This game is the third in the original trilogy of Mario games and, by far, I think that this is the best of them. While the other two (or three) all seem a little bit dated in areas, Super Mario Bros. 3 has gameplay and even graphics that will look fine by today’s standards.

This time, Bowser is not alone in his attack on the Mushroom Kingdom and each of its seven ‘worlds’ have be conquered by one of his seven Koopalings (who may or may not be his children). So Mario must travel across and liberate all of these worlds. Sadly, Peach and Toad are not playable in this game, but it does bring back Luigi in the capacity of a multiplayer character. I’ll talk more about that later.

For the first time in the Mario series, this game gives you a world map which therefore gives you a degree of choice about what levels to do. On the map there are things like Toad Houses where Mario can collect power-ups. This time around there are more power-ups than just the Fire Flower and Super Star of the first game. Here you also have a Super Leaf (which allows you to fly), a Frog Suit (which allows you to swim and jump better), a Tanuki Suit (which allows you to fly and become a statue) and many more exciting items. You’re also given the highly useful addition that is the ability to store items, meaning that if you are already Fire Mario and you collect a Super Leaf from a Toad House, you can save that Super Leaf for use on a harder level.

But I think the best thing about this game, is that it has a much bigger variety in every area than the first two Mario games. There are so many more levels which range from caves, to deserts, to oceans, to castles, to pyramids, to rivers and so forth. There are also several very exciting air ship levels, where Mario has to make his way across an air ship covered in canons and enemies in order to reach a Koopaling. Those levels are very hard, but they’re also very fun. Plus, not only does this game feature all the enemies from the original Super Mario Bros. but it also takes a few from Super Mario Bros. 2 and adds a whole lot of brand new ones. This truly adds to the feeling of travelling across a huge area.

As mentioned above this can all be done in multiplayer too and unlike the multiplayer in the first game, turns alternate every time somebody dies or wins a level, which means that you won’t have a huge wait on your hands if you’re playing with somebody who’s really good. You also play co-operatively, so, if one level is too hard for you, your partner might win it and then you can move on. The only downside is that Luigi looks just like Mario (only wearing green) and controls just like him too, which is a shame after he was made more unique in the second game. Nicely, this also provides you with a (greatly simplified) recreation of the original Mario Bros. game.

To this day, this is one of the best Mario games and it is certainly not to be missed. Rating: 9.4/10

After the success of the original Super Mario Bros. of course there was going to be a sequel. Interestingly, there were actually two ‘second’ games in the series, a Japanese one and an American one. The Japanese one was considered too hard for overseas gamers and so the rest of the world instead got a remake of the game Doki Doki Panic which had been changed to include Mario characters. This is a review of the American version, and while it is technically a remake, I will review it as its own entity and will hopefully get a chance to review the original at a later date.

Story-wise, this game differs quite considerably from all of the main Mario games; for one thing, Princess Peach isn’t kidnapped and is even playable! Here Mario dreams that he goes through a doorway and visits a strange world, then he wakes up and tells Luigi, Toad and Peach about it, only for them to discover the door in real life! It’s a bit weird, but nice.

This game has four playable characters and this changes up the gameplay quite a lot. First, there’s Mario. Mario fills his usual role as the ‘all-rounder’ and actually controls a lot better than he ever had before this point. Second, you have Luigi. Luigi is probably the character who requires you have the most skill to master. He jumps extremely highly, but he’s also very slide-y and float-y. Third there’s Toad. Toad’s a bit faster than the others, but he can’t jump as high (not very exciting). And finally Peach. For once she isn’t the damsel in distress and they’ve really taken it completely in the opposite direction by having her be the best of all the characters (at least in my opinion). Peach controls quite nicely (she isn’t slide-y or anything), she can jump quite high and she can also float in mid-air if you hold down the jump button. This skill is invaluable in the areas of trickier platforming and it’s what makes her my favourite.

But it’s not just the characters that I like about this game. Instead of the Mushroom Kingdom, this game takes place in a world called Subcon and the whole place looks a lot different. Instead of dirt roads and castles, you’ll be travelling through deserts (with an oasis or two), icy places and caves with rivers flowing through them. It all seems a lot more natural and has much more of an Eastern feel to it. Also, since this isn’t the Mushroom Kingdom, you won’t be finding Koopas or Goombas, but instead Shy Guys, Birdos, Pokeys and Bob-ombs in their place as the enemies, which is a refreshing change. Curiously, the attack system is also different, instead of jumping to squash them, you have to jump on them and then pick them up to throw them.

On the whole, this Mario game is sadly often over-looked and many elements of it have been forgotten. I personally prefer it over the original and find it to be very fun indeed. Unfortunately, there’s still no save system though so I suggest you play it with save states. Rating: 8/10

Buy it here.

While Super Mario Bros. is probably the most well-known game in the main Mario series, the Game & Watch game of the same title is perhaps the most obscure of all the side scrolling Mario games.

I’m sure you may think that, as this is a Game & Watch game, you can expect certain things of it, namely: all the action taking place in a one screen area, doing a simple task over and over which gets progressively harder each time and the main replay value being to beat your own high scores. Well, this game will totally subvert your expectations. It’s a side scroller and it has eight visually distinct levels of reasonable length. I was certainly very impressed by this.

All of the levels are auto-scrolling and require Mario keep going forward while avoiding getting ‘squashed’ between a wall and the left side of the screen. There are very few enemies (though occasionally a Bullet Bill or Fire Bar will appear) and it really is just a game of pure platforming. Things change a little in underwater levels, where Mario can move both up and down as well as left and right, and castle levels where he has to pass through several single screen segments and avoid Fire Bars. It’s very basic, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still fun. There are even a couple of pieces of music recreated from the NES game!

Story-wise I’m not entirely sure what is happening. Princess Peach is waiting for Mario at the end of every stage, and at the end of the eighth stage, there’s a small picture that looks a little like Bowser falling out of a castle (or something) but I really couldn’t tell. Those are the only hints to the plot. But then again, its story and how it fits in with other Mario games isn’t really important to a game like this and it’s a detail which will only really matter to fans like me.

This is a real curiosity of Nintendo’s past and is sadly very hard to come across, but if you get a chance, you should try this game.

Rating: 6.1/10

Snoopy Tennis is quite unusual in that it is one of the few Game & Watch titles which feature non-Nintendo characters. Instead, as you may have guessed, this game features characters from the popular Peanuts comic strip. Sadly, because of this, this is one game that will almost certainly not see a rerelease because of the copyright issues which would be involved, so, if you want to play this, you’re probably going to have to buy a (rare) original copy.

However, I don’t really see that there’s much reason to buy this game unless you’re a big Nintendo or Peanuts collector, because it just isn’t that good. You play as Snoopy and you have to return the balls hit towards you from Charlie Brown which can go towards one of three places where Snoopy can stand. When you return the balls, Charlie Brown never hits them back, but occasionally Lucy van Pelt will appear and return your shots. When Lucy hits the ball, it comes towards you much faster than when Charlie Brown hits it, so you have to be much faster about getting into place to hit it back and sometimes you’ll just be rallying the ball with her for a while.

That all sounds quite fun doesn’t it? Well, I’m sure it would be were it not for some big problems with the gameplay. Firstly, when you’re only returning the shots from Charlie Brown, they move incredibly slowly. Fairly often you’ll have a boring wait on your hands as the ball very slowly, and unrealistically, makes its way through the air towards you. I expect that makes the game sound very easy and it is when there’s only about one ball, but once Charlie Brown starts hitting several towards you and Lucy is hitting them back really fast, it gets far too difficult. The problem is that because of the limitations of a Game & Watch game, the balls move by freezing in one spot and then reappearing in another. Normally, while this may look a bit jerky, it’s not a problem, but because of this form of movement, I found it really hard to determine which ball was which after they ‘disappeared’ and since they’re all going at different speeds, it was difficult to know where to wait for the balls. There were also many times where multiple balls came towards Snoopy, but towards the different spots, so it seemed I had to miss one and therefore lose one of my three lives. What’s quite funny though, is every time you miss a ball, something breaks and it seems that Charlie Brown is going to be the one in trouble for it, so, you don’t get too annoyed at him.

On the whole, while the graphics are quite nice for a Game & Watch game, and it does double as a watch and alarm clock, there’s really not much point in getting this game (I’m sorry to say). It just doesn’t seem to work the way it should do.

Rating: 4/10

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)