Super Mario Bros. 3 is a stone-cold classic, even on Nintendo Switch

My purple and slightly iridescent Game Boy AdvanceSP is still in my memory. My cousin and I were given matching Game Boy Advance SPs by my uncle during Christmas 2000. I was presented with the following: Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, a classic I would come to play over and over again — with equal parts love and frustration — as I was pulled inexorably into the spell of platforming.

However Super Mario Bros. 3It was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. This was the perfect port to the Game Boy Advance SP. My handheld was small enough to hold and easily fit in my favourite frock. It also made it simple for me to pick up and start playing when adults were talking about dull adult topics. I have had the opportunity to revisit it since Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack recently added Game Boy and GBA game to Nintendo Switch Online. And though the Switch doesn’t fit as well in my pocket, the game has absolutely stood the test of time — I’ve found myself once again toting it around with me everywhere, hellbent on beating the next level.

The reverence that some feel for Dark Souls games, with their accompanying baggage to “git gud,” is close to how I feel about Super Mario Bros. 3GBA. The game requires fairly precise platforming, forcing me to memorize the weight of Mario’s jump and skid landings when I played it as a kid. The game taught me to approach its levels like puzzles, each with a best path or strategy, and often with hidden rewards and sections — which is to say that it taught me how to platform, period.

A hand holding up a purple Game Boy Advance SP with Super Mario Bros. 3 faintly visible on the screen.

Photo: Nicole Clark/Polygon

Super Mario Bros. 3’s first level, with its jolly music, is seared into my brain. It introduced me to the basic concepts that govern Mario’s world (which I paid for in Game Overs). Within the first few seconds, I was approached by a Goomba. To touch it signified that the level had ended. But, Mario guided the Goomba on its head to make the Goomba vanish. The same jumping act taught me how to hit my head with coin blocks. This led to Super Mushrooms. Later in the short level, a Koopa paced near a coin block on the floor, which taught me the value of throwing a shell to strike the block — and the terror, and ensuing heartbreak, of having the shell careen back at me.

No surprise that the design has been kept at a high level is not uncommon. Nintendo is well-known for its attention to details. Mario creator Shigeru MYAMAmoto has provided interviews about his creation of the original. Super Mario Bros.’ first level. It is evident that this method works. Super Mario Bros. 3It drew me in to the exciting process of trial-and-error, which was a lot for me when I was younger and didn’t have any patience. I found the relatively simple controls to be a challenge at that time. My left hand was used to tap buttons and I learned how to use my D-pad. Hand-eye coordination is not really at a prime when you’re 9 years old.

The game continued to push me, presenting new challenges and power. I fell on floating platforms and was pulled in by quicksand. Fish chased me underwater. But I could jump on a flying Koopa’s head for extra jump height, or don Mario in a frog suit for precise swimming. Patterns were evident in boss fights. World 4 was my final level. I had to blaze through the difficult levels and return to previous maps in order to visit Toad Houses. I’d become the girl on the playground who the boys grudgingly handed their Game Boys to when they could not beat a level. Some of these boys would even “pay” me in recess snacks to beat the entire game for them — fresh strawberries were my preferred currency — so that they could go back and play whichever levels they wanted. I have an additional copy of the game. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island that I forgot to give back to my elementary school BFF’s younger brother.

But even this level of fond remembrance couldn’t prepare me for the fun I had when I jumped back into Super Mario Bros. 3Even with many decades of platforming experience, last week was my first time playing this game. The best way to cover up flaws is nostalgia. This game was my eighth playthrough as a child. But I was unprepared for how many intricate hidden passageways and sections I would find this time around — things totally invisible to me when I played the game two decades ago, in the era before I had computer access for guides, and before YouTube existed.

As a kid, it took me until about World 5 to actually understand how the P-Wing mechanic worked — the one where you hold down the right trigger so that Mario sprints, allowing him to fly into the air when in Tanooki form. By that point, I’d banked Tanooki power ups I’d won at Toad Houses, and used them to fly through challenging levels. But I’d never tried it in earlier levels, figuring I never “needed” it to beat those earlier challenges. As I was opening the game on Nintendo Switch this week, I discovered that the first level of the game had a hidden area in the sky. And that was just the first of many surprises I encountered during this playthrough — like hidden pipes leading into other secret sky sections, dozens of “P” buttons that converted blocks into coins, and other secrets I had completely missed as a kid.

After years of playing video games, I sometimes forget just how hard it can be to learn the controls for games. It’s that simple. Super Mario Bros. 3 caters to both a first-time player and a longtime fan speaks to its enduring level design — and its place in video game history.

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