Reviews from

in the past


Think this might've been the 1st videogame I ever played as a kid. Later on, when the GBA remake came out, I remember being so hype for this to come out, but not being all that impressed or hooked once I finally had my hands on it. It was just too easy with no optional stuff to discover. Game was a 'one-and-done'.

This is how I played 3.
Real good. Portability just makes it better.


Si fue peak fiction. No me arrepiento de haberle hecho su 100%

Fun but I never considered it the toppest tier of Mario platformers or even close. Still a classic.

Cool on the go plateformer, always fun to replay it even after all those years.

This was a fun novelty at the time to be able to play the All-Stars version of SMB3 on a portable, but unfortunately the lower screen resolution and horrendous sound design set it back a ton even back in the day. There's some sounds in the bonus games that feel like they could've came off an Atari 2600 and the music ranges from slightly crap to downright atrocious in comparison to their original SNES counterparts.

And to top it all off the unnecessary voicelines that have plagued these series of games are still alive and well, this time with Mario constantly going "Woohoo! Just what I needed!" every ten seconds.

I guess there's the e-reader levels, but who cares my ears are still bleeding from the fortress theme.

Easily the best way to play Mario Bros 3. I will die on this hill.

it was the best game in the entire world till world 6: when the troll level design started to show up. apart from that, some levels feel very innovative and some power ups are very fun::: FROG MARIOOO!

also everytime mario slid down a hill it made me so happy!! i love him

Instantly my favorite version of Mario 3; as well as being one of the first video games i have ever played

Mario 3 definitive edition. It's prettier and it runs smoother, plus it's portable! (Please disregard that last bit if you're reading this after the Switch came out because that's now very irrelevant).

An excellent remake! The only downside is that in some levels the level design aren't so good

the best mario game! and it would be the best version if they didn't decide to give him VOICE ACTING

when I'd walk home from Sierra's Ruzafa apartment on Sundays I'd walk down to the Turia and lay on the grass while watching folks walk by and just get my digital ass whooped over and over again. oh, to be in the public eye once more...

Mario 3 on the GBA. eReader not included.

The Wii U version includes the 38 extra e reader levels, which are some of the best in the game. The game also looks and sounds leagues better than its snes or nes counterparts. You can also finally play as luigi, though the way you do it is cumbersome in the main game.

Really good port, and get even better with the e reader exclusive stages.

The score primarily reflects World-e and the e-Reader levels.

The main game is just fine; the screen crunch generally actually doesn't affect the game much, since SMB3 was never a particularly vertical game to begin with except for a few levels.
Some quality of life changes might benefit players, like being able to return to previous worlds after beating the game, and how getting a Fire Flower as small Mario instantly makes him Fire Mario. It's largely take-it-or-leave-it features, though, so if you prefer the NES or SNES versions, there's no real reason to play this.

Especially because World-e sucks. If you're playing this version, you're probably playing for the e-Reader levels:

Don't.

There's absolutely zero point to doing so. There's no reward for getting all the e-Coins nor the Advance Coins, nor completing all the levels as both Mario and Luigi. It's probably because the e-Reader was discontinued before all the planned SMA4 cards could be released, even in Japan - there undoubtedly were plans to release more levels, which might have had included rewards for 100% completion?

But that wouldn't matter if the levels were fun, which... they're more miss than hit.

A key problem with World-e in general is that Luigi behaves completely differently to how he does in the main game; he's a lot floatier, more slippery and slightly slower, like an exaggerated version of how he should feel.
This surprisingly does not work well with the level design as a whole; there are levels where Luigi's movement feels just unaccounted for, like It's a Shoe-In, Caped Escape, No Time to Dawdle and Castle Dash. Controlling Luigi in general does not feel good or precise enough, and I can't recommend playing as him at all.

Another big issue is something inherited from the base Super Mario Bros. 3, actually: there are no checkpoints in any level whatsoever.
This gets extremely tricky and tedious, since World-e levels are generally far longer and sometimes more difficult than the base game levels, especially if you're going for the Advance Coins. Dying with 4/5, even all 5 Advance Coins collected in a stage and having to retry it to get them all again without dying again is agonizing, especially in auto-scrolling levels; I eventually resorted to save states, which I hope the Wii U version includes as well.

It's just such a weird decision when World-e imports various other features from the other Super Mario Advance games. Would adding the checkpoints from Super Mario World really have been too much?

The level design feels... inconsistent, almost like Mario Maker levels of quality. There's some really interesting ideas explored sometimes... then there's some that are too easily undermined, or some that's simply not balanced for completion with zero checkpoints. Maybe it's worth a look if you're looking for different takes on Mario level mechanics, but... expect inconsistent quality.

I wish this could have been done with Super Mario Advance 2 instead, honestly. Mario's movement is much more precise in SMW in general, and introducing SMB3's plethora of power-ups in that game might have been more interesting than just throwing in the Cape Feather into this game. Checkpoints would be a much welcome addition, and since you collect Dragon Coins in the main levels anyway, it wouldn't have been as much of a change of pace to collect Advance Coins in these levels, compared to the contrast in pacing between the SMB3 and World-e portions of Super Mario Advance 4.
Oh, and less autoscrolling airships. That would have been nice.

Sadly, Nintendo does not like making good business decisions.

played this on so many car rides home, amazing game.

SMB3 but on a GBA system which is not optimal

Good version of Mario 3, first version of it I've played. Not my favorite 2d Mario, but still a classic.


based based based kino kino kino

No el mejor en cuanto a gameplay (pantalla más pequeña), pero mi favorito en cuanto a estética y diseño de niveles de los mario en 2d.