Super Mario Bros. 3

"(ahem..)mario, Mario, MArio, MARio, MARIo, MARIO!"

Super Mario Bros. 3: This was no ordinary game release. It was one of the seminal milestones in video game history. At least, MY video game history. I can clearly remember going down to my local Thrifty(not Kmart, curse your overpriced games to hell!) and picking up this anticipated title. I honestly can't remember any other game having such a fuss made over it: When a picture of Mario with his now-trademark raccoon ears and tail appeared in a game magazine, we almost flipped out. The came the movie ''The Wizard,'' which I unfortunately never got to see, but had the very cool opening shots of Super Mario 3. THAT whetted a lot of appetites on my block. Then came the day, that fateful trip, which started from that tropic port, aboard our tiny ship...

Actually, if we had the airships that the Koopa kids had, we would have been a day closer to experiencing the game's awesome GRAPHICS. The backgrounds, rather than being made up of squarish sprites mixed in various patterns, had a distinct, detailed fullness to them, with the clean lines and small touches that expressed the amount of professionalism involved in their creation. There was almost no flashing or slowdown, a very good thing. And lets not forget the old boy Mario, who got a couple of extra frames of animation and enough black outline for you to tell, for once, what he might have been thinking. (''...'' ''..'' ''.'' ''!'' ''...'')I especially love the new animation for when he's invincible(Mario, ninja-style!) The enemies were as well-drawn and well conceived as the hero, with the bosses being particularly nasty(evil Wendy Koopa!) And it was SCARY when you saw bowser in all of his 54-color glory, blasting fireballs at you like there was no tomorrow. Those were the days, I tell you...days of glory...

Days of MUSIC beyond the pale. After the rather upbeat first-level tunes in the previous two titles, it was rather surprising to hear the very relaxed selection the first level opened up with. But it got REALLY good after that. The new drum version of the underground music, the reappearance of the water levels with their music(a notable omission in SMB2)the foreboding castle and airship tunes(drums, drums, drums...)and the magnificently killer tune for BOWSER! And of course, the ending theme, which I've actually memorized(since I've beat the game so often.)However, most of the best tunes weren't within the levels themselves, they were in the overworld maps. This was a shame, for people rarely, if ever, stayed around to listen to those. Of course, the

GAMEPLAY was so addictive that I can understand that. Secrets and mini-games galore! The new overworld map system enabled people to (sometimes) go where they WANTED to go, rather then always following the predetermined route! They also put roadblocks up which disappeared when the Boom-boom-palace was destroyed, pipes which allowed you to teleport around, and a bunch of bonus games and secrets that either appeared when certain conditions were met or sat there waiting for you to clear a path to them.(Funny thing was, for the longest time I thought the White Mushroom house was a myth...) You could also stockpile and use items on the world map, some of which just powered you up to prepare for a level, others which affected the map or let you bypass levels entirely! (These were usually harder to find...) And best of all, when playing with two players, you could challenge each other to a one-on-one match in the old ''Mario Bros.'' arcade style! The first person to either get five coins by killing enemies or the one who didn't die got his turn first. As you can imagine, this caused some nice(sometimes not-so-friendly) competition. But wait....I've only spoken of the stuff you can find and do in the OVERWORLD! The gameplay portion has loads more. Hmm...slide down hills, bump bricks from the side, go through pipes, hit giant 1-up blocks, ride a whole new variety of platforms, pick up turtle shells & other things and throw them(nice thing to keep from SMB2), fly using a raccoon tail, blast enemies with hammer and fireball, discover secret coin rooms, duck lasers, cannons, flames, balls, and flying blocks of all shapes and sizes, smash through a pyramid made entirely of bricks, and...a whole shipload of other stuff. It's like Yoshi's Island: I'm not being concise because I don't like it, but rather because there's so much stuff to do that to list all of it would exceed my kilobyte limit. And I want you to discover all these things for yourself. So stop reading my piece of literary bull and go buy this game! I really don't care if you don't have an NES, go buy that too! Emulate if dirt poor. And if you enjoy feeling sorry for yourself. And if you want me to launch various forms of fruit at you.

Nintendo Logic: We all know Mario's a strong guy. Anybody who can consistently bash their head against bricks and still run along happily like there's no tomorrow deserves an award for either durability or stupidity. Probably both. But this really becomes clear in World 4, where even when he's little, the dude can carry turtle shells four times as big as he is. We must also congratulate whoever made Kuribo's shoe, possibly the single most deadly weapon in the history of videogames, even more powerful than the Spread gun from Contra and the exploding sword from Spiritual Warfare. Just think: To a guy whose main modus operandi involves jumping on things, this diamond-soled, wind-up powerhouse which can stomp anything and everything has to be like the Holy Grail. And you can use fireballs in it too! But doing that's considered irrational cruelty, even when it's done to enemies as troublesome as Spiny. Probably why you only find it in one level. Finally, I have to go and congratulate the guy who thought the ''Our princess is in another castle!'' joke needed just one more run. Salaam, Shalom, and good night.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 05/14/00, Updated 05/14/00