SUPER MARIO BROS. 3 - Review

Retro Games Reviewer #4; Super Mario Bros. 3 Review

The final game of the NES trilogy of the Italian plumbers who went super each time they had a nice juicy mushroom. Two different trilogies, since, as we saw before, there are two different Super Mario 2. - The word game was not intentional.

It still amazes me how the hell did they put this game - back to SMB3 - on an 8 bit-system. In fact, the SNES version is essencially the same. They just added a few things, and changed others, in order to make it different. Not better, just different. 

Ironically, in Super Mario 3, Nintendo showed the world what an 8-bit system could do, when explored by people with talent and creativity. I say ironically, because this is the last Super Mario game on the NES, and, one of the best games you can get in your entire life. The market rules are a bitch. I think about all the great games the NES could have had. And all the shitty games that it did, too. My conclusion is: Videogames, nowadays, well, they just lost the magic. It's like controlling characters or something that is happening in a movie, or in a cartoon. No more entering in a different world, which is not supposed to be a TV show. And, yes, we could have had both SNES and NES, offering us great games, until today. But the market rules did not allow it. As Nietzsche once said: Evolution is not the same as elevation. 

So, instead of thinking in all the great stuff that should have happened in the NES, let's focus on this game, that did happen.

90 levels of game play. Indeed. Impressive. 8 worlds, each one loaded with levels. Some are bigger than the others, but neither of them is too short. So, the 90 levels are really 90 levels. There's a map for each world, and you can see what's happening. The worlds are: Grass, Desert, Water, Giant Island, Sky, Ice, Pipe Word, and Darkness. The graphics are 16-bit worthy. In fact, if only every 16 bit games had this kind of graphcis! I have played many crappy games in SNES and Mega Drive/Genesis, who looked like Spectrum, compared to SMB3. The creativity is there, and everywhere. Explore, explore, and keep exploring. It's an entire world, I mean Universe, of Mario Fantasy. Everything that you had before, - in the original SMB and SMB2 - is there, much better, and there's much more. 

Mario can become, not only Fiery, as usual, but also turn into a Racoon, a Hammer Brother - yes, those pain in the ass motherfuckers! - dress a Frog suit, in order to swim better, become Tanooki Mario, which is essentially the same as Racoon Mario; he can fly too, as Tanooki, but also turn into a statue and become invincible. 

Giant power ups, the ability to swim during platform levels, in and out of the water, pick up shells, some enemies, and some bricks, and other stuff, - the influence of Doki Doki Panic aka Western Super Mario Bros. 2 is visible  - fly, as I said, use enemies' items - the Goomba shoe - carry items throughout the game, and, kick Bowser's sons and daugher's asses. 

Soundtrack is ok, but probably the weakest link of the game. I like the music of the Fortresses, and castles, and the bosses too. The "green zones" musics do not please me that much. There are two of them, one is faster than the other. They do not make the game better. In this field, SMB will always have the prize. The underground music is actually the same as SMB, so, we have a win here. It's kind of a rock version of the original one. The map song of the 7th world, is also pretty cool, very bluesy, 

 And, in the end, the princess has even a small joke for Mario.

Great game, a master piece of videogaming. Play it, enjoy it, live it. And in the end, remember yourselves that it's an 8-bit system. And try not to think that, damn, we could have had more of those in the NES. 

Thank you, Mario. But our next adventure, is in another system.

Retro Games Reviewer; Super Mario Bros. 3 Review , 26/07/13

Categories: Super Mario bros 3 review