With NES games being a little more in the limelight than usual right now thanks to the release of the NES Classic Mini, I've also been in a retro mood and revisiting a variety of 8- and 16-bit games on my Retropie setup. For the last few days, I've been playing through Super Mario Bros. 3 in its original release form (NES) while making use of save states in a similar fashion to how people would be revisiting it on the Classic Mini. In doing so, I'm finding myself consistently impressed with not only how well the game plays to this very day, but also how the current strain of 2D Mario releases (the "New" series, in particular) could benefit from looking back to SMB3 for inspiration beyond just mimicking its structure.
Before I dive into my little mini-analysis, let me first establish my unique history with SMB3.
So that's my little SMB3 backstory, but now on to me playing through the original NES release in 2016.
First off, let me just go on record by stating that this is the best version of the game. Yes, the All-Stars version is more approachable thanks to the inclusion of saves between worlds, but the original release has a much better atmosphere and aesthetics thanks to that dark color palette and stage-play theming. A lot of that unique art style was done away with in the SNES All-Stars remake, which is a shame.
So here are some things that are jumping out to me as I play through SMB3:
- Power-up and Lives Distribution: This is one of the first big differences between SMB3 and the post-SMW 2D Mario games that immediately struck me. Not only was SMB3 prior to the staple inclusion of the power-up reserve, which allows you to store an extra power-up should you take damage and lose yours, but it was also far stingier with power-ups in general. Throughout any given level, there will usually only be one or two power-ups maximum, and oftentimes to get some of them you will need to already be Super Mario because they will be obstructed by a brick that needs to be broken before you can get underneath them.
The lower power-up prevalence combines with a similarly more restricted distribution of extra lives (if you don't count exploits to cheese infinite lives) to form a bedrock of 2D Mario design that still feels modern due to its polish but also more challenging/punishing than what we're used to with the NSMB series. The fact that you can't save in the original release also really makes you play less recklessly since losing all of your lives will mean starting the world over (with some things persisting). There's a weight to dying in SMB3 that I feel is lacking in pretty much every 2D Mario that came after it, but that weight is nicely counter-balanced by the next bullet point... - Bite-sized, challenging levels: In this post-SMW world, we're used to 2D Mario levels being pretty lengthy compared to what we see in SMB3. The introduction of checkpoints in SMW opened up the level design in terms of horizontal length, and other additions like the cape combined with fewer hardware constraints meant that levels were often expanded vertically as well. SMB3 was the last of the zoomed-in, small field-of-view Mario games, and while that was mostly a product of its time it's also kind of refreshing to see after being so used to the zoomed-out, widescreen view of the action that we get in the NSMB games. Since the perspective is so much closer to Mario with less time to react to impending threats, there's an increased tension and feeling of risk when trying to speed through a level.
But this works fine because the levels tend to be shorter than anything we've seen post-SMW. In fact, they have more in common with the punishing-but-short level design that's common in modern indie platformers like Super Meat Boy. There's no one way to design a Mario level, but I think these shorter levels with fewer power-ups and higher penalty for death combine to form an experience that feels fresh after so many years of the newer school of 2D Mario level design. - World variety and scale: At this point most Mario fans have already partaken in plenty of discussion bemoaning the "safe" approach that most of the NSMB games take in terms of themed lands and common elements/assets between games. SMB3 is the polar OPPOSITE of that. Compared to what came before it, SMB3 was pretty much an avalanche of new ideas and brought with it a bold new art style that made Mario and the other Mushroom World inhabitants look like pixel-art illustrations instead of just blocky characters. In a lot of ways SMB3 reminds me of the Galaxy games in how frequently it mixes things up from level-to-level and area-to-area.
While pretty much every 2D Mario game since SMB3 has featured a world map, I'd argue that alongside SMW the third entry presents the most interesting and varied world to explore. While SMW's map is special due to its secret exits and interconnected layout, SMB3's map impresses by virtue of how sprawling it is in totality. Of all the Mario games, SMB3's setting is the grandest in scale. It takes place in Mushroom World, and we actually get to visit various kingdoms other than the Mushroom Kingdom within that world. There's a real feeling of globetrotting in SMB3 that I'd love to see return in a future 2D Mario release.
SMB3 also introduced the "themed land" approach that the newer entries are so fond of, but it presented the player with a lot more variety. Sure, there are desert and snow stages, but there are lots of other themed areas that we've never seen represented post-SMB3. And within each land we're treated to bite-sized levels that not only fit the theme of the area but usually introduce a new caveat or twist on the gameplay from those that came before it. There's just an abundance of variety and creativity on display here, and it's nuts that this was all crammed into an NES cart.
I think I'll stop there for now to prevent this OP from stretching on for too long. I'm in World 3 at the moment in my new playthrough, so I'll be posting more thoughts in this thread as I go along. I'm not using warp whistles because I want to see every level in the game.
