Pros: gameplay, graphics, many powerups and secrets, save points
Cons: no repeating completed levels, some annoying sound "enhancements"
The bottom line: A portable version of Super Mario Brothers 3! What can be better?
Everyone Loves Mario

Super Mario Brothers 3 came out during Mario's heyday with Nintendo. Some called it the golden age of gaming. It certainly was for my generation as many have since moved on with their lives and set aside their video games. However, some consider Super Mario Brothers 3 the greatest game to ever grace the connectors of the old 8-bit Nintendo console. While I prefer Tecmo Super Bowl over any Super Mario Brothers game, I cannot argue with its appeal. This game spans genders and generations. Even my wife loves the game despite the fact that she has trouble getting past the first world.


Story

The story behind SMB3 isn't something as complex as a good Final Fantasy game, however it doesn't have to be complicated to be considered successful. The premise behind SMB3 is that Bowser is back, and this time he has 7 kids. You have to free each world from the grasp of these kids before taking on Bowser himself in his own house. You can either take on the challenge with Mario, or a friend can play as Luigi and you both can take turns trying to conquer each level.


Gameplay

SMB3 has the same layout and design as the original Super Mario Brothers. You stomp on enemies, collect coins for extra lives, and use mushrooms and fire flowers as powerups. Besides being true to the original Super Mario Brothers game, it also is so much more. To start off, there were now many new powerups besides the standard, mushroom, fire flower and star found in the previous Super Mario games. You have a leaf that turned you into raccoon Mario thus allowing you to fly. There's also a frog suit allowing you to swim in underwater levels much easier. The tanooki suit allows you to fly just like the raccoon leaf, however you could turn into an immobile but invincible statue for a brief period of time as well. Finally there's a hammer brother suit that allowed you to throw hammers as your attack. These hammers could eliminate enemies that traditional attacks couldn't. The flying aspect was probably the most important addition to the game in that it expanded the levels by allowing you to scroll both horizontally and vertically. In Super Mario Brothers 3 the sky's the limit.

In addition to the powerups, the environment was expanded from the original. For instance there are many new kinds of blocks added. In the original SMB, you had your typical brick blocks and question mark blocks. In SMB3, you added indestructible wooden blocks, ice blocks that can be picked up and slid across the ground, music blocks that allowed you to jump really high, and red music blocks that brought you to a coin filled bonus level. Also there are slopes allowing you to slide down, as well as different kinds of surfaces that have different traction.

While almost all of the original enemies from the first Super Mario Brothers remain, the list of new enemies has been expanded ranging from different spins on old favorites to new and original enemies. While you'll see the occasional goomba and green and red-shelled koopas, you'll also see flying goombas, many different kinds of hammer brothers, as well as new enemies like thwomps and boo didleys. Each enemy has it's own characteristics and uniqueness. Each enemy is distinct in its look, abilities, and weaknesses. Enemies are strategically placed throughout each level to provide many different functions from a utility to an obstacle for Mario.

One of the major additions to the Mario Brothers series is the addition of an overworld. This allows you to choose which path to take to get to the castle at the end of each world. While in many instances you're left to take levels in numerical order, there are a handful of times where you have a choice to take one stage in exchange for another. However, in passing on the harder stage, you're often left passing on a very special hidden secret within it. On each overworld map you'll see symbols for areas that aren't necessarily stages. You'll see a hammer brothers symbol that moves from point to point. When you encounter it, you'll go into a single non-scrolling screen where you fight a specific type of hammer brother or pair of hammer brothers. There's a toad house where you can get powerups for your inventory, there are also pipes that can link you to other spots along the overworld map.

Each of the 8 different worlds has an overworld map in which to explore. Each overworld map follows a specific theme. For instance there's a desert world, a water world, and a pipe maze world. Certain powerups work better for different worlds. While on the overworld map, you have an inventory of powerups to use before you enter a specific stage. This allows you to be able to enter certain stages without the disadvantage of being a smaller Mario where you're practically on death's doorstep. There are certain powerups in your inventory like the music box and the Jugem's Cloud that aren't intended for specific stages. Rather they function on the overworld only, allowing you to skip stages or put hammer brothers to sleep.


Beyond the Warp Pipe

SMB3 is a game that boasts good level design, tough enemies, and overall great gameplay; it also regularly throws in tons of secrets and Easter eggs that other games seldom threw in. SMB3 is hardly shy about giving you extra lives or "1ups". Just about every stage has some sort of secret 1up that may or may not be well hidden. Many have as many as two or three. In addition to green mushrooms, you receive an extra life for every 100 coins you collect. This isn't anything new to Super Mario Brothers games, however SMB3 isn't miserly about their coins as they were in previous games. By my estimation the average stage contains roughly 50-100 coins, and that isn't taking into account "p" switches that change regular blocks into coins. This is in addition to multiple coin bricks that can spit out 10 coins at a time.

Wait there's more! At the end of each stage there's a box that flashes 3 different symbols. When you hit it you receive either a mushroom, fire flower or star symbol depending on what was shown at the time you hit the box. When you collect three symbols you get a 1up. If the three symbols match you can get 2, 3, or as many as 5 1ups! In fact there's a way that you can hit the block in order to guarantee the symbol combination that leads to 5 1ups each time. That means aside from coins, and green 1up mushrooms; every 3rd stage (if done correctly) will yield 5 extra lives.

And yes there's more. There are certain large very rare question and marks that yield between 3 and 5 1ups. There's also a spade icon where you get the opportunity to earn between 2 and 5 1ups based on your ability to lineup graphics (again following the mushroom, fire flower, star theme). Finally there are certain areas where if you are skilled enough, you can earn infinite 1ups simply by stomping on enemies over and over without touching the ground until the timer runs out.

Besides the abundance of 1ups, there are many other secrets and powerups that this game offers. Like the past two Super Mario Brothers games, there are warp zones. Warp whistles are an item in your inventory when used take you to these warp zones. There are 3 of them hidden in the game somewhere. If you know where they are, they are easy to find and get to. If you're trying to find them on your own, good luck because they are well hidden. Also, under a specific condition, you can turn one hammer brothers icon on the world map into a treasure ship. This ship contains 150 easy to get coins as well as a hidden 1up mushroom. At the end you end up fighting two hammer brothers anyway. Also if you complete a specific stage in a world and collect a specific number of coins, a white mushroom house will appear. The item at this house is usually very valuable. Also the most powerful powerups like the frog suit, tanooki suit, and hammer brothers suit are hard to find outside of getting it at a mushroom house. These suits can be found in specific stages, but they are very well hidden. There is also one type of powerup that can only be found on one stage. It's the Kuribo's Shoe. It looks like a huge oversized shoe. It allows you to stomp on enemies that you couldn't normally stomp on like spiked shelled enemies and plant enemies that come out of pipes.


Special Features

One of the most notable features in Super Mario Advance 4 is the ability to play new SMB3 levels using your Ereader. The game comes with a few cards to start with. The levels themselves are great however they are only a small addition to the SMB3 game as a whole and have nothing to do with the story. Simply they are additional levels. However, the biggest drawback is the hardware required to use these Ereader cards. You'll need an Ereader ($40), 2 Gameboy Advance systems, a game link, and your SMA4:SMB3 cartridge. This is usually too much hardware for such little return. It's a good idea but it's just too cumbersome. Instead of going the Ereader route, they should have just created a level editor, so you can make your own levels from scratch. Naturally you'd be able to trade your levels with others and so on. That would have boosted the replay value to endless means.

The other additional feature on the SMA4 cartridge is the inclusion of the original Mario Brothers game. This is the one where endless creatures come out of pipes and you have to bump them, then stomp them for points. The best aspect to this feature is its multiplayer capability. This is a great game to play with a friend for a half hour to hour. After that, the game becomes tedious and rather boring.


Graphics

The graphics are just as good as ever. This Gameboy Advance version does widen the color palette allowing for a richer more diverse selection of colors. However, they didn't really mess with the foundation of what the graphics are all about. The enemies look the same from Mario and the smallest goobas, to Bowser himself. While the levels still retain their blocky feel, they are much more rounded than the other previous Mario games. I think that a certain amount of blockiness is needed for this game because it's part of SMB3's character.

The Gameboy Advance remake probably won't win any awards for graphical innovations, but it serves its purpose almost flawlessly. That's really all that I ask from my games. I don't look for eye candy more than a graphical system and structure that doesn't confuse me or hurt my eyes. SMB3 is one of the most eye friendly games I have ever seen.


Sound

The music on SMB3 is classic and all of it ported directly from the original. The most recognizable aspect to the music is its playfulness and lighthearted take on the levels. No suspense, just happy upbeat themes. The synthesized tympani stands out the most in my mind. Here is a synthesized musical instrument which I never really heard in other NES games and only rarely afterwards. Yet its purpose is simply to lighten the mood of the whole experience. While many games have focused on adult audiences, there remain many kid’s games and I think the lack of a good synthesized tympani really hurts those games from a musical perspective. It's good to see its return here.

I once considered this game to have the best sound effects in any Nintendo game and it makes my top 5 of best video game sound effects ever. However, the Gameboy Advance version made some audio changes that really irked me. For instance they eliminated the 1up sound effect and replaced it with a cheesy Mario voice over. This is not the only cheesy Mario voice over you'll hear in the game. When you die or enter a level, he says something as well. While in most cases classic sound effects aren't replaced, this is a case of "if it ain't broke don't fix it."


Controls

Despite the great pedigree, the great gameplay, the great graphics, sounds, and secrets, SMB3 could have sunk into gaming mediocrity if it weren't for the great controls. Even though this game isn't like Street Fighter where control responsiveness was magnified to an intense degree, as a platformer SMB3 still required a great amount of responsiveness to be able to navigate through tricky spots. The game delivers more than any game I've seen on the NES before. Jumping, running, throwing fireballs all can be done with precision. One sign that you know the controls are good, when I die I always knew why and always blamed myself not the controller.

The layout remains simple, which is also critical for a platformer. I hardly know a soul from my generation who couldn't tell you what the A and B buttons do on Super Mario Brothers. The functions of the buttons are so clear, yet they can do much more than the limited abilities they give you on the surface. Simply running, jumping, and flying are much more when you throw hundreds of different enemies and obstacles to time those jumps. From a control perspective, the greatest level for which to showcase this robustness is one the levels in the ice world where in order to reach the exit pipe, you must fly while carrying a koopa shell to break the bricks blocking the entrance. Despite how complicated that was, you were forced to use precision because button mashing would only serve to have the timer run out.


Replay Value

The replay value is this game's biggest drawback. Once you've beaten the game and found all the secrets, there isn't much left to do. While it's pretty hard to find all the secrets on your first attempt, it isn’t hard to go back and find everything. However, after all that's gone you're just left with a fun, but finished game. If you can use the Ereader, then you'll have additional levels, but those are finite as well. The game isn't very challenging for many seasoned gamers and the widely available 1ups only decreases the challenge. I do think that the quality of this game significantly increases its replay value. You never simply put away the game forever. Like a great book, there's an excuse to come back to it after a few years. The save feature even allows you to play the game from your favorite point should you choose, therefore you don't have to spend hours getting there only to have a handful of spare extra lives left.

When comparing this Gameboy Advance remake to the original NES version, I feel the latter is better. Even though the graphics are updated to include a greater spectrum of colors, and the sound is updated, it's not true to what it is. The sound particularly irks me in that many of my most favorite sounds are replaced with corny Mario voice-overs. The portability factor is a huge factor though as lugging your aging NES along with a TV can become cumbersome after a while. I still prefer to play the NES version. It is kind of funny that I feel the original is so good and so refined that it even out performed the updated version ported 13 years later.