ell, it’s about time. We waited patiently as Nintendo overlooked what is widely considered the best of its 8-bit era games in favor of the slightly inferior (but still amazing) Super Mario Bros. 2, then suddenly skipped ahead to the SNES with revamped versions of Yoshi’s Island and Super Mario World. Now, we finally have a high quality port of the game that is probably my favorite of all time: Super Mario Bros. 3.
Here’s what best defines the genius of Super Mario Bros. 3: I hadn’t actually played this game in over 10 years, but in world 1-4, I landed on a pipe and instinctively pressed down. Suddenly, I was sucked down and reappeared at the end of the level. Keep in mind that this was the first time I had tried it in four levels – somehow Shigeru Miyamoto’s level design is still stuck into the DNA of my lizard brain. Of course, this won’t be the only trick you’ll remember, whether it’s the warp on level 4 or the 99 1-up trick you perform with the raccoon suit. In this game (and the series as a whole), Miyamoto was starting to teach us how to play games that were real worlds, not just simple arcade twitch reflex tests. Every time you solve a puzzle or find a cool alternate route in a game, you’re using the core principles that the Super Mario Bros. and Zelda franchises pioneered.
Super Mario Bros. 3 also sees Miyamoto expanding the horizons of the genre he all but single-handedly invented. Mario is now equipped with a variety of animal suits, which allow him to fly, swim, and do other various things. This is the beginning of characters in games that evolve over time: getting bigger, stronger, and even morphing into new forms altogether.
Just as Mario is constantly changing, the levels and worlds are constantly throwing new surprises at the player. At this point in his career, Miyamoto had basically mastered the 2D platformer, and can now boldly improvise on its basic elements as confidently as Miles Davis riffing on a jazz standard. You see this dizzying creativity in every level, as Miyamoto plays with his audience’s expectations. Simple bricks suddenly grow feet and hop towards you; the sun (usually just a happy graphic detail) turns angry and drops out of the sky to chase you. In the surreal World 4, the familiar blocks and Goombas are suddenly giant-sized. You simply never know what to expect, and many current games with infinitely more complex graphics don’t offer this sense of discovery.
This is much more than just a fun game, although it certainly is that, too. This is a significant part of gaming history – one that you can now experience again on the bus, in a plane, or in your doctor’s waiting room. Also, old fans can anticipate a host of new features that Nintendo plans to implement with special edition e-Reader cards, which should give this already worthy purchase some new legs.