#196: Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990, NES)

It feels odd to follow up my love letter to Super Mario World with a piece that sort of slams Super Mario Bros. 3 over some complaints that I'm sure I'm going to have problems properly explaining, other than saying that it just doesn't inspire the same sense of awe and love in me that a Super Mario World did. So, before I get to those complaints, I'll start with what is so incredibly good about Mario 3.

The big plus is this - no other NES title is as much of a technical feat, no other NES title packs in as varied a gameplay experience, no other NES title sports as wildly diverse a set of environments, no other NES title this side of Capcom's work has as strong an overall sound production, and no other title sports control as precise and accessible. Yet, when I make my list of my favorite NES games, I have to leave it below both River City Ransom and Tecmo Super Bowl because, as great as Mario 3 is, it also happens to have a follow up that manages to out-do basically every respect. Some would say that later games shouldn't be held against earlier ones, but how can they not? I can't go and give an A for effort, nor can I travel back in time to the 80s and grade it then.

Back (again) to the good: Mario 3, more so than either of its predecessors, established the true heart of what a Mario game was. Mario 1 may have established the control and the emphasis on the environment being the obstacle (versus the enemies), and Mario 2 may have established the role of exploration (I could also mention The Lost Levels as establishing how not to do a difficulty curve), but Mario 3 introduced the concept of variety as a foundation of the series. Mario 3 is filled with tricks and mechanics which see a limited use maybe once or twice before being tossed away. This is hardly unique - Mega Man had different powerups, Kirby would later take this idea to the extreme through the presence of dozens of powers, but what Mario did was devote to all of these toss-away mechanics and moments the same attention to detail and precision as it did to the act of jumping.

In short, all of these moments were as fun as the rest of the game (more-or-less, what with the swimming), not put there solely as some way to change up the pacing. No better example can be seen than in Kuribo's Shoe, present in only one level fairly late in a game with no means of starting from the middle or even replaying a level that has already been passed. Using Kuribo's shoe meant at least the half-hour commitment it would take to get some warp whistles and work over there, yet there may not be a better item in the entire series.



This isn't the only toss-away mechanic, the tanooki, hammer, and frog suits are difficult to find and can be lost with one hit like any other item - in other words, they're pretty impractical, yet you feel compelled to track them down anyway because they're too cool and fun to do otherwise. That these flourishes are built on top of an already rock-solid foundation is why the Mario series is in another stratosphere of quality and fun.

Incredibly, I must have been the about only Mario fan in the world who never actually had Mario 3 as a child, instead I borrowed it from my uncle for what was probably a year and a half. So, sure, I played the hell out of it, but it was never actually mine, despite how much I enjoyed it - not that this was all that unusual, I mostly rented back then, my actual collection was pretty pitiful (highlights being Mega Man 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, and the packed-in Mario 1). Another favorite of mine that I didn't actually own: EarthBound.

Just as incredible now that I see it - Mario 3 was released in the U.S. nearly 15 months after it was released in Japan. Imagine if Mario Galaxy had been scheduled for release in March 2009, fans would have burned Nintendo of America to the ground in protest (not even a preview in The Wizard would placate them), hell, I'd bring some of the gasoline.

So what is there not to like here? As I said earlier, my complaints are fairly hard to verbalize, centering mostly on some things I feel are off. Chief amongst these is probably the difficulty, namely the inconsistency of the difficulty as the game swings between being easy, being hard because of the sheer number of things out there trying to kill you (projectiles and the like), and being hard due to obscure restrictions or tasks - an excellent example here is the level in world 6 where to exit one must have a raccoon tail and be carrying an ice block, if you run out of either you'll become stuck and be forced to either let time expire or suicide out of the level. That sort of design should never happen in a Mario game, and near as I can recall has never happened since (sometimes a secret exit will be subject to such a restriction, but never the only exit). My other complaint centers around the inconsistency in the length of levels, with some being quite long (the pyramid comes to mind), and most being over well too soon (especially when one plays in the reckless, full-speed style I prefer).



Are these big problems? In the grand scheme of video games, no (Mario 3 is still probably the best game on the NES - insofar as one can designate a title the best in some objective sense), but in the world of Mario, they sort of are - the standards are so high.

Special note: Super Mario World occupies numbers 196 (NES), 214 (GBA), and 489 (Virtual Console) in my collection.

Super Mario Bros. 3
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Released: February 1990
Obtained: October 2003 (eBay!)

9.0/10