How the iconic plumber's long-awaited adventure exceeded the hype and became gaming royalty.
While composing these chronicles, I've repeatedly had to deal with a troubling issue: contradictions that arise when I compare actual timelines of events to those I put together from memory. Sometimes they don't match up very well. Now, sure--I realize that such a thing is bound to happen when you're working with memories that were formed during your youngest days, at a stage in life when your perception of time had a protracted quality to it, but recognizing a phenomenon and making sense of it are two very different things.
That's the problem I've had in trying to describe my younger self's agonizingly long wait for Super Mario Bros. 3, which seemingly took years to arrive on store shelves. In reality, the actual span of time was only a bit more than fourteen months, but that's not even close to how my younger self perceived it; to him, the time between the game's unveiling and its release felt like a small eternity.
So since it's apparent that I'll probably never be able to acceptably reconcile the difference, there's only one thing I can do; there's only one thing that seems proper: I must choose to completely ignore what the data says and simply tell you my story as my brain recorded it back in the late-80s-to-early-90s period! That, my heart tells me, is the right way to go. "That approach," it says to me with a sincere tone, "does more to keep with the spirit of this blog."
So let me follow its advice and tell you all about my experiences with Super Mario Bros. 3--how I spent eons eagerly anticipating its arrival, what it was like playing it for the first time, and how it went about reshaping my entire world.
The story begins in early 1989, not long after I became an NES-owner.
One cold winter day, I was with my father at the Optimo store over on 86th Street (the one that was across the street from Nathan's and situated directly to the left of the corner pizzeria), following him around as he sought out whichever grocery item was desperately needed that day. Though, at some point I separated from him and wandered over to the magazine aisle. That's when I saw its named printed across the cover of virtually every popular gaming magazine on display: "Super Mario Bros. 3." And each magazine had a similar-sounding cover line--something equivalent to "Mario's hottest new adventure comes to light!"
It was the strangest thing, I thought: "Didn't Super Mario Bros. 2 just come out? Why would a company announce a sequel mere weeks after a recent entry hit shelves?"
I didn't ask my father to buy me any of those magazines because I didn't believe what they were saying. "There's no way that a Super Mario Bros. sequel is happening this soon," I thought to myself. I didn't need for my father to waste $5 on some gaming rag to find out that its writers, much like those who worked for the other magazine companies, were simply fantasizing about a new entry in a beloved series. I didn't have time for that nonsense. Also, I wasn't yet much of a reader; at the time, I was drawn more to pretty pictures and, you know, big flashing lights.
But it turned out that those writers weren't fantasizing. Super Mario Bros. 3, I soon learned, was indeed very, very real! That much became clear to me at the start of the next school day. Every kid in the schoolyard was talking about it. I couldn't go anywhere in that space without hearing two or three of 'em excitedly conversing about the game and all of its new features. And as usual, I was completely in the dark about all of it (which was my fault for not taking those magazines seriously).
Luckily, a few of those kids happened to be my friends, and they were eager to properly educate me. The enthusiasm with which they described the game's newly introduced elements was infectious, and I found myself being consumed by their every word. This was a far cry from how I felt a day or two prior, when I first saw the name "Super Mario Bros. 3" printed across the covers of those magazines; in that moment, I was cold on the idea; I thought to myself, "Even if this is real, I'm not ready for it yet. I'm still getting to know Super Mario Bros. 2. I'm still having a grand ol' time exploring its world! It's just way too early to be talking about a sequel to this game."
But suddenly, based on what I'd heard in the schoolyard that day, I was completely sold on Super Mario Bros. 3, and I was eager to learn more about it.
As time went on, and as I found myself becoming more and more captive to Mario Mania, I developed an obsession with the idea of a third Super Mario Bros. entry. This obsession was stoked by of a confluence of positive Mario-related life events: Just recently I fell in love with the original Super Mario Bros. after becoming intimately familiar with it. I absolutely adored Super Mario Bros. 2, which I was playing on a daily basis whether I was at home or at my friend Dominick's house. And I'd since read my first preview of Super Mario Bros. 3 (though, I don't remember which magazine I'd read it in), which made it sound amazing.
It all lined up perfectly.
I was desperate to own Super Mario Bros. 3. I needed it in my life. I thought about it constantly. I consumed every bit of available media. I sought out every possible news source--any magazine or any "insider" (classmate whose dad "worked at Nintendo") that could provide me additional information about the game. And I was blown away by what I was finding. Hearing and reading about how the game was going to totally dwarf its predecessors in terms of length and content raised my hype meter to extreme (and probably unreasonable) levels. "Super Mario Bros. 3," I said to myself while in a spellbound state, "is going to be, by far, the greatest video game ever made!"
I fervently looked forward to the day when I'd finally be able to get my hands on it. I dreamed of a moment when I'd be able to pop the game into my NES, jump into action, and experiment with Mario's new suits--with his raccoon and frog abilities. I couldn't wait for a time when I could begin exploring what I'd been told were eight wondrously themed worlds. The game influenced my every activity: I'd spend my school hours filling my notebooks's back pages with drawings of what I imagined were its potential suits, characters and worlds. I'd marathon Mario-related games and all the while wonder about how it would incorporate and improve upon their formulas. And it was always the topic of conversation whenever I'd talk video games with friends or cousins.
Outside of the year-long period in which I eagerly, breathlessly anticipated the announcement and then the release of Mega Man 3, there was never a time in my history when I was this hyped for a video game!
All that was left was the agonizingly long wait--a phase we all remember as being an essential component in our stories about Super Mario Bros. 3 and what it meant to our lives.
The phase's first true milestone was the cinematic release of The Wizard--an apparent video-game-focused film that was advertised to contain Super Mario Bros. 3 content and particularly footage of it in motion!
"I have to see this movie!" I said to myself with great excitement upon reading the news in Nintendo Power. "If The Wizard is going to showcase all of these cool NES classics and the much-desired Super Mario Bros. 3, then it's going to be nothing short of amazing!"
So I went out and saw it a couple of days after it released. Both of my parents were working at the time, so I had to resort to begging my aunt to take me to the theater. Thankfully, she was happy to oblige. She took me over to Alpine Cinemas in Bay Ridge, where we caught an afternoon viewing of the film.
And, well, I gotta be honest with you, man: When I left the theater that day, I didn't know what the hell it was that I'd seen. Going in, I thought that The Wizard was going to see a movie about kids competing against each other in video games, but after seeing it, I had to wonder if maybe I misunderstood the previews. What I got, instead, was an hour and forty minute's worth of bizarrely delivered social commentary about the folly of running away from your troubles and other messages whose meanings escaped me (they pertained to the issues of autism and child molestation, which for a 10-year-old are of course the first two things that come to mind when he or she thinks about video games).
So yeah--you could say that The Wizard's messaging was lost on me. If you had approached me that day and asked me about the film's plot, I would have shrugged my shoulders and mumbled something about a bully using the Power Glove to play Rad Racer, Christian Slater's dad playing Punch-Out!! (or whatever game it was) in his garage, and a cold, emotionless kid who was obsessed with California--or "CAL-EE-FORN-YA" as he pronounced it each of 6,000 times.
The only parts that truly resonated with me were those that Nintendo's marketing department wanted me to actually focus on: the games, themselves, and especially Super Mario Bros. 3. And I can't lie: Even though I knew I'd been bamboozled, I didn't regret seeing The Wizard. It was worth enduring an hour and forty minutes of rubbish just to get a glimpse of Super Mario Bros. 3--just to see it in action, if only briefly; that scene in which the three finalists played through its early stages, alone, was worth the price of admission. And I came away with some very important knowledge: I knew where to find the game's first "warp whistle"!
I couldn't wait to talk about that tournament scene with my friends, all of whom had vowed to see the movie. The next school day couldn't come soon enough!
The second milestone was the day Nintendo Power Volume 13 appeared in my mailbox; it was my very first issue, and it just happened to be the one that was wholly dedicated to Super Mario Bros. 3.
Now, you might think that I was thrilled that it worked out that way--that I was stoked to have access to an exhaustive amount of information--but actually I wasn't. In fact, I wanted nothing to do with that issue. At that point in time, I had no desire to know anything more about the game. I'd moved past that stage; I'd reached a point where I already knew a ton about the game and felt that any further exposure would only serve to diminish its allure--spoil it to where there was nothing left to imagine (and the magazine's cover-line teaser absolutely promised that the content within would be spoiler-heavy).
There was also another reason why I didn't want any part of the issue: I was kinda pissed that my very first issue was dedicated to a single game. That wasn't what I signed up for. No--I subscribed to the magazine because it was known for offering wide-ranging coverage of the NES and its games. "Dedicated" issues ran completely counter to that practice, and I was greatly bothered by the thought that future issues might be dedicated to games in which I had no interest (and a couple of them certainly were). Besides--I was already sold on Super Mario Bros. 3, so dedicating an entire issue to it was simply excessive. And, also, it assured that a whole month would go by without me reading about the announcement of a "Mega Man 3," which I desperately wanted to exist.
Though, I knew that there was a chance that I might crack--that I was so hungry for the game that at any moment I might feel the urge to flip through the issue with the intent of finding temporary satiation. In order to resist such temptation, I lent the magazine to one of my brother's friends, figuring that he'd return it to me after the game released (he never did, the silly varmint). Though, I still wasn't happy about the fact that I was out one month of Nintendo Power.
Still, there was a highly positive aspect to the issue's appearance: It was a sign that the game's launch was near! That Nintendo's own magazine was featuring Super Mario Bros. 3 in this manner told us that its release was tantalizingly close!
Yet it still took forever for the game to arrive. The months fell off very, very slowly. Days seemed to be 10 hours longer than they were usually. It was as if time, itself, was conspiring against us--trying to torture us. It was painful. And all we could do in response was spend our every waking second drooling in anticipation.
But eventually the big day drew near. The game's February launch was right around the corner. It was so close that we could taste it.
In preparation for the release, my friend Dominick and I put together a plan to obtain two copies of the game as soon as possible: Since February 12th, which local store reps assured us was the concrete release date, was a school day, we figured that we'd get the jump on all of the other prospective buyers (basically all of the other kids in the neighborhood) by begging our mothers to hit up all of the local stores during the morning and afternoon hours, when everyone was stuck in school, and snag two copies of the game! And after we finessed them a bit--told them about how our lives would be over if we didn't get this game immediately--they decided to go along with our plan. So while we were in school on February 12th of 1990, our mothers, who had& no idea what they were getting into, spent about eight hours scouring all of Brooklyn in search of Super Mario Bros. 3.
After school let out, Dominick and I hurried over to my house, which was the chosen rendezvous point. Disappointingly, our mothers weren't there waiting for us with bright-yellow treasure in hand, so we head to my room and waited there patiently, hoping that they wouldn't return empty-handed. And with each passing minute, we grew more and more nervous, since, in our experience, the likelihood of obtaining a game on launch day became less and less the longer the search went on. So we prepared for the worst.
About an hour or two later, our mothers arrived home, and quickly we rushed downstairs to meet with them. And they had great news for us: They'd done it. After an exhaustive effort, and by some stroke of luck, they managed to track down exactly two copies of the game--the only two in stock--in one of the borough's less-popular chain stores (I don't know which one it was, since I was too consumed with excitement to ask about such a thing). Before they could even finish asking us what we wanted for dinner, we grabbed hold of my copy and sprinted back upstairs, to my room; and once we were there, we feverishly tore the plastic wrapping off of the box and then promptly popped the cartridge into my NES.
"It's actually happening," we communicated to each other with simultaneous glances. "We're about to play Super Mario Bros. 3, a game we waited a small eternity to play!"
We were ecstatic.
It was a surreal moment--one we'd never forget.
From the opening second Super Mario Bros. 3 had a near-mystical hold over us. We were captivated by its every aspect, each of which was incredible: The lively, spectacularly animated title-screen sequence. The topnotch presentation. The wonderfully unique art direction. The next-level visuals. The strikingly whimsical stage themes. The brilliantly devised map screens with their instantly memorable, super-catchy ditties. The ingenious level design. The amazingly inventive suits and power-ups. And, of course, the gameplay, which was astoundingly& great--out-of-this-world-level; no platformer had ever played so perfectly.
After playing it for only ten minutes, we were already agreeing with each other that Super Mario Bros. 3 was an unbelievably awesome game. It was put together masterfully. It told the story of a game that was born from pure passion. Its every pixel on its every screen was dripping with ambition.
Truly we were hypnotized by what was playing out on that 20-inch TV screen. As we explored the game's stages and surveyed their every visual and mechanical element, we were in complete awe of what Nintendo had accomplished. I mean, yeah, we expected Super Mario Bros. 3 to be an impressive game, but we never imagined that it would push the NES this far--that it would seemingly transcend the console's specifications and feel as though it were instead being powered by magic. It was insane: What this game presented in just its first two worlds went far beyond what either of its predecessors had ever predicted.
As our first session drew to a close, we were certain of one thing: Super Mario Bros. 3 had done more than live up to the massive hype; it had somehow exceeded it. We were absolutely blown away by Mario's latest--by the sheer scope of it. Nothing we'd ever played had felt this monumental.
Super Mario Bros. 3 was the perfect video game, we felt. It was instantly one of our all-time favorites. We couldn't wait to return to it after school the next day and find out what wonderful surprises were waiting for us in the following worlds. "How can they top the awesome Giant Land?!" we wondered as we discussed our first Super Mario Bros. 3 experience.
Super Mario Bros. 3 was well worth the agonizingly long wait. It delivered to us everything we desired and then some. We couldn't have asked for anything more.
And what made the first experience even better was that I was able to share it with my best friend. It just wouldn't have been the same had we not been there together. To be able to express to each other our feelings of joy and astonishment as we played through the game and discovered its secrets was what made it one of the most memorable moments of our childhoods. I wouldn't have missed that experience for the world.
In the following years, regretfully, there weren't many instances in which I played Super Mario Bros. 3 with Dominick or any of my other friends; there were sadly too few instances in which our childlike banter served to enhance the experience and produce indelible gaming memories. Mostly I played it alone. And it's only now that I realize that I made a dumb mistake in choosing to do so--in not aggressively pushing to make Super Mario Bros. 3 one of group's go-to games (my reasoning for not, I think, was that it was too lengthy). All I did was rob myself of the opportunity to create some of the best memories I'd ever have.
Oh well.
Still, even most of my more-personal experiences were pretty unforgettable. I can still remember how Super Mario Bros. 3 continued to evoke a sense of awe in me as I went about meticulously exploring its every space--how it continued to blow me away with its amazingly expansive, seemingly limitless breadth of content. There were so many stages, and each seemed to contain a number of secret pipes, shortcuts, alternate paths, and hidden items. There wasn't an inch of space that went unfilled. I'd discover as much any time I'd attempt to cheaply clear a stage by flying over it--by flying up to its upper screens, which I assumed would be empty. They never were; there was always something up there. The designers knew that we'd abuse the Raccoon Suit in this manner, so they packed the skies with secrets and therein invited us to explore the game's every space. So that's what I did--every time I played. And I had a great time doing it.
And there were always more secrets to discover. Suddenly a memory-match mini-game or a coin ship would appear on the map, and I wasn't quite sure what was triggering them. I'd find that there was a whole section of the map hidden behind a rock, which I was able to shatter with the hammer I acquired after dispatching some map-patrolling Hammer Bros. Or, as Nintendo Power revealed, you could fall through a white platform after crouching on it for a few seconds and enter into a stage's background plane, which was potentially hiding a secret exit!
Super Mario Bros. 3 had incredible depth. It was the kind of game in which you'd still be discovering secrets even decades later. Many of us who grew up with it and have been playing it for 25 years still haven't seen all of its content. And I bet we'll still be finding things in 2040!
I remember how in love I was with each world's distinct theme and the ideas to which they gave birth. There was nothing more fun than stomping giant-sized versions of the classic Super Mario Bros. enemies; evading an angry sun while traversing over quicksand; desperately trying to avoid being eaten by the Boss Bass that was patrolling and periodically diving out from the ocean over which I was platforming; climbing a ziggurat to reach a sky world whose unpopulated space gave view to the land far below--to a cool miniaturized version of the world's bottom half; clearing away ice blocks with fireballs in an attempt to discover accessible warp pipes; or navigating my way through cleverly designed pipe mazes.
Super Mario Bros. 3 had so much it wanted to show me. Each of its maps and stages introduced something new--a new idea or mechanic. There was a surprise waiting for me at every turn, it seemed. This game was packed with so much content--with such an insane amount of unique content--that it was almost as if it were produced by gods for whom "time constraint" wasn't even a concept.
I just loved to observe Super Mario Bros. 3's world--to watch it function. It had such verve to it. It felt as though it were alive--as though it could operate on its own, forever, without ever needing for me to input a command. That's how I'd feel whenever I'd look upon its vibrant, enchanting map screens, whose plant life would sway back and forth in rhythm to the maps' whimsical, sometimes-wonderfully-mysterious ditties. I imagined that Super Mario Bros. 3's world was bustling with activity even when I wasn't looking--that those plants were continuing to happily dance along to the music even when my NES was switched off. I thought of it as a living, breathing wonderland that was always there, waiting for me--ready to welcome me; ready to invite me to participate in its cheerful festivities.
That was the power of Super Mario Bros. 3.
Its music played as big a role as any in making me feel as though I were a part of its world. It had the power to connect me to the game's environments and influence how I thought about them. The stage themes would establish certain moods in a typically understated manner and in doing so give me as much space as I needed to interpret their meanings however I pleased. The jazzed-up underground theme, for instance, would evoke memories of the original Super Mario Bros. and inspire me to think about how the scene had evolved since then--how here we were, five years later, listening to that same theme but doing so while sliding down slopes, tail-whipping our way through walls of blocks, exploring caverns whose passages branched in every which direction, and doing so many other things that would never have been possible in the original game. We were in a new era, it told me--one that was developing minute by minute right before my eyes.
The underwater theme, which started off cheerful-sounding but then started to grow increasingly melancholic as it progressed, spoke of a place in which time moved slowly and sea life that was content to merely exist--to never know of or care about what was going on in the world above (and my being charmed by the tune helped to make the swimming stages a bit more tolerable). And the fortress' quietly menacing, mysterious theme created the sense that danger was lurking in unseen spaces; it told me that I should traverse cautiously if not apprehensively in anticipation of a surprise attack--even in Pipe Land's first fortress, which I knew to be completely devoid of enemies. That's how effective it was at generating an uneasy-feeling atmosphere.
Super Mario Bros. 3 was unrelenting in its desire to not repeat itself. It was determined to keep its ideas feeling exclusive and thus special. Symbolic of such was the Hammer Bros. suit, which was by far my favorite power-up. It was the game's most empowering item: It allowed for you to toss out series of arcing hammers, each of which was so destructive that it could take out any minor enemy in one hit and even destroy enemies and obstacles that were seemingly invincible; hammers could also flatten bosses, including Bowser, in short order. That's why I loved to employ its use.
Though, the Hammer Bros. suit was a very rare find; you'd be lucky to obtain more than one of then in any play-through. So whenever I'd get a hold of one, I'd treat it as though it were an extremely valuable treasure--one whose power should be called upon only for special occasions, like when I was traversing a Thwomp-filled fortress or Bowser's castle. While using it, I'd nervously traipse about each stage, as if balancing expensive porcelain, because I was so afraid of losing it. It was difficult to hold onto any power-up for too long, sure, but nothing hurt more than losing a Hammer Bros. suit because there was near zero-percent chance that I'd get possession of another one during that play-through.
Such was also the case with the Kuribo's Shoe power-up, which only appeared three times in one stage (5-3). It was a desirable item because it rendered you indestructible while you were wearing it. If you could steal one from its Goomba owner, you could use it to perform actions that were normally impossible for a non-invincible Mario, like traveling over spikes or stomping Piranha Plants. Whenever I'd play the game, I'd look forward to traversing 5-3 because even a fleeting opportunity to stomp Spinies and Bob-ombs and walk on Munchers was a highly desirable one.
That was Super Mario Bros. 3's design philosophy in a nutshell. "Don't overdo it," it told itself. "Keep these themes and items feeling rare and make it so that the player looks forward to seeing them, experimenting with them, and savoring them."
That it was able to do this so very successfully was a big reason why we loved playing it. It's a big reason why we're still playing it.
Super Mario Bros. 3 was the rare "perfect" video game. It had what it took to earn A+ grades in every conceivable category in which you could think to rank it. It boasted terrific presentation and visual design; outstanding art direction; a wonderfully evocative soundtrack; super-tight controls; an array of instantly iconic, amazingly-fun-to-use power-ups; dozens of unforgettable stages; a whole new assortment of cleverly designed enemies; and the best platforming action a game had ever offered. And yet we saw it as being above such things as "ranking systems"--as being so transcendent that you couldn't define its greatness using such mortal tools as number rankings, letter grades or review quotes.
Super Mario Bros. 3 was, quite simply, in a league of its own, and anyone who played it would tell you that it was the best game that Nintendo or any other company had ever produced.
And it was also a pretty challenging game (which you tend to forget after having been away from it for a while). Its later worlds, especially, presented some rather daunting challenges. Many of their stages demanded that you exhibit high levels of precision and dexterity--that you perform very skillfully if you hoped to survive the running-across-piranha-plants and alternating-muncher segments, lava-filled castles, speeding airships, and platforming challenges that tasked you with making series of long jumps onto and off of pixels-wide platforms. The increasingly harsh level design sent you a clear message: "The kid gloves are off, so you best raise your game."
This was, after all, an era in which the big companies weren't afraid to design games that challenged players and thus encouraged them to hone their skills. That's another thing that Super Mario Bros. 3 did so very well. It gave us exactly what we expected from it: a game in which coins were a precious commodity, lives were limited, and the greatest victory was overcoming a challenge that was previously thought to be insurmountable. That's what made it great. It's why I'll always remember my experiences in the game's final world, whose exacting challenges beat me down, yes, but did so in a way that inspired me to improve my skills and make that final push to the finish--attain the ultimate victory towards which I'd spent hours working.
Now, sure--Super Mario Bros. 3 handed out plenty of 1ups, raccoon/tanooki suits, and P-Wings, but it did so in the interest of achieving balance, not for the purpose of providing the player a ticket to easy victory. In today's platformers, conversely, you'll have acquired 99 lives before you even reach their fourth worlds, and rarely will one of them ask to execute more than two difficult jumps in a row. The big companies have long since lost faith in the player's ability, and the action and platforming genres have suffered as a result.
However, considering Super Mario Bros. 3's great length, it would have been nice had Nintendo made one particular concession: the inclusion of a save feature. I mean, it was asking a lot of the player to devote three hours to the game each time (if he or she was the type who liked to engage in all-worlds runs)--even in an age when we had no responsibilities and hours were available in abundance. Though, I wouldn't say that the omission of such was unforgivable--not when the full Super Mario Bros. 3 experience was so thoroughly enjoyable that it was well worth spending three hours of your day with it. Really, you'd have been cheating yourself had you chosen to miss out on a single bit of its content.
That's how I saw it, at least.
So yeah--Super Mario Bros. 3 was quite challenging. It took me about a week to finish it. I remember the exact circumstances surrounding my victory, the memory of which is a source of both pride& and embarrassment: It was around midnight. I woke up from my sleep and wandered down into the kitchen, where I ran into my brother, James, who was making himself a late-night snack. He was currently taking a break from playing Super Mario Bros. 3, in which he was no longer able to make meaningful progress. Figuring that his only chance of seeing what lied beyond the game's middle worlds was to watch me play through them, he conned me into joining him in the basement for a little nighttime session. So I followed him downstairs and took control of the action, just as he'd hoped. He then watched on intently as I played all the way through to World 8 (it was well past my bedtime at this point--somewhere around 3 a.m.).
After clearing World 8's difficult final stages, I arrived at Bowser's castle. This was the first time I'd ever made it there. I was excited to finally reach the endgame, yes, though I was able to compose myself and remain focused on the action. Little by little, I learned how to successfully navigate around Bowser's labyrinth and its perilous platforming segments, and eventually I discovered the location of his chamber. And soon after, I concluded the long journey by luring the dive-bombing Bowser to his death.
It was a proud moment for me. I considered the victory to be one of my greatest gaming achievements.
As we watched the credits roll, James suggested that we commemorate the event by taking a picture of me standing next to the TV (this, he said, would also serve as visual evidence that I was among those who were able to beat the game). He then proceeded to snap an awful Polaroid that had me standing to the side of the TV, which at that moment was displaying the game's "The End" screen, wearing flannel button-down pajamas and striking the goofiest victory pose you'd ever seen. In the years that followed, that picture remained buried in the kitchen cabinet directly below the coffee-maker, right where I preferred it to be.
I believe that it was thrown away when we cleaned out the house prior to moving. If so, that's fine by me! It guarantees that I'll never have to worry about anyone ever seeing it! Though, for all I know, it might still be out there somewhere--maybe in my father or aunt's collections. If that turns out to be the case, then I'll have to remember to bring a match with me next time I visit either of them.
Super Mario Bros. 3 influenced my life in one other important way: It helped me to realize how lucky I was to have easy access to such things. I became aware of this privilege in the early-summer months of 1990, when we were visiting rarely seen members of our extended family over on Vanderbilt Street. My father suggested that I bring the game with me, thinking that the kids who lived there might be interested in playing it with me.
The kids in question, I'd come to learn, were a pair of younger cousins who didn't have much growing up. They owned an NES, yes, but not much else; and because their parents couldn't afford to buy them new games, they were stuck with the same three or four games they'd had since day one--mostly older games that were bought on the cheap.
Going in, though, I was completely ignorant of the family's financial situation. That's why I was greatly surprised at the kids' reaction to the game.
I vividly remember the scene: When the older cousin saw the game in my hand, his eyes immediately lit up and he shouted "Super Mario Bros. 3!" in the most enthusiastic manner possible. Before I could even finish saying hello to him, he grabbed the game from my hand and promptly rushed over to the pair's small playroom, where an NES was set up. And for the rest of the afternoon, he and his brother ;euphorically jumped, swam and flew their way through Super Mario Bros. 3's world, whose every aspect delighted them to an extreme degree. Never before had two kids been& this excited to play a video game. Never before had two kids been so overcome with joy. It was one of the happiest days of their lives.
At the time, however, I found it strange that they lacked access to Super Mario Bros. 3 and other popular games. "Doesn't every kid own all of the NES' big-name titles?" I wondered, naively. "So what if their home is modest compared to ours? If you have a home, then you have enough money to buy new games! So what gives?"
It turned out, though, that my view of the world was seriously flawed. In interacting with the kids, I learned a sad truth: Their parents were practically poor. They could barely pay their bills, and they were one missed payment away from losing their home. On top of that, they could only afford to have one meal per day, and that meal would usually consist of whatever small amount of food they could scrape up. And here I was thinkin' that I had it bad because the kids at school kept calling me "Elvis"--this because my mother would let me go two to three months without a haircut.
This, for me, was a reality check. It brought into question my belief that what I had was "normal"--that every family possessed enough wealth to afford five TVs, multiple games and consoles, two cars, a piano, a bar, and a swimming pool. That's not how it was, I learned; unfortunately, some families had it so rough that they could barely afford the necessities no less silly electronic devices. "That's horrible," I thought.
But I was also happy to learn that I had the power to do something about it--that I could help to improve other people's lives by sharing with them; by providing them access to things of which they'd been sadly deprived, even if one of those things was something trivial, like a video game. "There's no greater feeling than the one you get when you lift someone else up," I thought to myself as I watched my cousins play Super Mario Bros. 3 with the hugest of smiles on their faces.
Ever since that day, it's been my mission to help as many people as I can and do whatever it takes to make their lives better.
Hopefully I've been successful in that mission.
For the next few years, Super Mario Bros. 3 reigned supreme. It continued to be the world's best game and the first one to which I'd turn whenever I was hungry for some top-tier platforming action or an action experience in general. All other games paled in comparison. None could match its greatness. On average, I'd play through it twice a week, and each time I'd remain spellbound for the entirety of the experience; every second spent with it was pure bliss. I'm telling you, man: Some of the best moments of my childhood were those in which I'd grab myself a drink, kick back, and spend two to three hours of my afternoon with the most amazing platformer ever created. Super Mario Bros. 3 never failed to deliver to me that which I desired.
It's just a shame, though, that Super Mario Bros. 3 disappeared from my life for about a decade in following. Once the SNES won me over, I became disconnected from it, since all of my attention was now being eaten up by newer, shinier games like Super Mario World, Super Castlevania IV, Super Metroid and Mega Man X. And once I became consumed with 3D gaming, all connection was lost; by that point, my NES was stuffed somewhere in my bedroom closet.
Still, I didn't forgot about my experiences with Super Mario Bros. 3. I could never; the imprints it left were too indelible. Occasionally I'd reminisce about my time with it, and when I'd do so, countless images would come to mind. I'd recall the secret warp whistles and the maneuvers I had to pull off to acquire them. The interactive map screens on which I could hammer away rocks and ride around in canoes and thus discover hidden map areas. Being attacked by an angry sun (of all things). The water stages through which I'd nervously hop about because they were being patrolled by the man-eating Boss Bass. Everything about Giant Land, including how giant blocks would break into four normal-sized& blocks when shattered (a cool little detail, I always thought). The coin ships with which I was fascinated because I felt as though there was great mystery surrounding their appearances. And a whole lot of other moments and instances.
The game had so many memorable scenes: There was that stage whose doors allowed you to hop between two separate-but-identically-designed planes, each of which was populated by different-sized enemies--one set giant, the other default-sized. That lonely room in Sky Land's tower that was home to nothing more than two chandeliers but nonetheless did a wonderful job of conveying to me the atmosphere of such a place--of a conduit between land and sky. Sky Land's thoughtfully-designed-though-easily-missed return-to-land stage. Pipe Land's metallic-maze stage with its access-granting fractures and multiple coin-filled branches. The stage in which you had to continue to procure stars as you dashed across a lengthy field of munchers. Pipe Land's abandoned fortress with its unlit candles, Stretch-less white platforms, and quietly eerie atmosphere. Dark Land's fear-inducing high-speed airship (which the P-Wing was made for). Bowser's labyrinthine castle, whose laser-shooting statues, all-consuming lava pits, and foreshadowing flame-spew made for an epic prelude to the final battle. And again--a whole lot of others.
If I were to continue on like this and recall every memorable scene, I'd wind up listing damn near every section of every stage. That's what it would take to truly do the game justice, yeah, but I'm not sure that a Blogspot post can hold that much data. So let's just leave it at this: Super Mario Bros. 3 was a wonderland whose every space was worth exploring; it was a seemingly boundless treasure trove in which secrets were hiding everywhere--behind every wall, within every pipe, high atop the sky, and beyond the surfaces of places I had yet to discover.
Super Mario Bros. 3 was, I felt, the pinnacle of 8-bit gaming and served as the perfect bridge to the next generation. We tend to forget that it arrived in North America at a time when the Genesis and the TurboGrafx-16 were already in people's homes, playing host to games whose graphics and technical aspects far surpassed the average 8-bit game's. That Super Mario Bros. 3 could thrive in such an environment and compete with and outclass even top-tier 16-bit games is a testament to how next-level it was; it could legitimately pass as a 16-bit-powered game. Therein it said to us, "Journey your way into future, yes, but remember that the road to that destination passes through here!"
What's also testament to its greatness is that it compares favorably to Super Mario World, the SNES' showpiece title, in the opinion of many enthusiasts. For the longest time, I considered Super Mario World to be the better game because "it's bigger and has more content," but when I finally returned to Super Mario Bros. 3, I soon realized that I'd been badly underselling it--that it was actually larger in scope than its 16-bit sequel. Playing it again reminded me of just how amazingly ambitious it was, and the whole time, I kept asking myself, "How could I ever consider a game this incredibly great to be 'inferior' to any other?"
The answer, of course, is that I can't. It's too damn good.
I mean, there's a reason why Nintendo treats Super Mario Bros. 3's Virtual Console releases as big events; its creators know that their game has broad appeal across multiple generations of players and that it's considered to be gaming royalty. That's exactly how it deserves to be treated. And you can bet that it's going to be a chart-topper wherever and whenever it's released.
For me, there will never be another game like it. There can't be. Events will never line up like that again; the circumstances--where I was at that point in childhood, the insane build to the game's launch, the unbelievable hype surrounding the game, and how I interacted with the friends and cousins who were also eagerly anticipating its release--could never be duplicated.
No--something like Super Mario Bros. 3 only comes along once in a lifetime. And that's why I'll continue to savor it for as long as I live.
What a magical game.
Found your blog by accident and am happy I did. I am thoroughly enjoying it. You're a talented writer.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate for the kind words. Honestly, when I saw that there was a reply to this entry, I went back and read it. All could think was, "Yeesh--this is fairly terrible." So I fixed it up and fleshed things out a bit.
DeleteThough, I'm sure I'll do the same thing next time I read it. Such is the pain of writing.
Anyway: Thanks for stopping by!
Read this 10 years later. Great content.
ReplyDelete