{"id":2709,"date":"2013-04-10T18:25:33","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T18:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2709"},"modified":"2013-04-10T18:25:33","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T18:25:33","slug":"my-top-100-3-super-mario-bros-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2709","title":{"rendered":"My Top 100: #3 – Super Mario Bros. 3"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"1990<\/a>

1990 – Nintendo (NES, Super NES, Virtual Console, eShop)<\/p><\/div>\n

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After compiling a list of\u00a0a hundred\u00a0games I thought deserved to be on my countdown, I determined the order from #100 to #10 rather easily.\u00a0 “I like\u00a0Title A<\/em> more than Title B<\/em>, but less than Title C<\/em>.”\u00a0 That’s how I worked through my list, and even doing most of my top 10 was easy enough.<\/p>\n

When it came to my top three, however, that’s when it got difficult.\u00a0 If there could be a three-way tie for first, I would be happy with that.<\/p>\n

In good conscience, however, I can’t.\u00a0 I had to choose, and somehow figure out what these three games meant to me, and which one meant the most.\u00a0 That is, after all, what my countdown has been about from the get-go.\u00a0\u00a0These\u00a0games are\u00a0more to me than just\u00a0several hours of gameplay; they were the defining\u00a0games from various\u00a0parts of my life, and I can still pick up and play\u00a0any of them at any time, no matter what mood I’m in.<\/p>\n

So that’s where Super Mario Bros. 3<\/em> fits in.\u00a0 Num\u00e9ro trois.\u00a0 It feels somewhat low, but that’s just how it goes.<\/p>\n

SMB2<\/em> was nothing like the first game, so it was only natural to assume SMB3<\/em> would change things up as well.\u00a0\u00a0In reality, the game actually went back to what made the original so fun – running, jumping, head-stomping and fire-spitting your way to defeating Bowser and rescuing Princess Toadstool.<\/p>\n

But there was more to it than that…\u00a0 a lot more.<\/p>\n

Sure, the Mushroom Kingdom was once again yours to explore, but it was friggin’ alive<\/em>.\u00a0 After seeing the land map for the first time, I remember just sitting there and\u00a0staring at it for a few minutes before going into the first stage.\u00a0 There were wandering\u00a0Hammer Bros., dancing hills, mushroom huts, a castle moat…\u00a0 and what was this?\u00a0 Six stages in the first world?\u00a0 That was a wild concept.\u00a0 The first game\u00a0had four stages per level, and the second usually had three per level…\u00a0 but six, <\/em>and two castles<\/em>??<\/p>\n

If my Mario<\/em> math was correct (even though my actual math was terrible\u00a0those days), there’d be at least seven of these worlds.\u00a0 Whatever the hell seven times six was, I was in for\u00a0quite the\u00a0ride.<\/p>\n

*I know there were more than six stages in later levels, I just didn’t know\u00a0it at the time.*<\/p>\n

Every world has a unique theme, and though the difficulty ramps up with every one,\u00a0the challenges are\u00a0always different.\u00a0 Whether it’s\u00a0the brutal anxiety of swimming in World 3’s water levels with Big Bertha just a few pixels away, or the sweaty-palmed precision\u00a0it takes\u00a0when navigating\u00a0World 7’s hundred-pipe stages, there are no two areas that feel the same.\u00a0 Never had the gaming world ever felt so vibrant and colourful,\u00a0or seem\u00a0so friggin’ big.<\/p>\n

The game’s powerups were so random, too.\u00a0 The Super Mushroom and Fire Flower were back,\u00a0and were joined by a few new ones as well.\u00a0 Flying around\u00a0as Raccoon Mario\u00a0was pretty awesome, but\u00a0when the Frog Suit popped out of that treasure chest at the end of World 2, I no longer had any idea what to expect from the game.\u00a0 I mean, Frog Mario was pretty useless in the Desert World, but\u00a0was pretty\u00a0handy in future levels.<\/p>\n

The Tanooki Suit’s random appearance didn’t seem to be too much out of the ordinary, but turning into a statue by pressing down and B didn’t make a whole lot of sense.\u00a0 It was pretty cool, though, and it could be pretty useful.<\/p>\n

My “THIS GAME\u00a0JUST WENT FROM AWESOME TO\u00a0RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME” moment came some time during World 7, when I first got\u00a0the Hammer\u00a0Suit.\u00a0 Hammer Suit Mario is actually pretty useless – the arc of his projectiles was a bit tough to get used to, and I\u00a0didn’t seem to last very long whenever I had that power up.\u00a0 Still, there was something incredibly\u00a0badass about actually being one of the fearsome Hammer Bros.<\/p>\n

I could go on and on about how the game plays, or how all the little things like the White Toad Houses, Treasure Ships and Kuribo’s Shoe kept you guessing, but\u00a0for the sake of the\u00a0blog, I won’t.\u00a0 Super Mario Bros. 3<\/em> was such a leap forward that pretty much every platformer released afterwards tried to emulate it somehow.<\/p>\n

It was definitely Nintendo’s crowning achievement on the NES!<\/p>\n

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