M ario 3 also demonstrated the importance of subtle level design, nudging the player to learn how to perform every single action without a single line of text.
It overshadowed every video game before it, and was the ruler that every game after it was judged by for a long, long time. SMB3 was a renaissance for the video game industry. But it also had an impact that extended far, far beyond finance… It sold incredibly well, no doubt, but never did much to push the video game medium to its limits. The jumping physics, while novel for the time, still felt a bit off, and the life system made the player restart the entire game like an arcade game. Like Donkey Kong before it, SMB created an addictive formula – but one that still felt a bit stuck in the past. But as far as Mario 1’s influence goes, it’s purely financial. To this day, SMB remains one of the highest-selling games of all time. Let’s take a step back for a minute – Super Mario Bros (the first one) was one of the most financially successful “toys” ever created. | Source: Business Insider Pushing the Medium While Mario 1 certainly sold well, it didn’t do a lot to push video games forward. World took all of SMB3’s minor flaws I mentioned and smoothed out the rough edges, leaving a video game that’s damn near perfect. On the whole, I would argue that Super Mario World, Mario 3’s younger brother, is the better experience. Some of the power-ups aren’t all that useful, the puzzle design (when it’s there) isn’t the most intuitive, bosses can be a bit repetitive.
With the aided 20-20 vision of a thirty-year catalogue of platformers, I personally find it easy to pick out SMB3’s flaws. Mario 3 is not a perfect video game – far from it. Mario 3’s first level is a textbook example of good level design | Source: MobyGames But looking back on Mario 3, I think we’ve lost sight of what truly makes it important…
In recent years, Mario 3 has consistently ranked within the highest-five range of “greatest-of-all-time” lists, and rightfully so! Mario 3 is an absolute joy to play, even after thirty years of hindsight and experience. I was more than a decade from being born when Mario 3 graced earth, yet even I can still feel the shockwaves of its impact.
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