By 1988, Nintendo was pretty much ready to leave behind the lives system that had become such an integral part of video game identity. Having limited continues was an imported concept from arcade machines that didn’t really suit home console gaming in the first place, but it was the most convenient way for developers to work around the lack of save features of early generation hardware, as well as the relative brevity of the games due to their software restrictions. This rings especially true for action-oriented games like platformers. The first Super Mario Bros. is a prime example for this and arguably had the most accomplished implementation of this design philosophy at the time. Nintendo had no reason to fix an issue and at first glance it doesn’t look like they tried. You still start your adventure with a limited number of lives, the game still resets you to the beginning when you’ve lost them all, and there is still no save feature to be found whatsoever. However, once you start playing, you’ll quickly realize that this time, the developers really do not want you to run out of lives in the first place. The game throws so many possibilities to obtain extra lives at you that it sometimes felt like I was being showered in 1-Ups.
Every three completed stages net you at least one live guaranteed, and up to five if you time all your final jumps correctly. Incidentally, the most natural way to finish the stage already coincides with the perfect timing, so most players are going to get the best results more often than not. Additionally, Spade and N-Spade Panels with mini-games are sprinkled regularly between levels to give you even more chances for extra lives and other bonusses. The card mini game in particular is very simple to memorize as it does not reset after a failed attempt. Hidden 1-Up Mushrooms are much more common than in previous games and several levels can even be exploited to get infinite lives, with some of the easiest and most obvious methods available in the entire series. And even if you lose all your lives, the game still cleverly lets you preserve progress via unlocked shortcuts in the overworld.
Of course, an abundance of extra lives does not negate difficulty and there are still plenty of challenging courses in Super Mario Bros. 3. But for the first time, a difficult section does not automatically turn into an absolute roadblock for progression until you overcome it. Not only does the game offer far more multiple routes and shortcuts inside the levels themselves, but it also extends the same principle to the game as a whole. The addition of the overworld map often gives you the option to choose between branching paths and sometimes permits you to skip certain levels altogether. Many of the remaining mandatory stages can also be bypassed with overworld items like the cloud, the Music Box, or the P-Wing, if you know how to use it properly. Most importantly, the new item inventory allows you to tackle the same level differently each time. Having multiple Power Ups makes their advantages much more context sensitive, like how the frog costume is specifically designed to facilitate movement in underwater stages. All this leads not only to much easier but also more individualized playthroughs. The game wants you to see everything it has to offer, but at the same time lets you decide to a large degree which of its parts you want to engage with. All subsequent Mario platformers embraced this open and welcoming approach to game design even further, but it was already fully articulated for the first time in this installment thirty-five years ago. The whole concept is so antithetical to the lives system that it makes me wonder why the series kept using it to this day, even though lives have ceased to be a relevant aspect of the experience for decades.
Whatever the reasons may be, Nintendo’s willingness to let players skip most of the content speaks volumes about the team’s confidence in their game design. You may be able to bypass many of the challenges, but the developers know that if you enjoy the game, you’ll most likely want to discover everything it has to offer. If anything, the reduced pressure from the fear of losing progress by dying increases the players’ willingness to engage with the game. There are too many great ideas to mention, but I think what impressed me the most is how Super Mario Bros. 3 constantly questions and reinvents the notion of what a Mario level can be. The first game had some variety in its level structures, namely in the underwater courses and Bowser’s Castles. But that variety pales in comparison to sheer creativity that is on display here in any single given world. There are horizontally and vertically structured stages; levels that let you move freely and levels where you are being moved on predetermined paths; courses that rely on speed and others that have timing-based challenges; linear gauntlets and levels that are structured more like open ended spaces to explore. Some stages even break entirely with the familiar structure of obstacle courses and play more like convoluted labyrinths or veritable puzzle boxes. And while many games have a lot of different mission types that still always play out in the same way, here every element is affected according to the structure of the level. Like how respawning enemies pose a very different kind of challenge in maze-like levels than in linear courses, or puzzle boxes give you an infinite number of Power Ups since they are usually required to reach the finish line. You simply never know what the next level has in store. And by drastically reducing the fear of losing, curiosity and the joy of discovery can finally take over to become the main driving factors for making progress.
__________________
More Super Mario reviews
Super Mario Bros.
More NES reviews
Castlevania
The Legend of Zelda
Every three completed stages net you at least one live guaranteed, and up to five if you time all your final jumps correctly. Incidentally, the most natural way to finish the stage already coincides with the perfect timing, so most players are going to get the best results more often than not. Additionally, Spade and N-Spade Panels with mini-games are sprinkled regularly between levels to give you even more chances for extra lives and other bonusses. The card mini game in particular is very simple to memorize as it does not reset after a failed attempt. Hidden 1-Up Mushrooms are much more common than in previous games and several levels can even be exploited to get infinite lives, with some of the easiest and most obvious methods available in the entire series. And even if you lose all your lives, the game still cleverly lets you preserve progress via unlocked shortcuts in the overworld.
Of course, an abundance of extra lives does not negate difficulty and there are still plenty of challenging courses in Super Mario Bros. 3. But for the first time, a difficult section does not automatically turn into an absolute roadblock for progression until you overcome it. Not only does the game offer far more multiple routes and shortcuts inside the levels themselves, but it also extends the same principle to the game as a whole. The addition of the overworld map often gives you the option to choose between branching paths and sometimes permits you to skip certain levels altogether. Many of the remaining mandatory stages can also be bypassed with overworld items like the cloud, the Music Box, or the P-Wing, if you know how to use it properly. Most importantly, the new item inventory allows you to tackle the same level differently each time. Having multiple Power Ups makes their advantages much more context sensitive, like how the frog costume is specifically designed to facilitate movement in underwater stages. All this leads not only to much easier but also more individualized playthroughs. The game wants you to see everything it has to offer, but at the same time lets you decide to a large degree which of its parts you want to engage with. All subsequent Mario platformers embraced this open and welcoming approach to game design even further, but it was already fully articulated for the first time in this installment thirty-five years ago. The whole concept is so antithetical to the lives system that it makes me wonder why the series kept using it to this day, even though lives have ceased to be a relevant aspect of the experience for decades.
Whatever the reasons may be, Nintendo’s willingness to let players skip most of the content speaks volumes about the team’s confidence in their game design. You may be able to bypass many of the challenges, but the developers know that if you enjoy the game, you’ll most likely want to discover everything it has to offer. If anything, the reduced pressure from the fear of losing progress by dying increases the players’ willingness to engage with the game. There are too many great ideas to mention, but I think what impressed me the most is how Super Mario Bros. 3 constantly questions and reinvents the notion of what a Mario level can be. The first game had some variety in its level structures, namely in the underwater courses and Bowser’s Castles. But that variety pales in comparison to sheer creativity that is on display here in any single given world. There are horizontally and vertically structured stages; levels that let you move freely and levels where you are being moved on predetermined paths; courses that rely on speed and others that have timing-based challenges; linear gauntlets and levels that are structured more like open ended spaces to explore. Some stages even break entirely with the familiar structure of obstacle courses and play more like convoluted labyrinths or veritable puzzle boxes. And while many games have a lot of different mission types that still always play out in the same way, here every element is affected according to the structure of the level. Like how respawning enemies pose a very different kind of challenge in maze-like levels than in linear courses, or puzzle boxes give you an infinite number of Power Ups since they are usually required to reach the finish line. You simply never know what the next level has in store. And by drastically reducing the fear of losing, curiosity and the joy of discovery can finally take over to become the main driving factors for making progress.
__________________
More Super Mario reviews
Super Mario Bros.
More NES reviews
Castlevania
The Legend of Zelda
2 Comments
@kirbb Thanks! I only discovered the one in Pipe Land myself (which I found much easier to figure out than the solution to the level itself), but I was confident there had to be many more, and YouTube certainly didn’t disappoint.
kirbb
5 months ago