[Played on Retron 5 with original cartridge]
Super Mario Bros. 3 always impresses me in some way every time I play it.
It's a lengthy game without a battery save but I never regret sitting through an entire playthrough. There are plenty of frustrating stages the further you get into the game, but I never get upset at the game. The amount of boom boom boss battles can be tiring for some, but it never bothered me that there was no variety. Part of that is a result of my first major pro with this game.
This game is filled to the brim with content. There's a huge amount of levels, some of which you can just skip over. There's several different items for in the level and on the map and most if not all of them are distinct enough to make room for more strategy. Every level feels completely fleshed out with secrets despite their reduced size. Each World is thematically distinct and has a different boss at the end. This is probably how kids viewed the original Super Mario Bros. when it came out. Compared to other home console titles at the time, Super Mario Bros. felt like it had much more content inside the cartridge. I wonder how those same kids felt when Super Mario Bros. 3 basically tripled that.
On the surface, this can be viewed simply as "more Mario", but there's so much more here than there was in 1 and 2 in terms of that Mario formula. So much of what was done here has become series staples, from the thematically distinct worlds to the addition of the Koopalings to the addition of unique (often flight-based) power-ups. This is the point at which Super Mario became platforming perfection. When a Super Mario game came out, it was an event, and that's because of the gold standard present in titles like this.
10/10 - Perfect
Super Mario Bros. 3 always impresses me in some way every time I play it.
It's a lengthy game without a battery save but I never regret sitting through an entire playthrough. There are plenty of frustrating stages the further you get into the game, but I never get upset at the game. The amount of boom boom boss battles can be tiring for some, but it never bothered me that there was no variety. Part of that is a result of my first major pro with this game.
This game is filled to the brim with content. There's a huge amount of levels, some of which you can just skip over. There's several different items for in the level and on the map and most if not all of them are distinct enough to make room for more strategy. Every level feels completely fleshed out with secrets despite their reduced size. Each World is thematically distinct and has a different boss at the end. This is probably how kids viewed the original Super Mario Bros. when it came out. Compared to other home console titles at the time, Super Mario Bros. felt like it had much more content inside the cartridge. I wonder how those same kids felt when Super Mario Bros. 3 basically tripled that.
On the surface, this can be viewed simply as "more Mario", but there's so much more here than there was in 1 and 2 in terms of that Mario formula. So much of what was done here has become series staples, from the thematically distinct worlds to the addition of the Koopalings to the addition of unique (often flight-based) power-ups. This is the point at which Super Mario became platforming perfection. When a Super Mario game came out, it was an event, and that's because of the gold standard present in titles like this.
10/10 - Perfect