Back in the days when I was just a little Kahn, I dreamed of having the chance to review some of my favorite video games. Those games that challenged my fingers and challenged my maximum consumption of orange flavored beverages. This is one of those games… It was introduced in The Wizard, made Guinness in 1999 for selling 15 million copies worldwide and made the 90’s much more bearable.
To quote from The Wizard, "So I give you... SUPER MARIO BROS. 3!"
When you are dealing with retro gaming you have to look at the game in the sense that the graphics could be a little outdated and not as fresh as one would hope. This is not the case this time around; they really start from the ground up with recreating everything from how coin blocks look to using a new styled Luigi. This is good because I am a Luigi fan. Also Nintendo did a great job styling a new beginning onto the cart, giving a back-story to how all of this chaos happened.
The sound department tried its best to mix new sound and music with the original, with some mixed results. The upside is the fact the music has been updated and renovated to give a crisp and clean feel to the game. Nothing too drastic has been done to the music; instead they try to play more into giving the audio more depth while you play. The downside is the standard of the latest string of the Super Mario Advance line, a rehash of the sound effects and how Nintendo likes tinkering with the old. This is another game where you hear Mario say “Just what I needed!” This tinkering doesn’t stop there; you’ll notice this issue when you find a flute or play a game with Toad.
Game control tends to be something that is better untouched for all re-released games. The issue is becomes a problem when companies want to add extra features to the game. Instead of using the A button to flip through your inventory, they instead wish you to use L. Also now the R button controls sleep functions and I think pressing A will make the world explode (not really). Seeing that L and R were never on the NES to begin with, this makes things a bit more confusing. Once you figure out exactly how they want you to use the controls, it doesn’t become so bothersome.
This idea isn’t very innovative, especially since this game is dubbed “Super Mario Advance 4” and the last 4 times they’ve re-released a classic onto the Gameboy Advance. The reason they do this is because the younger gamers out there didn’t have much chance to really explore these brilliant games, and also because it’s very easy to put some effort into restoration and re-release it because you know it will rake in money. This is exactly what they did on the SNES with Mario All-Stars in 1993 and it mopped up.
Overall Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 is pretty faithful to the Mario All-Stars version in 1993 and does look quite snazzy on the GBA. If you need something to play and want a challenge, this game will give you that familiar challenge you crave. However, if you still know how to beat this game in under an hour or expect significant change since All-Stars, I would suggest looking for something else to play.
