Super Mario Bros 3 Retro Review

Yes it's time for my first Retro Review. Super Mario Bros. 3 was released in 1990 in the U.S. for the Nintendo Entertainment system. Since then it has been released on several other consoles, the latest being on the Virtual Console for the Wii. Even without today's graphics, Super Mario Bros. 3 stands the test of time for one of the greatest platformers of all time. Or at leas that's what I think.

The game is a 1 to 2 player game, where you play as Mario and Luigi (second player being Luigi). There are 8 different worlds, which you view on a map like screen which Mario and Luigi use to travel from one level to the next, that hold many different levels that must be complete. You don't have to complete all the levels to move on. Some paths give you a choice to do one or the other.

Each map has a couple castles or more including the final castle. Defeating a castle, not counting the final castle, will crumble and a block will be unlocked on the map, allowing you to pass by the first few levels again without redoing them in the event that you die. Before entering the final castle of a world you talk to a subject of the King of the world. He tells you that the king has been transformed and you need to return his magic wand. You then enter the castle and travel to the end of the level to reach one of Bowser's children for a mini boss battle. I find them to be quite easy. Jumping on them three times kills them and if you do this fairly quickly you can defeat them without them barely moving. I find the level to get to the mini boss much harder to do then the acutal boss. If you do fail the first time a flying ship will move to another location on the map. This can become problematic if you didn't beat all the levels or if you died and some of the levels became unbeaten. So you may have to beat a few more levels before battling the final boss again. Once you defeat the final boss of the world the king recieves his magic wand and is back to his old self again. You also get a letter from peach which includes an item to help you on your way.

Each world has a different theme which can be a world filled most by water levels or my favorite, a world where everything is big. Mario stays the same size but blocks and enemies have grown about 4 times their normal size. Different themes allow different challenges in each world and help the game from becoming repetitive. Oh course each new world you come to will be more challenging then the last, as with the levels.

Also on the map are very short mini games. A mushroom shaped house leads you to a game which lets you choose from three chests. The chest you choose holds an item that then goes into your menu bar at the bottom as do the items you recieve in Peach's letters. These items can be used before entering a level. You press A and then select what you will want and Mario is transformed. It's very helpful indeed. Another mini game brings up a screen with three sliding parts. You press A three times to stop each of the scrolling parts. If they stop to form a complete item you get extra lives, depending on what the item is. A third mini game appears randomly after you complete a level. This mini game is a game of memory where you pick to cards and they stay up if they match. If you get it wrong twice you lose. But the board keeps whatever you have matched for next time the mini game comes up.

There are also new items that are introduced that it's predecessors did not have. P wings and a cloud are among the few that let you either skip a level or fly throughout the whole level. There are also three hidden flutes in the game that allow you to move to a whole new world. The flutes make it very easy to beat the game in no time, providing you can get past the last world quickly. With just two flutes and by defeating the first map you can get all the way to the last world, which is Bowser's fire like world.

This is a fun and challenging game for all ages which makes it the classic it is. If you have never played this game before and like platformers I highly recommend getting it.

Which is why I give Super Mario Bros. 3 a 4 out of 5 stars.