On a P-Wing and a Raccoon Tail: Super Mario Bros. 3 Revisited

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On a P-Wing and a Raccoon Tail: Super Mario Bros. 3 RevisitedPosted 12:20am Tue Nov 20, 2007 by Eric Jonathan Smith Tags: Editorial, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Wii, Nintendo

There's no doubt about it - Super Mario Galaxy is the finest Mario game in years. It's easily the best out of the current three 3D Mario platformers, evolving beyond the genre-defining nature of Super Mario 64 and the uh...water-spurting innovations of Super Mario Sunshine. However, the game pays tribute to more than just Mario's 3D outings.

The first time a third Mario game was the best of its series happened way back in 1988, with the release of Super Mario Bros. 3. Yes, 1988 - it's not often known that the game was originally released that year in Japan. Americans likely had to wait due to Nintendo not wanting to cannabalize sales of the then newly-localized Super Mario Bros. 2, released the same year. After the seminal preview in 1989's abysmally cheesy cult film The Wizard, Mario 3 finally hit US stores in February 1990. It was worth the wait. Featuring huge stages and innovations, like the ability to fly, Super Mario Bros. 3 was all a pre-pubescent mind could hope for - and more.

My memories of Mario 3 fresh in my mind due to the Mario high I achieved from Galaxy, I decided to revisit this nearly two-decade old title to see just how well it held up. While the game has seen resuscitation on the Wii's Virtual Console, I already had my Super NES hooked up so I settled for my old Super Mario All-Stars cart - you know, the one with Super NES enhanced ports of Marios 1-3 and the suicide-inducing Lost Levels. Once I found the cart in a bin amidst the gutter trash of my Super NES collection (the Beethoven movie game? seriously?) I popped it in my 16-year-old console and flipped the switch. Nothing happened. I calmly removed the cartridge and gave its pin connectors the long and hard blow usually reserved for NES carts. Worked like magic. I selected SMB 3 with haste, my only lament being that I didn't have the original SMB 3 Nintendo Power Strategy Guide at my side like I would have if I were still that fat nine-year-old kid.

Once I breezed through the first of the eight worlds, its king once more grasping the magic wand serving as a thinly veiled plot device for his impotency, I realized the most simple and perhaps most important of Mario 3's traits: it's still fun. Fun in the good, "I can't wait to play more" kind of way. Yeah, I know, right? I can see you from here, you two distinct camps: the one that grew up with the game and who slapped their collective foreheads at how obvious this statement was; the other, well, that's anyone who hasn't played this game. It really is a game that can be enjoyed by anyone and that's due to how it controls its fun: by keeping a challenge level that's fairly high but rarely frustrating.

It's a well kept secret that these old 2D Mario games aren't actually cakewalks; one can easily assume that the 'kiddy' graphics equate simple gameplay. This isn't a challenge in the vein of Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden where simple mistakes punish you; Mario 3 is particularly lenient in its distribution of 1-ups and controls precisely enough such that any mistake you make you will feel is your fault and not because of an untimely placement of a floating Medusa head. And with the exception of one fortress level in world eight whose design is vague and aggravating, most of the hurdles in the game are easily conquered through an abundance of power-ups and other tools that allow you to take them head-on without fear of repercussion.

Somewhere around world three, something about Mario 3's design hit me again. There are these little bridges that, if you're lucky and they are accessible, allow you to skip ahead a stage. Huh. Is that even a big deal? I was intent on playing through the entire game, level by level, so I didn't take advantage of this shortcut. I was making the game a linear one by choice. But then I beat the world, in turn receiving a letter from Princess Toadstool/Peach, with some item attached to it. Great. Just some other useless item to fill up my inventory, along with the other stuff she's given me like that item that lets me skip a stage...huh? Bam. Those shortcuts on the map, the little cloud item that lets you skip an entire stage of your choice, P-Wings that allow you to fly infinitely over an entire level, those confounded warp whistles - all of these serve to give Super Mario Bros. 3 the most basic sense of open-endedness. Just like in more modern games like Grand Theft Auto where there are multiple ways to take on any mission, in SMB 3 there are often multiple ways to take on each stage, and that in turn keeps the game's replay value high and its appeal fresh. This is in the most basic sense of course - but it remains to be said that Mario 3 gave you the choice to use these items before a stage begins to give you the advantage you want.

As a whole, Mario 3's worlds cover all the bases of classic gaming stage cliches: the desert stage, the ice stage, the water stage, the lava apocalypse stage. In fact, these may be some of the lowest points of the game; the desert world in particular is somewhat of a drag. But the moment you start thinking that way, the game does things. It tweaks its design ever so slightly that you'd swear the game was channeling your own emotions. Take the desert world, as said. In the middle of the world, after being subjected to mostly the same challenges from the first world only with a different aesthetic, you're hit with a whammy of a stage: an escape from an angry and vengeful sun. But that's just one example. It's nothing to say of Giant Land, a world made up of super sized enemies, or the sheer variety of offensive options Mario has available, from the legendary Tanooki (Raccoon) Suit, the hardware-tossing Hammer Bros. Suit, and the ultra-pimp and ultra-rare Kuribo's Shoe. This variety present within Super Mario Bros. 3's stage design and gameplay twists complement the game's aforementioned open-endedness perfectly.

For a game that's as easily gushable as Super Mario Bros. 3, it might be better to turn attention to the game that has as good a chance as any to be just as praise-worthy twenty years down the line: Super Mario Galaxy, of course. While the approach to its challenges is decidedly more linear than Mario 3's, Galaxy is no slouch when it comes to variety and fun. But a week, or even a year, is no accurate judge when predicting the real impact Galaxy will have on making a lasting impression. However, most of that generic "wonderment" that Disney likes to cash in on from week-long all-inclusive family packages to Disney World is present in a positive fashion in Galaxy. Make no mistake - now is the perfect time to join the Wii nostalgia wagon for that once in a lifetime chance to download Super Mario Bros. 3 and buy Super Mario Galaxy to see just how well one complements the other. I say this not as paid PR for Nintendo (trust me, I'm not), but as a gamer who understands the decades of Mario history. You won't regret it.