MARIO REVIEWED: Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)

In this series of posts that I'm doing because I literally cannot contain my excitement for Super Mario Galaxy 2, I'll be looking back at the games in the Mario franchise. I'm primarily going to be concentrating on games in the main series, but there might be a couple of detours along the way, too.

As it turns out, I'm really sick today, so playing through Super Mario Bros. 3 was possibly one of the best things for me ever. SMB3 is the ultimate comfort food. It's nothing short of a perfect game, and still delightful to play through to this day. Although I oscillate between saying that New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Bros. 3 are my favourite 2D Mario games, in my heart, I know it will always be SMB3.

Rather than give you a detailed run through of why this game rules (OK, here's the short version anyways: it's simply the greatest enhancement to the template laid down by Super Mario Bros. You get more of everything – more powerups, more levels, more places to explore, more things to do, better graphics, better sound; the list goes on and on), I'll just recount a personal story for you.

It was in the summer before grade 11, and it was 2002. The basement of my house had, for the past year, housed both myself and an exchange student that my family had living for us for the past year. I have two older brothers, but they're a lot older than me, and they had moved out years ago. It was the first time I felt like I had a sibling my own age, and then when he left, I was understandably a little bit bummed out.

Before Marc had moved in with us, I basically had the entire basement to myself – one room was my bedroom, and the other bedroom had a computer, a couch, a TV, a VCR and an NES. I spent so many hours in that room that sometimes, I would sleep in there. That summer, I reclaimed that room and I rediscovered my NES, which I hadn't played in several years, being more of a PC gamer at the time. The games I had were: Base Wars, Air Fortress, Metal Gear, Friday the 13th, The Simpsons, and Super Mario Bros. 1 – 3. No offense to any of those other games, as a couple of them were fantastic, but once I found Super Mario Bros. 3, I was in heaven.

For one reason or another, it was a game I hadn't played much as a kid, preferring the original Super Mario Bros. and various rentals to it. Sure, I had played it a lot – more than I play most games I own today, in fact – but I hadn't had that experience that I described in my Super Mario Bros. review where I knew the game backwards and forwards without thinking about it.

So when I sat down to play that game when I was 15 or so, I didn't know that it was going to fully consume my summer. I haven't had a similar experience since, where I examine every nook and cranny in the game. I knew the basic way to beat the game at that point, but there were days where I would speed run the thing, using the two whistles in the first world to warp my way to the very end of the game. Or there'd be days where I would put on a favourite album of mine (the one I was listening to at the time is pretty embarrassing, so I don't think I'll mention it here) and play the game right up until the point when the album would end. I would even play the game on two player, just so I could play as Luigi.

Here at Vigigames, we often discuss games on conceptual or artistic grounds, but I don't think we take enough time to discuss the gut impact that games can have on us. For whatever reason, Super Mario Bros. 3 is that game for me. There's nothing about the game in terms of its story that had an impact on me (and very few have, save for a couple of games like Chrono Trigger and Fragile Dreams), but the gameplay was somehow incredibly therapeutic. I would have just been lonely and bored that summer, but instead I had Super Mario Bros. 3, and it's still one of my top five favourite games to this day.