Super Mario Brothers 3: Nintendo Gaming ... Perfected.
Written: Feb 09 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: the best gameplay, incredibly refined graphics and sound, lots to do, many powerups and secrets
Cons: no repeating completed levels, no save points, (I'm knit picking)
The Bottom Line: Many consider this the best game ever made for the old 8-bit Nintendo.
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| kjell1979's Full Review: Super Mario Bros. 3 for Nintendo |
Super Mario!
During the late 80's and early 90's the video game world revolved around Nintendo. Not only did they have the most popular console in their Nintendo Entertainment System (A.K.A. NES), they were also releasing some of the greatest video games ever released. These games, despite being categorized throughout many genres, exhibited the similar qualities for success. They were refined and polished in their gameplay and balance, they pushed the limits of their hardware for both graphics and sound, and their controls were perfected to give the gamer the best possible experience. The greatest example of this came in 1990 when they released Super Mario Brothers 3.
The first two Super Mario games had been smash hits in North America. These games defined who my generation was as well as the video game industry at the time. These games not only brought graphics to a new level, but also gameplay. This combination set the stage for a huge hype with their next sequel.
After the game was released, not only did it live up to the hype, but it also displayed a vast amount of longevity. Super Mario Brothers 3 (henceforth in this review to be called SMB3) carried the NES through the early 90's against it's competitor Sega and their Genesis console. Nintendo Power readers voted SMB3 as their top game for years and years beyond its initial release. The game was a classic from day one and remains that way until this day.
The Meat and Potatoes: Gameplay
The premise behind SMB3 is that Bowser is back, and this time he has 7 kids. You have to free each world from the grasp of these kids before taking on Bowser himself in his own house. You can either take on the challenge with Mario, or a friend can play as Luigi and you both can take turns trying to conquer each level.
The game focuses on the type of game the original Super Mario Brothers was. You stomp on enemies, collect coins for extra lives, use mushrooms and fire flowers as powerups. Along with being true to the original Super Mario Brothers game, it also expanded in ways you could never imagine before 1990. To start off, there were now many new powerups besides the standard, mushroom, fire flower and star. Now you had a leaf that turned you into raccoon Mario, allowing you to fly. There was also a frog suit allowing you to do underwater levels with ease. There was a tanooki suit that served the same purpose as the raccoon leaf in that you could fly. However, with the tanooki suit you could turn into an immobile but invincible statue for a brief period of time. Finally there was a hammer brother suit that allowed you to throw hammers as your attack. These hammers could eliminate enemies that traditional attacks couldn't. The flying aspect was probably the most important addition to the game in that it expanded the levels from essentially one dimensional, keep on going along until you get to the end, into 2 dimensional levels where the sky's the limit.
In addition to the powerups, the environment was expanded from the original. For instance there are many new kinds of blocks added. In the original SMB, you had your typical brick blocks and question mark blocks. In SMB3, you added indestructible wooden blocks, ice blocks that can be picked up and slid across the ground, music blocks that allowed you to jump really high, and red music blocks which when jumped on will lead to a coin filled bonus level. Also there are slopes allowing you to slide down, as well as different kinds of surfaces that provide different kinds of traction.
While almost all of the original enemies from the first Super Mario Brothers remain, the list of new enemies has been expanded ranging from different spins on old favorites to new and original enemies. While you'll see the occasional goomba and green and red-shelled koopas, you'll also see flying goombas, many different kinds of hammer brothers, as well as new enemies like thwomps and boo didleys. Each enemy has it's own characteristics and uniqueness. That is never are two distinctly different looking enemies essentially the same in their abilities. Enemies are strategically placed throughout each level to provide either utility or a challenge for Mario.
One of the major additions to the Mario Brothers series is the addition of an overworld. This allows you to choose which path to take to get to the castle at the end of each level. While in many instances you're left to take stages in numerical order, there is at least one time per world where you have a choice to take one stage in exchange for another. However, in passing on the harder stage, you're often left passing on a very special hidden within it. On each overworld map you'll see symbols for areas that aren't necessarily stages. You'll see a hammer brothers symbol that moves from point to point. When you encounter it, you'll go into a single non-scrolling screen where you fight a specific type of hammer brothers. There's a toad house where you can get powerups for your inventory, there are also pipes that can link you to other pipes along the overworld map. Each of the 8 different worlds has an overworld map in which to explore. Each overworld map follows a specific theme. For instance there's a desert world, a water world, and a pipe maze world. Certain powerups work better for different worlds. While on the overworld map, you have an inventory of powerups to use before you enter a specific stage. This allows you to be able to enter certain stages without the disadvantage of being a smaller Mario where one hit can kill you. There are certain powerups in your inventory like the music box and the Jugem's Cloud that aren't intended for specific stages. Rather they function on the overworld only, allowing you to skip stages or put hammer brothers to sleep.
The Hidden World of Super Mario Brothers 3
SMB3 is a game that not only boasts good level design, tough enemies, and overall great gameplay, it also regularly throws in tons of secrets and Easter eggs that other games seldom threw in. SMB3 was hardly shy about giving you extra lives or "1ups". Just about every stage had a secret (or not so secret) green 1up mushroom hidden. Many had two or three. In addition to green mushrooms, you receive an extra life for every 100 coins you collect. This isn't anything new to Super Mario Brothers games. However, SMB3 isn't miserly about their coins. By my estimation the average stage contains roughly 50-100 coins, and that isn't taking into account "p" switches that change regular blocks into coins and visa versa. Wait there's more! That's not the end of it. At the end of each stage there's a box. When you hit it you receive either a mushroom, fire flower or star symbol. When you collect three symbols you get a 1up. If all three symbols are a mushroom you get 2 1ups, a fire flower 3 1ups, and if all three are stars you get 5 1ups! In fact there's a way that you can hit the block in order to guarantee a star each time. That means aside from coins, and green 1up mushrooms; every 3rd stage (if done correctly) will yield 5 extra lives. And yes there's more. There are certain large very rare question and marks that yield between 3 and 5 1ups. There's also a spade icon where you get the opportunity to earn between 2 and 5 1ups based on your ability to lineup graphics (again following the mushroom, fire flower, star theme).
Besides the abundance of 1ups, there are many other secrets and powerups that this game offers. Like the past two Super Mario Brothers games, there are warp zones. Warp whistles are an item in your inventory when used take you to these warp zones. There are 3 of them hidden in the game somewhere. If you know where they are, they are easy to find and get to. If you're trying to find them on your own, good luck. Also, under a specific condition, you can turn one hammer brothers icon on the world map into a treasure ship. This ship contains 150 easy to get coins as well as a hidden 1up mushroom. At the end you end up fighting two hammer brothers anyway. Also if you complete a specific stage in a world and collect a specific number of coins, a white mushroom house will appear. The item at this house is usually very valuable. Also the most powerful powerups like the frog suit, tanooki suit, and hammer brothers suit are hard to find outside of getting it at a mushroom house. These suits can be found in specific stages, but they are very hard to find. There is also one type of powerup that can only be found on one stage. It's the Kuribo's Shoe. It looks like a huge oversized shoe. It allows you to stomp on enemies that you couldn't normally stomp on like spiked shelled enemies and plant enemies that come out of pipes.
Graphics, Sound, and Controls
As with many games that are between 10 and 15 years old, the graphics aren't all that great compared with games of today. However, they do the job. The colors contrast as great as any game I've seen today. The atmosphere is bright and you'll never spout out the excuse of not being able to see what happened. The frame rate is top notch as well as you'll rarely see much flickering or slow down due to many moving objects. There are a few exceptions, but they aren't until the final stage anyway. While simplistic, the graphics push the capability of the NES hardware. The enemies are clearly and colorfully represented and seem to have their own personality. The only exception is the miniboss graphic. Graphically, they aren't very detailed in their rendering and animation for the most part. However, that's a minor exception to a graphical masterpiece.
I was playing this game the other night with my wife. I came to the conclusion that the sound was the best ever to grace the NES ... even over Castlevania III. The music is ambient and friendly. It makes you feel good and upbeat. It gets you into the atmosphere of the game and the level. It remains true to its Super Mario Brothers heritage while having its own lasting value and character itself. Never is the music hard on the ears or misplaced in the game. While the music is great, the sound effects might have even been greater. The powerup sounds, the one up sounds, even the coin sounds are cleaneup up versions of the sounds from the original Super Mario Brothers. New sounds added for new actions and enemies are just as epic. A testament to how good the sound is, is if someone played a non-obscure sound from this game, most people from my generation could tell you what it was and where it was from.
Despite the great pedigree, the great gameplay, the great graphics, sounds, and secrets, the game could have sunk into gaming mediocrity if it weren't for the great controls. Even though this game isn't like Street Fighter where control responsiveness was magnified to an intense degree, as a platformer SMB3 still required a great amount of responsiveness to be able to navigate through tricky spots. The game delivers more than any game I've seen on the NES before. Jumping, running, throwing fireballs all can be done with precision. One sign that you know the controls are good, when I die I always knew why and always blamed myself not the controller.
Replay and Value
The replay value is this game's biggest drawback. Once you've beaten the game and found all the secrets, there isn't much left to do. While it's pretty hard to find all the secrets on your first attempt, it isn’t hard to go back and find everything. However, after all that's gone you're just left with a fun, but beaten game. The game isn't very challenging for many seasoned gamers and the widely available 1ups only decreases the challenge. I do think that the quality of this game significantly increases its replay value; it just isn't enough to be shuffled away somewhere for a year or two. The lack of a save feature forces you to play the game from the beginning whenever you fire up your NES. This means that getting to world 7 or 8 from the beginning takes hours. While it's fun getting there, it might prevent some folks from pulling that cart out of their closet. Warp whistles are designed to bring these worlds a lot closer, however it does come at the expense of limited 1up opportunities. Tackling world 8 with 10 extra guys however can be a challenge for some of the most skilled and seasoned gamers out there. However you're shortening the game in order to make it into a challenge, so it's give or take. It would also be nice to be able to play certain levels over within a certain world. Some levels are just so fun that you want to play them over and over. By not including this, I think it decreases the replay value a little bit more. Overall the replay value is average to a little below average depending on what you're comparing it against.
How much would I pay for this game today? I would pay $20. Given the limited amount of replay value and the lack of depth compared to other games, it won't capture my imagination for as many hours as it used to. The competition has pushed SMB3 out of the spotlight years ago. However, being a classic and still having some solid graphics, sound and most importantly gameplay, I can imagine picking up this game from time to time and playing for a long long time. Twenty bucks is roughly what it's selling for used at game stores. You could get it for half that price on Ebay, and even less at flea markets or yard sales. If you have a Nintendo, it's worth it to get it cheap at a yard sale if you don't have the cart. Even if you don't like it you can always sell it for a slight profit.
Final Thoughts
I also own the Gameboy Advance remake of this game and I still feel that the original NES version is better. My thoughts are that even though the graphics are updated to include a greater spectrum of colors, and the sound is updated, it's not true to what it is. The sound particularly irks me in that many of my most favorite sounds are replaced with corny Mario voice-overs. I still will probably keep it for the portability factor and the great gameplay, but I still prefer to play the NES version. It's kind of funny that in my opinion the original is so good and so refined that it even out performed an updated version ported 13 years later.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kjell1979
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Location: Oxford, Mass
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Still plowing through iPhone games.
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