NES #31 - Super Mario Bros. 3

Well it's a new year and I finally have a new computer, so I can actually get back to writing about games again. I was going to do a year end recap at the beginning of January, but then I remembered that I started this blog in June. I will wait till then so that I can record a whole year of actual gaming.

I can think of very few ways to start out the new year better than talking about Super Mario Bros. 3. This game is very special to me. In fact, I would say that the two things that define my childhood the most are They Might Be Giants and SMB 3. Yeah I know, I was a cool kid.

I'll never forget the first time I played this game. My cousin had got it right when it first came out. I was five years old at the time and can't remember if I knew it was coming or not. I was pretty little though, and we didn't get Nintendo Power so video game news traveled slowly. I doubt anything could've prepared me for it. I thought that it was the most amazing thing I had ever gotten my hands on. I was instantly hooked by the great graphics and wonderful gameplay. It was like the first SMB, but everything was improved by about a million times. I just figured that playing that game was all I was ever going to do. I found my true purpose in life. For about the next year or so I was right. Then the Super Nintendo came out and that's a whole other story.

I even had my parents put it on lay away for me at Wal-Mart the next time I saw it in a store. We didn't have very much money back then, and this was the first game I ever got that wasn't for a holiday or birthday. I'll never forget when they picked me up from school the day they finally paid it off. The world sure was awesome twenty years ago.

So at the beginning of Christmas break I sat down to play through it yet again. Honestly I would've played through this one a long time ago if it wasn't for the game's lone flaw. This game takes a long time to play through, and since there are no saves or passwords you have to play through it in one sitting. Now I know that there are those flutes that race you right through the game, but every level is so much fun and lovingly designed that it's a shame to skip over them. I'm not saying that warp zones are only for losers or anything like that, but who wants to skip all those cool desert levels, or the ones where you skip between being tiny and regular sized, or all those ice levels with the frozen coins that you shoot with a fire flower? It makes me a little tingly just talking about it.

As much as I love it though, it really starts to wear me out after a couple of hours. I don't remember having that same trouble as a kid. I guess I'm getting old. The worst part is that I always start out flawlessly. I think I made it to world 3 without even dying once. However, just as my eyes are starting to gloss over and my back starts to get sore from sitting in the same spot for too long the game gets very hard. Pipe World drives me absolutely crazy. As if Sky World and Ice World aren't hard enough this one's full of puzzles. By then I've usually got about 50 lives and still don't know my way around very well. There are multiple levels in that world where the time will run out on me. After I've been playing a game for three hours that last thing I want to do is die from lack of time. Luckily I saved all my clouds so I was able to skip a couple of the harder levels.

In fact I remember the last time I attempted to go through this game it was with my friend Dustin in college. He was the same person who used to play SMB every day so we were well in tune with the series at that point. We got to pipe world and got so wore out that we had to quit playing. Sometimes you get to a point where you can't go on anymore. I was playing with a purpose this time though so I was able to press on.

Finally I got past it and raced through world 8. I know that Bowser is really easy in this game, but that's probably just to even things out a little bit. Getting to him is so difficult that nobody could stand a tough boss fight. I would say that I got through the game in about 3 and a half hours. That's not too bad without using warp zones and having not played it in about two years.

So that's my SMB 3 story for today. It wore me out, but I still had fun with it. My goal was to beat one of the Koopalings using my hammer brother suit. I remember doing this as a kid and I thought it was really cool how the king said something different. I was about an inch away from victory, but I misjudged my jump and got hit. So I failed that one, but I still had a great time. I was still amazed by the great level design and seemingly endless secrets. I still love Pipe World after all is said and done. Everything is right with the world.