, and some attack methods have been changed to give this game a better look but still, it stays true to its origins. In the old Super Mario Bros. days, all that Mario had to aid him were Super Mushrooms to make him grow big, and a Fire Flower to use as a weapon to shoot fireballs to take out most of your enemies. Here, you have those, but also a Super Leaf to make Mario grow a tail which helps him control his gliding in the air, and special suits to give special abilities. The items and baddies really have advanced but stayed true to their origins, and this is a superb thing.

The controls of the game are getting more advanced too. When you start the game off, instead of appearing in Level 1, you have a World map to move to certain levels as you progress through the game. The map controls are simple and understandable, and you can even skip some levels depending on the route you take. As we move on closer into the levels the controls get more complex, yet they are still so easy any five-year-old could understand within seconds. You simply move left and right with your D-Pads and enter doors and climb vines with the Up button. You have your two main action buttons of your NES controller, which are still the same as they were in Super Mario Bros. 1. With the jump and run buttons it's not so hard figuring out what to do after you've played for a while. For such few buttons, there are plenty of moves you can execute when you combine some buttons together. This is an awesome aspect of the game, and your tactics can be really improved with the Marios if you can learn them.

The challenge of this game is through the roof. Even Mario veterans could have a little bit of a struggle in these later levels, especially at Koopa's castle, which can be very frustrating, yet challenge makes the game fun to play. The game does start of easy to give you a chance, and as you progress and get more experienced, you're already prepared to face these tougher levels, which was a brilliant idea to use by Nintendo, and our gameplay is simply superb.

The game does have a bit of a weak storyline, yet is backed up by a second storyline in the whole overall plot. Yeah, you have to rescue the princess again, as Bowser has returned. Yet before you have to do this, you must rescue seven Mushroom Kings by returning their magic wands. This improves it well. Also, instead of just Bowser attacking, you must also face his seven children the Koopalings. They are each individual in looks and attacks, and these factors have improved the plot of the overall game very highly, and are a great build-up to this game too. Anyway, who set a bad storyline upset a score???

I love the music of the game. There are much more tunes than the older Marios, which were nice to listen to, yet still, with less variety of soundtrack would make them boring and repetitive to listen to after a while. Super Mario Bros. 3 has focused on that problem and has done a decent effort at improving on it. Each kingdom of the Mushroom world has its own theme tune, which is very well suited to them and environment of the world it is in. The actual levels have some good, new tunes too. There are two main overworld themes, an airship and fortress theme, and also, the underground music is the same as it was in the original SMB, but its has a beat in it to keep the rhythm smooth. This is some of the best NES music I've ever heard. As for the sound effects, these are mainly the same, but aren't so annoying anyway. They're pretty much too similar to SMB, but this is not really so bad as they are decent enough for each action you perform in the game.

The graphics, you can tell, are a really magnificent point in all the good factors about Super Mario Bros. 3. They have been completely evolved from the earlier Mario games on the NES. Mario looked really blocky a few years ago and there were not so many pixels on the screen, but here, it has made a big improvement. Mario looks a lot better, his body is a lot more smooth and curvy than it was before, and the character and enemy models have been improved to their fullest. Different shades on objects in this game give them a smoother edge, and the backgrounds of the levels, suited to the world you are playing in, look very smooth and better than they ever did before.

The length of Super Mario Bros. 3 will have you playing for a long time. There are many levels to test your skills during the adventure, many routes to complete each level or world you are playing through, and a challenge factor that only true 2D Mario veterans are good enough to take on. Replayability is very high for this game, and 2-Player mode has taken that even further. Also, the Mario Bros. style battle which is also in the game is very fun to play through if you want something for a bit of competition with a partner. It also helps your skill for enemy evasions and the many mazes and things to do in each level will have you playing for a very long time.

Buy this game? If you own a NES and do not have this game, I for one recommend it. It does go well with a NES collection, which would just not be complete without this game. It is rare to find nowadays, yet it is so cheap for such an awesome platformer you can easily find a cheap copy at eBay or Funcoland. It is recommended to play whether you are experienced from Super Mario Bros. 1 and 2, or if it is a first time to play, so it's all good.

So, all in all, this is just about the perfect NES game. To sum this phenomenon of a game up, the difficulty, antics and strategies of Super Mario Bros. 3 are just endless. It combines both the old and the new, yet has kept the NES games in high hopes and truly establishes a page in the Mario legacy. This is one of the biggest Mario games ever and its awesome play-style and levels will keep you on the edge of your seat until you are at the final boss battle. Everything new in this game has aided it well in its life, and has made a big impact on the gaming world. My verdict? Pure greatness.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/03