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Super Mario Bros. 3 Game Review

Super Mario Bros. 3 is a 1988 platform video game published by Nintendo for the NES. It is a famous sequel that mostly offers a truly outstanding gaming experience.

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“Thank you.

But our Princess is in another castle…

Just kidding!“

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Coming two years after the second Japanese entry and very quickly after the US sequel, this game hit the shelves in the late eighties and it was such a smash hit that it’s still regarded as one of the best-sold games of all time. Not only that, but its critical acclaim has only risen in recent years, so it’s now regarded as one of the absolute best, if not the very best NES games.

I personally wouldn’t go that far in my assessment, but I would call it pretty close to amazing. It has its issues and more on that soon, but the majority of this game plays out as almost perfect. The most admirable quality to it has to be the sheer originality that it possesses. It was very tough coming out as the third/fourth entry in an already widely authentic series, but the creators managed to once again deliver in terms of fresh gameplay mechanics that felt new and unique in comparison to others in the series while still maintaining the core of the franchise intact.

The plot is simple and the same as before – Mario has to rescue Princess Toadstool against Bowser and his minions. The only difference here is that it’s presented in this very strange stage play manner, which worked only to a degree. It was interesting to witness and different, but they should have hit this decision home harder if you ask me. The playable characters are here Luigi and Mario per usual.

The biggest new addition was definitely the overworld map. This is by far the most influential new element that others in the franchise would quickly follow in its wake and for many great reasons as it’s an awesome mechanic that really works. It made the game much more advanced than most of the era’s gaming content while the sheer volume of what you can do here was unprecedented for its time.

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You can choose to play the levels in whatever order you would like, thus making the game non-linear and choice-driven. The map presents mini-games where you must defeat the Hammer Bros. in one instance or play a memory game in another. There are also treasure chests that give you special power-ups that you can choose to use later down the line for more difficult levels. All of these additions worked as they made the game very versatile and diverse.

You can actually within levels go up, down, right and even left. That made the game innovative and so much fun. You can run and jump on enemies, but also hit them with the power that you get from power-ups. The Super Leaf is added along with the other two standard power-ups. This mushroom gives Mario a raccoon suit, which is super helpful and even necessary in some levels that require flying as the suit actually makes you fly in a strange, but highly memorable fashion.

The airship levels were very interesting and different visually and in terms of gameplay. I liked them a lot. The enemies are all very well realized with the added Koopalings being quite memorable themselves. My only issue with this game is the boss fights. I do realize that they are supposed to be short, but they were still way too easy to beat and the variety is non-existent here, which makes it jarring in comparison to the other versatile game elements.

Super Mario Bros. 3 has eight worlds, each consisting of around eight levels. They are very diverse in aesthetic, making it the most varied game in the series up until this point. Grass Land is a standard first Mario world and it works because it’s pleasantly lush, but rather easy. Desert Land is more memorable as this Egyptian-inspired world, but this is still the easier part of the game.

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Of course Water Land is going to be one of the most demanding worlds as Mario is infamous for its terribly difficult aquatic levels. However, this time around the land parts were the toughest as trying to stay on ground while the flood comes in was quite hard. Giant Land was solid with memorable gigantic visuals of everything. It is particularly well realized in those movement-driven platforms.

Sky Land is very well imagined in the disappearing platforms and quite appealing visually while Ice Land was especially difficult to maneuver with the slippery slopes throughout. The enemies here were also much more difficult. This is where the game suddenly turned super hard. Pipe Land is a strong penultimate world that is music-driven, but those note platforms were incredibly difficult to get a grip on with their trampoline properties. The final world is Dark Land, which is all very eerie and well imagined in some excellently designed enemies and obstacles, but my problem with this world is that it was overly puzzle-oriented, demanding you to traverse the entire level with all doors and still maybe miss the right path.

Graphically speaking, Super Mario Bros. 3 isn’t the greatest. It was actually quite funny seeing how this game looks maybe even inferior not only to the predecessor, but also perhaps to the original itself. That was ridiculous. Yes, the designs were great and the world building was the best and most diverse so far, but simply the whole simplistic palette and lack of polish made it less appealing.

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The score was also much less memorable than the previous entries, though it has its moments admittedly so. But the level design is outstanding for the most part and the game runs smoothly with well utilized controls. The difficulty level definitely jumps mid-game suddenly to very demanding, but overall it was just right in my book with only a couple of levels being overly hard.