I’ve been thinking about a specific childhood experience a lot lately. I was probably 5 or 6 years old, playing Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES. It was 1995. That was the only console my family owned and the other game we had was Bionic Commando.
What’s the RIGHT way to play Super Mario Brothers 3?
I mean, I ask this because the player can get a warp whistle as early as the third stage, and skip almost half the game. As soon as they get another warp whistle after, they can go all the way to the 8th stage.
(though as a kid i always stopped off at the really big land level)
but like
i just realize as an adult there were a dozen or more levels in super mario 3 that i’ve never even SEEN
all in the name of completion…
It was a very important moment to me when I realized that the two warp whistles hidden at the beginning of world 1 meant that I was being encouraged to just go to whatever stages I wanted to play.
a version that contains the world-e from mario advance 4 (the vc rom has it i think) but is NOT the gba version on a sony trinitron pvm while you’re eating ranch bugles and a 2 liter of dr. pepper wait what was the question
Play every level or don’t play every level but definitely attempt to get past the para-trooper platforming bit in world 5-6 while wearing the frog suit.
i still think mario 3 is the best game ever, but can’t stand the All-Stars version.
am i just being superficial, or is there actually something mechanically awry with it? i could swear there’s more noticeable input delay/drag while moving around, and the scrolling doesn’t seem as smooth. might just have a crummy emulator though.
I think there is something mechanically off about the SNES and possibly the GBA renditions of SMB3. I think jump physics might be a little different. That’s entirely based on feel, though, rather than actually experimenting with it.
That’s in addition to the graphical changes that really are not as distinctive or attractive as the bold black outlines and ingenuous, cartoony, and delightfully abstract use of the NES’s palette and rendering limitations.
Actually, I’m developing a hottake that says that SMB3 for the SNES bears a lot of blame for the codification of boring, maximalist, hyper-shaded 16-bit-style grass worlds that plague platformers to this day.
Like
Rad-ass abstract snowy icy geometric star cave?
vs
Slightly mossy dirtshow
I got hot under the collar and needed the world’s opinion on this noise. I put up a Twitter poll. Please enter it if you have an account (and if you haven’t got a Twitter account, then God bless you). Don’t let my very accurate points above sway you. Vote with your heart.
