Super Mario Bros. 3: The Best of All Mario Platform Games

I still remembered the first time I received my NES back in 1991, it was the only videogame console I had at the time and the only game that came with it happened to be Super Mario Bros. 3. Back then without any hype about the Mario franchise nor care about how good or bad the game turn out to be, I decided to venture myself into the heart of the game and set forth into the very first level of my journey through the Mushroom World. At first it was very simple, all I do is control a short chubby little man across a fantasy platform level jumping and stomping on little monsters with no hands, beating walking turtles and using their shell as weapon and getting a mushroom to supersize the short man then getting transform with a tail to that of a racoon by the touch of a leaf, this is the first time I am actually learning something about the game. Of course, I had no idea that this one game would end up being the greatest NES Nintendo masterpiece of a Mario platform game that I had ever played, yet back then I haven't even played the original Super Mario Bros., heck I haven't even seeing the fire flower or Bowser yet and still by playing this game, it had open lots of opportunities for me to discover more. This game was, in fact, the third and final Mario platform title to be released on the NES. It's good to know that it is a sequel instead of being a prequel or a remake and was released in the U.S. in February 12, 1990. It was the swansong title to the NES before its sequel, Super Mario World continued the Mario platform legacy to the 16-Bit era for the Super NES. In Super Mario Bros. 3, player took on the role of Mario or Luigi(depending on which player you are, you will always get to play the same guy) who would journey through seven worlds across many obstacle levels, fortresses, airships, tanks, fight many hammer brothers, boomerang brothers, and fire brothers matches, leap over pirahna levels, and finally conquer the darkness of Bowser's dark world.

Unlike in the first two Mario platform games before it, the game don't advance from one level to the next once player completed it, instead the game allowed player free to choose the path they desire to take thanks to a map features, using this feature there are many levels and paths player can either choose to face or avoid, for example in the first world of Grass Land, immediately after completing level 2, many paths will open to player on where to go next, they could either choose to advance to level 3 or level 4 or they could advance directly to the fortress and open a shortcut to level 5 not to mention they could also gamble for some free extra lives along the way, this is a welcome addition to the gameplay and creativity of the game because many players can choose to return to the levels they miss or they could possibly skip it and advance forward deep into the game. Also introduced for the first time ever are new power-ups such as the power leafs, tanooki suits, hammer brother suits, frog suits, karibo shoe, sledgehammers, jukeboxes, the hidden flutes, airship anchors, lakitu's clouds, and power-wings alongside the mainstay power-ups of the super mushrooms, fire flowers, and invincible stars from the first game. Another great feature is the addition of earning power-ups or getting power-ups and storing them through a menu bar at the world map, player could store and use them to their advantage as well before entering a destination, some power-ups like lakitu's clouds, the sledgehammers, the jukeboxes, the hidden flutes, and the airship anchors are only required to be use at the world map due to them serve as map item for example lakitu's cloud only lets player skip or advance across a level or fortress without entering them, the sledgehammers can break boulder at the world map which will open hidden paths or shortcuts through the map, the jukeboxes can be used to put the walking koopa brothers on the map to sleep for several turns, and the purpose of the anchors was to halt the fleeing airship in the world map in the case of the airship become active should the player fail to accomplish it the first time. Also scatter around the world map are many mushroom houses and bonus card slide show games that player can take for free extra lives or extra power-ups, there are even secret hidden white mushroom houses with hidden power-ups and a secret card matching game that allowed the player to gamble for free power-ups as well as a secret bonus airship where you can collect various prizes and challenging battle. Perhaps, this game featured way too much of what we had already desire not to mention how difficult it took to beat the game.

Yes, you may not want to believe me on this but back then this game is one hell of a challenge, unlike the many ports and remakes of this same game, you can't say that this game is easy because it ain't due to the fact that you are playing a very long platform game, a game which you can't save your progress like the many versions after and the fact that once you reset, you will start way back to the very beginning. The best chance to beat the game is to not reset but to restart and sometime your console are played way too long you are required to power down for a bit but you can never come back to where you left off. Also another mention to the challenge isn't just the fortresses, airships, tanks, koopa brother matches, or pirahna levels, but the actual levels themselves, not every levels progress the same, in fact, there are two different type of levels, the free scrolling types and the automatic scrolling types. The free scrolling levels are the more common levels because they tend to let players play their own way, player could explore absolutely as they see and take paths as they desire just as long as time doesn't expire. They are also the more easier and simplest to complete because they don't pressure the player of going forward. Now the second type of levels are the automatic scrolling levels, unlike free scrolling levels, these levels pressure the player of going forward without the time necessary to explore or take chances for anything. Even if the player stop, the screen will continue to scroll and sometimes it can even killed the player if trapped in a platform or corner, though the scrolling kept on going it will eventually halt once player reach the end of that level, level 4 of world 1 is an example of these levels. Because of the sheer difficulty of these type of levels and the fact that all you do is collect items, avoid oncoming obstacles, and you couldn't go back to get what you missed, it was surprising that some players actually skip level 4 in the first world just because it was a bit difficult, another thing to mention is that all the tanks and airships are also automatic scrolling levels as well though they came near the end of the game.

While the levels are cleverly design to challenge players, some may had offer a lot of hidden secrets to the player as well, for example, in one level player could find a hidden musical block that make them jump to the sky to collect various prizes, also in another level, player can even blend into the background and walk into the end goal to enter a hidden mushroom house that were nowhere on the map. There are even fortresses that had hidden rooms that lead players to valuable power-ups, free lives, and other goodies and there are even levels that player can gain extra lives by destroying tons of enemies. Overall, the majority of the gameplay are very rewarding and you'll encourage yourself discovering hidden features all throughout your entire playthrough over and over again. Also a big plus is that not only two players can join together to accomplished the quest in this game but Nintendo even added in an updated versus mini-game that plays similar to the original Mario Bros. arcade game, heck there's even one vesus level that feature a coin bursting pipe that erupt with hundreds of rewards for both players to collect to outperform the others and there's even one where both players had to collect the most number of coins without any enemies involve, a truly great addition to an already great masterpiece.

Overall, I had to say Super Mario Bros. 3 is one of the best Mario platform game of all time, it is even better than the many ports and remakes that comes after as well as the many sequels that was released after this too. Of all the Mario platform adventures, there will never going to be another platform masterpiece that will ever let you equip multiple power-ups each different from the rest, with great challenging levels filled with tons of secrets and features, and multiple paths to create ways to accomplish the game as well as acquired big bonus features like this classic. Even with the save feature in later games, Super Mario Bros. 3 as a whole game of its own is definitely worth a play at least for the fun multiplaying good times. Never will this game be forgotten by all who had come in played with it and it will be a matter of time before newcomers discover this masterpiece either on the GBA port or in the glorious future on the Wii's Virtual Console. Until then, go out and find this one gem, it will probably be around a buck or two by now either if it's the original NES cartridge or the Super NES all-stars bundle cartridge, do yourself a favor, just buy it, play it, and have fun with it.