A playthrough of Nintendo's 1990 platformer for the NES, Super Mario Bros. 3.

The video shows the entire game without the use of warp zones.

Super Mario Bros. 3 was released to a level of hype and anticipation never before seen for a video game, and anyone that set foot in America in late 1989/early 1990 would have found it impossible to avoid encountering Mario in one form or another. Mario 2 was still recent and mega popular, and the dude's mug adorned every conceivable bit of sponsored merchandise under the sun. You could eat Nintendo cereal from a Mario bowl in your Mario jammies on Saturday morning as you watched the Mario TV show, and during commercials, you'd see commercials for The Wizard, the new Fred Savage/Christian Slater/Beau Bridges movie that was to be the ultimate marketing vehicle to introduce... you guessed it! Super Mario Bros. 3!

It was an incredible cultural phenomenon. Mario commanded more recognition and respect than Mickey, Bart, Ariel... pretty much any icon of the time. Well, maybe with the exception of Batman. Batman was probably a fairly close tie.

The marketing campaign had an absurd amount of cash backing it, and it worked. Everyone knew Mario, and every kid either had an NES or was more than likely willing to go to unspeakable lengths to get one. But the hype train can only get you so far, and more than one game has suffocated under the weight of its own hype.

But then again, this is Mario. And somehow, Mario 3 actually surpassed everybody's expectations. It won pretty much ever award ever, it was sold out everywhere for several months after it was released, and it even tended to be exempt from the scorn of "that kid" on the playground who liked to hate on what everyone else liked. It was a master work, and everyone damn well knew it.

It wasn't just that it was an amazing show of how impossibly far Nintendo had pushed the already then ancient hardware - it was (and that's despite the game being nearly eighteen months old when it was released in the US!) - but the gameplay was revolutionary. About as much so as Super Mario Bros. was when it became the de facto standard for action games a few years earlier.

There are 90 stages (!) crammed into the game's 384K rom, split across eight themed worlds overflowing with secrets to uncover. Mario also has a load of new awesome power-ups: you can now fly as a raccoon, swim as a frog, become an invulnerable statue of an apparently castrated tanuki, or... wear a turtle shell as a mallet-wielding mountaineer? Huh? It's all awesome, but it does occasionally make you question the sanity of the creators.

It's wide open to play however you like, too. If you want to make a mad, underequipped dash for Bowser's front lines, just find a few warp whistles and head to World 8! If you prefer to take your time exploring, there is no end to things you'll find with an even minimal bit of effort - coin caches, ghost mushroom houses, secret blocks that allow access to new areas of a level - there's a lot of replayability here. It's too bad they didn't bother including a battery for game saves, but really, that's the only legit criticism I can level at Super Mario Bros. 3.

The controls are still the gold standard for platformers, and that difficulty curve is great. Everyone can finish World 1, but clearing Worlds 6 and 7 without warping is still worthy of whatever the real life equivalent of a PSN trophy might be. I still vividly remember the sheer rage I felt as a kid trying to beat 7-7, and 6-5 wasn't far behind it. The game becomes really difficult toward the end, but it was always fair. And sometimes infuriating. But as many of us I'm sure have proven over the years, it just takes practice. However much.

And finally, what a memorable sense of personality this game has! Everything, from the intro to the enemy animations to the sampled bongos and steel drums, is vibrant and eminently likable. Did anyone else ever pick up on the different ways the game plays up the idea of a "stage"? The intro curtain, the platforms bolted to the backdrops, or the "fade to black" at the end of each area?

The attention to detail was unprecedented, especially given the scope of the game. It might be hard to imagine if you haven't played it, but even with so much crammed in, nothing here is fiiller.

What else is there to say? If you credit Super Mario Bros. with saving video games, then it only seems right that Super Mario Bros. 3 be recognized as the game that would show the way toward the future of gaming. Nintendo has done a lot of miraculous things over the years, but to manage both of those achievements within a single console generation is a feat among feats.

Here's to Mario on his 35th birthday. Well done, bro.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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