275 · Super Mario Bros. 3
It's Super Mario Bros. 3
We had been waiting for this one since day one and cleared the whole night for it. Nothing in the 270-odd games before it comes close to this scale. We held the Essential Games List vote about ten minutes in, dessert before dinner, and spent the rest of the night on why.
What makes it essential
- It feels modern. Joe called it the first NES game that totally reads as something made today, visuals aside. There are ninety levels against thirty-two in the first game, and the controls beat anything the series had done.
- It never repeats itself. Every world runs the same loop of levels, castle, more levels, airship, and we argued that this is simply what a game is. What keeps it fresh is how each world bends the rules: giant land, the pipe maze world, and World 5, which looks short until you climb into the clouds.
- Power-ups with personality. The raccoon suit is the one we lean on, with Tanooki, Frog, Hammer and P-Wing around it. There is even an inventory, with an anchor, a cloud that skips a level, and a music box that puts the map's Hammer Brothers to sleep. The Boos only chase you when you look away.
- Small payoffs everywhere. The end-of-level roulette that pays five 1-ups for three stars, the wand dropping at the top of the bounce, and secrets that feel findable because something looks slightly off. The first warp whistle is the exception: you duck on a white block for several seconds and fall behind the scenery.
- Two-player that makes sense. You alternate, trade lives, steal cards, and drop into the Mario Bros. arcade game. If a player runs out of lives, everything that player cleared comes back. We liked it more than four people crowding one screen.
What bugs us
- No save. Joe's one complaint: he and his cousin used to leave the NES on overnight.
- Soft bosses. Boom Boom runs the same pattern every time, and the Koopalings feel like a break after the level before them. The roaming map enemies are scarier, and World 8's tank still gives us nightmares.
- Slidey physics and skippable levels. The raccoon tail can jump over a lot of the game, and World 6's ice makes the sliding worse. We also don't love the infinite 1-up Goomba trick.
Beyond the game
We covered the cut top-down Zelda-style idea, the stage-play framing (the manual calls levels "action scenes"), The Wizard as the game's unofficial trailer, the cartoon, and the Super Mario Advance 4 e-Reader levels that never left Japan.
The bottom line
Essential. We all voted it onto the Essential Games List, and we agreed it is the best of the three NES Mario games, even though Super Mario World keeps getting brought up as the better one. It may be the high point of the system, and we are a little sad it is behind us.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- NEW DIFFERENT WORLDS. NEW EXCITING LEVELS. NEW CHALLENGES GALORE
- NES Longplay
- EGL
- Of course
- What’s one thing you don’t like about Super Mario Bros 3
- The most satisfy
- Favorite Mini game?
- Mario is now known for power ups, but at this point it was just the Mushroom and Fire Flower. This game opened the floodgates
- Is the racoon suit too OP?
- The P meter
- Introduction of Boos
- The Koopalings or Bowser Jr
- Composers
- Originally his kids
- We went from 32 to 90 LEVELS
- How would you remake/remaster Super Mario Bros 3 today to sell it for $70
- The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3
- What a name for a show
- Followed the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, but without the live action segments
- Finale episode, Koopa becomes Super Koopa, kidnaps Luigi and takes him to Paris, France via the Warp Zone
- It’s all a stage play, good or bad idea
- Super Mario Advance 4 - scanning in certain cards, players could unlock new items and levels, including content originally from the other classic Mario platformers.
- Should they have called Super Mario World Super Mario Bros 4 in america?
- Next week - SUPER MARIO BROS 3
- NEStalgia Byte - Cocoron
Found automatically from the transcript and checked, but it can miss things or pick the wrong page. Spot a mistake? Tell us.
Games
- Super Mario Bros. 3 mentioned at
The episode's game: the 1988 Nintendo platformer with world maps, power-ups like the raccoon suit, and 90 levels.
- Super Mario Bros. mentioned at
The first NES Mario game, already voted onto the Essential Games List and compared throughout.
- Color a Dinosaur mentioned at
An earlier NES game the show has talked about so much it is a running in-joke.
- Super Mario All-Stars mentioned at
The SNES collection of remade NES Mario games, joked about as a future episode.
- Super Mario World mentioned at
The SNES follow-up with Yoshi and the cape, constantly compared with Super Mario Bros. 3.
- New Super Mario Bros. mentioned at
The modern side-scrolling Mario series that follows the Super Mario Bros. 3 format.
- Super Mario Bros. 2 mentioned at
The NES sequel the show counts as Super Mario Bros. 2, built from a different game and not by Miyamoto's main team.
- Mario Is Missing! mentioned at
An upcoming educational Mario game on the NES the hosts are unsure about.
- Mario's Time Machine mentioned at
An upcoming educational Mario game on the NES the hosts are unsure about.
- Super Mario Sunshine mentioned at
GameCube Mario game blamed for changing Bowser's backstory and the Koopalings' relationship to him.
- The Legend of Kage mentioned at
An earlier NES game used as an example of a stale gameplay loop.
- The Tower of Druaga mentioned at
Namco game invoked as a comparison for a game where failing a mini-game blocks progress; covered on the show's Bites feed.
- Sonic Adventure mentioned at
Used as an example of 3D Sonic games that grade you at the end of each level.
- Devil May Cry mentioned at
Series suggested as a better comparison for style-based scoring at the end of levels.
- Super Mario 3D World mentioned at
The game with the cat suit, mentioned as a modern Mario power-up.
- Super Mario Maker mentioned at
Level-building Mario game, the only modern 2D Mario one host has played.
- Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster mentioned at
Remastered re-releases of the early Final Fantasy games cited in the remake discussion.
- Dragon Quest III mentioned at
The RPG getting a modern remake in an Octopath Traveler style, used in the remaster discussion.
- Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 mentioned at
The Game Boy Advance remake with e-Reader levels, released with new content.
- Super Smash Bros. Melee mentioned at
Where one host learned Bowser is called Koopa in Japanese by switching languages.
- Abadox mentioned at
Next week's NES game.
- Adventures of Lolo 2 mentioned at
A game in an upcoming episode; the first Lolo is already on the Essential Games List.
- Al Unser Jr.'s Turbo Racing mentioned at
Another upcoming NES game, a racing game named for the driver.
- Barker Bill's Trick Shooting mentioned at
The Nintendo light-gun game that comes before Dr. Mario.
- Dr. Mario mentioned at
The next major Nintendo release the hosts will cover.
Hardware
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System mentioned at
Nintendo's 16-bit console, launched in North America in 1991 after the NES era.
- Game Boy Advance mentioned at
Nintendo handheld that got Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3.
- Nintendo e-Reader mentioned at
Game Boy Advance card scanner used to unlock extra levels and power-ups.
- Wii U mentioned at
Console whose Virtual Console release included the e-Reader levels, no longer sold.
People
- Shigeru Miyamoto mentioned at
The Nintendo designer behind Mario, credited for plussing up the first game.
- Michael Eisner mentioned at
The Disney CEO said to have personally blocked King Koopa's Kool Kartoons.
- Koji Kondo mentioned at
The composer of the Super Mario music, who struggled to follow up the first game.
Film, TV and music
- The Wizard mentioned at
The 1989 film that doubled as a trailer for Super Mario Bros. 3.
- The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 mentioned at
The 1990 animated TV series based on the game, with Bowser called Koopa.
- The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! mentioned at
The earlier half live-action, half-cartoon Mario show.
- Super Mario Bros. (film) mentioned at
The 1993 live-action movie the hosts compare to the live-action segments of the Super Show.
- King Koopa's Kool Kartoons mentioned at
A short-lived 1990s regional California kids show that was reportedly stopped by Michael Eisner.
Other
- Yoshi mentioned at
The dinosaur companion introduced in Super Mario World, mentioned as a reason one host prefers that game.
- Koopalings mentioned at
The seven Koopa kids who guard each world's airship, later retconned as Bowser's cousins.
- Hammer Bros. mentioned at
Wandering map enemies that feel like bigger boss fights than Boom Boom.
- Boo mentioned at
The ghost enemy introduced in Super Mario Bros. 3 that only chases you when you look away.
- NEStalgia Essential Games List mentioned at
The show's list of NES games that define the system; Super Mario Bros. 3 was voted on early in the episode.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Super Mario Bros. 3 New Different Worlds, New Exciting Levels, New Challenges Galore! Nostalgia!
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Guys, it seems crazy to say, but when we pitched the idea of this podcast and we're talking about NES games, I think there's one game everybody's familiar with, and that's Super Mario Bros. 1. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, I guess I could agree with that one, too. We've talked about Color a Dinosaur enough now that it's in the public lexicon. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it a lot. But that was us. But also Super Mario Bros.
1. Super Mario Bros. 1. And I think we all appreciated that and liked it and we voted it on the Essential Games list. But people were expecting maybe what Super Mario Bros. 3 brings to the table, but I don't even think they were expecting this much. This is a massive game. We are going to be talking for a long time. We have dedicated the entire night to talk about this game, so we will be using it.
And I just feel like there's a lot of excitement about getting to this episode, this episode in particular. It's the kind of thing you say, oh, that's going to be so far away and now we're here. I've been waiting for it since day one. I mean, like, this is, and like, I didn't know when you first like, pitched the idea of doing this podcast that it would take us, you know, what, four years to get here? But like, I can't believe we're already doing it.
Yeah, I thought we'd do them all in like a Super Mario All-Stars episode, but I'm not disappointed at where we're at. Well, when we get to the Super Mario All-Stars episode, you'll know that we've gone too far.
That will have been past the NES's lifespan. Technically, not really. I mean, if we start like, 1991's right around the corner when the Super Nintendo released in North America, but no plans to cover those games. Yeah, no, that was a joke. Right. We're just talking about Super Mario Bros. 3. And that leads me to my next point that I'll pitch to both you guys is, what can you say about Super Mario Bros. 3 that hasn't been said already? There's probably thousands of hours of YouTube essays on this game and written game magazines have talked about this game for so long as one of the greatest games of all time. Some people will tell you it is the greatest game of all time.
I don't know, like, it's one of those games that people wouldn't even necessarily disagree with people who have that opinion, right? Like, it's that uncontroversial to say that this is a good game that even if you don't think it's, like, your personal favorite game, you wouldn't, like, fight people who say it's a good game. It's, like, that kind of public knowledge. Yeah. It's just, it's enough of a consensus.
It's like saying that The Godfather is classic or that Citizen Kane is classic or that the Beatles are good. It's sort of passe at this point that this is a good game. Yeah. I mean, if, I think it's because this one is, it's going to sound cliche, but it's so timeless. And I feel like we've said that about other NES games and, and there have been other, there have been some NES games that were, like, really popular and were like, eh, it hasn't aged so well. But even the other games that we've said are timeless are not this timeless. Like, I, this is, for me, the first game on the NES that I've played that actually legitimately feels totally modern.
Like, like, I, I, that might be, like, a kind of a crazy take, but, like, I think that it's just, like, I, I would believe if you put this in front of me and said that this was made today, I would believe it other than, like, the, some of the obvious, like, visual, visual cues that it was made on the NES.
Joe, you bring up a great point because realistically, uh, Super Mario Bros. 3 is such a, uh, a giant push forward from the Super Mario Bros. 1 formula that, like, what have the new Super Mario Bros. games, uh, not the, not the 3D star collecting ones, but just the ones that follow this format, what have they really introduced that have changed Super Mario Bros. enough in the way that Super Mario Bros. 3 has, other than just introducing new power-ups? Are you gonna talk shit about Super Mario World right now? Well, hold on a minute.
That's a good question, though, Sean, right? Like, there are people who are Super Mario World or Super Mario Bros. 3, and I think that that's really sad, that people would have to pit two amazing games against each other. Like, they're, they're not different enough that it's not worth a discussion, but it's also, like, both games can be on your greatest of all times list and totally be valid. Oh, for sure. I mean, I definitely still have a preference if we want to talk about the, uh, the difference, and my preference is definitely this game.
Granted, now I'm going to be honest, this is the first video game I ever played. I was obsessed with it when I was a kid. I played it all the time. I mean, talking, I'm talking, like, brain-developing years. I was playing Super Mario Bros. 3. So, can't, can't discount that as a factor in why it, like, hits me so hard. Um, but I, I think that, uh, and I've never played as much of Super Mario World, so, uh, it's hard for me to really make that comparison. But, uh, I just love the, like, the, the look and feel of this game so much. Granted, the, the next one obviously made technical improvements and stuff, but this one just, it just sticks with me in some way.
Basically, everything that Joe said, you could just switch the two around, and that's me, because, uh, I grew up with Super Mario World, Super Mario World was my first video game, and yada, yada, yada, yada. But I still appreciate Super Mario Bros. 3. Yeah, and I think the, the number one thing that anybody can appreciate about Super Mario Bros. 3 is, you know, Super Mario Bros. is one of those games that, like, fundamentally, changed the game, right? It was, uh, it was a platformer, like, we hadn't seen before, and it was an adventure, like, uh, that wasn't done, and had so many clones after it.
And it's kind of crazy that we're at, you know, this is game 270-something, and we haven't seen a game take on this kind of scale. We've seen some features here and there, but we haven't seen something like Super Mario Bros. 3, so, like, it's crazy that, yet again, Shigeru Miyamoto and his team have, like, figured out how to plus up a game that was already groundbreaking, you know? I actually don't know which one I would think is more influential to video games, Super Mario Bros. 1 or Super Mario Bros.
3. I'd hazard a guess that the first one. Yeah. But, I mean, but I think that this built off it in, like, the best possible way to, like, keep that momentum going. I mean, think of how many games were, like, groundbreaking, and then sequels were good, and then they just slowly fizzled and whatever. But, like, I mean, even Super Mario Bros. 2, which we have decided on this podcast was a great game, but at the time, I think people were kind of, like, confused by it, you know? So, like, it could have easily just been, like, the end of that formula, and this feeling more like the actual true sequel to that original game just did nothing but improve on the mechanics.
So, we're just way too hyped about Super Mario Bros. 3 at the moment, and we're, you know, we're saying all these amazing things about it. I feel like the only natural place to go from here is to not waste anybody's time and see if Super Mario Bros. 3 is going to be on the essential games list.
Super Mario Bros. 3. That's right. We're doing it right at the top of the episode, but can this really be called the top of the episode if we're, like, 10 minutes in? I don't know. You decide. We're still going to do a whole episode after this. This is just a formality at this point, if you will, because I don't think it's, uh, I don't think it's right to the listeners to have you guys wait all the way to the end.
Dessert before dinner. There you go. Why not? I mean, you as a podcast listener, you just learned that you have that power. Sean just empowered you to eat your ice cream before your, uh, baby back rips. I don't know. It's a really weird dinner and dessert, but there you go. Um, hey, it only takes two hours to cook those things on the barbecue.
That's true. And it only takes about, I'd say, 20 minutes to find out that Super Mario Bros. 3 is one of the greatest games of all time. And, uh, yeah, it's a no-brainer. It's obviously one on the essential games list. Uh, there is so much to love about Super Mario Bros. 3, and hopefully we'll cover a good chunk of it in this episode. But even still, like, it's, it's not the kind of game that you shouldn't listen to us talk about it if you haven't played it yourself. Like, you just gotta go out there and feel this game out because this is, this is the example of a game that continues to evolve, reinvent itself, like, take ideas that it places and, and then change them in surprising ways.
Uh, as far as even, like, the world maps, like, there's creative solves there, too, where, um, one in particular, I think it's World 5, where it's like, oh, this is a shorter map. I wonder, like, what's going on here? And then you think you've, like, gotten to the end of the stage, and instead you've now, like, gone up to the sky, and there's the second half of the world that's now, you know, like, world maps are even, uh, changing and dynamic in this game. Like, that's so cool.
There are so many things to love about the game. The controls are even better than they ever were in Super Mario Bros. 1 or 2, for that matter. So, it's kind of funny to say this, but I'm in the camp of Super Mario Bros. 3, not only being an essential game, but being the best of the three, followed by two, followed by one. So, we've only ever gotten better Super Mario Bros. games on this system so far. Uh, verdicts out on, uh, when we get to Mario is missing and, uh, Mario's time machine, if those games will continue to push the envelope and be better than these Super Mario Bros. games. But right now, I think my order is 3, 2, 1.
But since we brought it up already, I'll just mention that, yes, Super Mario World is a better game. Guys, it's a no-brainer. Super Mario Bros. 3, um, you know, like, there's not much different from World. But World introduces Yoshi and has the cape, and the levels get, like, really, like, even more crazy and more dynamic. And they even created, like, super challenging extra stages for expert players. I love stuff like that. So, yes, I am going Super Mario World. But that's not the point of this essential games list vote. This is still one of the greatest games of all time.
Joe? Yeah, I mean, I gotta echo almost all of that, where, you know, it's just, there's so much to discover in this game, not just in the levels, on the world map. There's different ways you can play it. I mean, you can play this game, you can play this game a hundred times and still find, like, new things. There's just, like, every level has secrets in it, and the levels feel like they are just completely designed around fun. And like I said, when I was a kid, I played this game all the time, and I know in the past I've talked about how, like, I had an NES as a kid, but, like, I didn't play a lot of
games. It was because I was playing this game. And, like, there were, like, so many times I wasn't able to, like, understand the nuances of it at the time, but, like, there were so many times I would put in another game, and I just was always like, well, this isn't, this isn't on the same level. It doesn't feel as good to play as Super Mario Bros. 3, and I really think that was because Super Mario Bros. 3 is so ahead of its time, it feels like it's just a much more polished game. Um, I'm definitely putting this on the essential games list early here in this episode.
Um, and as far as my opinion between Super Mario World, I, like I said, I've never actually beaten Super Mario World, so it's really not a fair assessment on my part. Maybe if I gave it more of a chance, I would have a different opinion. But for me, in at least the first few, you know, first few worlds, I always felt like there was just a little more of a challenge in this game. Hard, take that with a grain of salt, because like I said, I never got, maybe it gets way more challenging later in the game. Um, also, I just love the art style in this game, and the, uh, all the, a lot of the Super Nintendo, Nintendo games felt, like, a lot more, like, rounded and, like, I don't know,
more kiddy? Kiddy? Which, like, obviously that's weird to say, because it's obviously very kiddy, but that was just my, like, young kid brain having that, like, visceral reaction right away. But yeah, essential, for sure. And Joe, just to follow up, because we also mentioned, or at least I mentioned, my order. What is your order for the Super Mario Brothers trilogy?
Same as yours, uh, 3-2-1. Alright. Love one, but it, it, it, it just, you can feel the, um, the places that it improved on in the future, like, not being able to backtrack and things like that. Um, and then two, just being so unique and different. Like, it's hard for me, like, 3-2-1 is definitely my order, but it's weird putting two in there at all. It's such a different game. But yeah. Right, right.
And, and I do want Sean to, to talk, so I'm gonna have him vote next. But I think, like, the thing about one, because people will say, like, oh, what are you saying about one? Like, it, it's an essential game too. It's like, yeah, it is. But it's probably mostly because it's a significantly shorter game. If, if Super Mario Bros. 1 was the length of Super Mario Bros. 3, but controlled the way that Super Mario Bros.
1 does, and didn't have world maps and all that, and, um, was, you know, like, a little more punishing. I don't, I, I don't think it would hold up as well as it does. Like, it, half the fun is that it lays down just enough time that you can always pick it up, and it's fun to, to pick it up from the very beginning and start at World 1-1 over and over again, no matter how many times you've played it.
Uh, with that said, Sean, please, we'd love to hear your vote. Um, I, I do, I do think it's funny that, uh, Super Mario World is suddenly on trial, but I understand, um, I, I, that's still, that's still gonna be my number one after this episode, but, um, and I don't, I didn't actually have a list prepared, I, in terms of order, but 3-2-1 does sound right, but I, I kinda also lean towards 3-1-2, but, well, what does it matter, you know? This is for Mario Bros. 3. Um, yeah, I, I have pretty much the same, uh, praises to sing.
Um, I, I really appreciate the variety of gameplay in this game. Um, again, like, this isn't, this is one of the few games that we played for this playlist, this playlist, this podcast, that I do actually have some, uh, personal history with, not too much, because I was just some tyke with, uh, Super Mario All-Stars and didn't really know why these were all in, like, one game, and, like, what is the story here, but now actually, you know, becoming, uh, sort of a lay expert on these games, just by virtue of playing hundreds of NES games, knowing the historical significance, and, uh, no, this is just a fun game, and I'm, I'm not gonna go through all the specifics right now, like you guys did, but I agree, this is an essential game.
Great, so we got the hard stuff out of the way right off the bat, uh, for anybody who was concerned, this podcast thinks that Super Mario Bros. 3 is a must-play, and it is on the essential games list, and now, we're going to, uh, talk about a bunch of things, Super Mario Bros. 3, and I would like to start with maybe my most challenging question, and you must answer it, you can have fun with it or not, but you must answer it. We'll start with Joe.
What's one thing you don't like about Super Mario Bros. 3? One thing I don't like, I did write something down somewhere. Oh, see, it's hard. Okay. Here's something that I can see people saying as a flaw, it doesn't answer your question,
because I do like it, because I'm so used to it. I know people talk about this game, of the Mario games, being the most slidey feeling of the physics, and I think that that, I can't remember exactly how worlds controls, but as far as the NES games, that is, I think, definitively true. I like it, again, because it's like, literally, like, that's like, when I developed motor skills was learning this game, so like, I'm very used to it, but I can understand that as a
criticism. Something I don't like about this game, okay, here's what I don't like about this game. I think it would, it just needed a battery. I would just like to be able to save it. So many times in my life, I was like, me and my cousin used to play this game all the time, and we'd be like, let's play through this game, and we would have to, like, leave the
NES on, like, overnight if we couldn't get through it all, or, like, try and, like, you know, don't let anyone touch it, because especially by the time we were playing it, you know, it was an old NES, so it was very finicky. If anyone, like, breathed wrong, the game would reset. So, like, that is something, I don't know if that's, like, a cop-out, because it's not really gameplay or game design related, but I wish that there was a save system, even a password system or something in this game. I think that's totally valid. Sean, what's your one thing you don't like?
I'm gonna, you know, start this with a recollection of my childhood memories. I always remember this one feeling, like, I know we joked about this before we recorded, but, like, as the most haunted, like, this, there's something really strange about the feel of this game, and I think I was a little uncomfortable playing it when I was a kid. I don't know if it's, like, the whole, like, the whole play aspect of it, or, like, just
the subtle difference in art style, and the world map had just, like, things crawling on it, and you weren't really sure what they were at the beginning, and it just feels kind of cursed. And I don't think that now, but there is still some part of the developed part of my brain that does have those memories. Anyways, um, aside from that, I guess, like, I, and I know that this is sort of up to you as the player, but I think it still counts as a critique in my modern experience, but,
uh, you can miss a lot of this game, not even just the secrets, like, you could just sort of skip the level in a lot of situations, and I know that that's always sort of been a thing, like, you could jump worlds in one, um, and so on and so forth, but just the fact that if you've got the raccoon suit, and you get a little bit of speed, and you can just jump over a lot of stuff, I always thought that that was strange, but this is such a nitpick that it doesn't really matter, so that's, you asked for it, and you got it.
Oh, and I appreciate it, but Sean, I can't help, as somebody who also said Super Mario World is the better game, I can't help but, like, laugh, because isn't that, like, the whole complaint about the cape is that it's even worse, it's like magnified, you can skip over the entire levels when you build up enough, uh, speed with the cape. You asked for a critique, and you got one. Thank you, thank you, okay.
Um, and then my one thing I don't like about Super Mario Bros. 3, and I did, I didn't have to think about this, this is, this is what brought the question up, is that I was playing the game, and I said, this is probably the one thing I don't like about Super Mario Bros. 3, and that is that when you get to the mid-boss in every single world, where you fight Boom Boom, the, um, like, not quite Koopaling, like, I don't know if he's, like... Bosses are way too easy.
Yeah, but not even, I'm not even talking about, like, the Koopalings, like, at least those guys change up, like, what kind of platforms they're on, you know, so it's like, okay, well, how am I gonna get around them or whatever? They're still, they're still way too easy. But Boom Boom is literally the same every single time. It's not challenging. Even, like, eight-year-old me was able to figure out that, like, as soon as he, like,
puts his spikes up, you just have to count, like, one second, and then you could immediately bop him on the head again. And it's crazy that, uh, this might have changed in the very last encounter with Boom Boom. I might be making that up in my head. I might be remembering a difference in my brother's game. But, like, otherwise, they never, like, they never defy your expectations on that.
They never make it, like, oh, and now you're about to jump on him, and psych, he does it again, like, and now you got, you lose your power up, like. It is a bummer, because I actually, so, I do that all the time, too, where it's like, I just jump, he goes down, and, like, literally, I jump again immediately, and the amount of time I'm in the air is enough time that when I land, it hits him again. So, it's like, there's literally no danger of him hitting me at all.
Kind of a bummer, because there are actually, I don't know how many, but there are change-ups in Boom Boom. Like, one of them has wings at one point, and, like, if you're not using that strategy, which I didn't for a long time when I was a kid, because I just didn't figure it out, um, it's actually kind of, like, scary. All of a sudden, he just starts flying. It, like, freaks you out, like, because you're like, oh, shit, like, what do I do next?
But, unfortunately, yeah, it is designed in a way where you can just totally cheese it immediately and never see any of that. And it's funny when you think about, uh, the, you know, the Sean was talking about how it's a little curse that things are moving on the world map. Like, you can run into the Hammer Brothers or the Boomerang guy, and it's like, those feel like much bigger boss battles, for me at least, than the, you know, like, they feel like, oh, shit, I could lose my raccoon suit if I'm not careful if I run into these guys. Whereas with Boom Boom, it's like, all right, I just gotta, like, stay on my half of the stage at the very, at the, at the most.
Yeah, I agree. Those, those, um, Boomerang people are really, anything that's walking around on the map is, like, more challenging, definitely than Boom Boom, and probably than most of the Koopa kids. Although I do, there are later Koopa kids, if that's what they're called, that, uh, I do think give me a little bit of a challenge.
Joe, you're right. They are Koopa kids, and then later, uh, retconned into Koopa-lings, which is what I called them, because they were, they were originally Bowser's kids, and then somewhere along the line, they were like, actually, Bowser Jr. is Bowser's kid, and the Koopa-lings are just cousins of Bowser, and it's like, you made a whole game where that wasn't true, and people love that game, so why would you change that, you know?
It's not like it, like, if anything, Super Mario Sunshine is the bad game. Uh-oh, I said it, but it's true. Super Mario Sunshine is the bad game, and they shouldn't have, uh, tried to change Bowser's story for that game, when Super Mario Bros. 3 had already established, uh, lore that contradicts it. I'm gonna hard agree with that, even though I have not played Super Mario Sunshine and know nothing about the lore. And the Koopa-lings, since we're on the subject.
They, are they cool? I, I, I said that at least, you know, the way that you fight them is slightly altered from one another, but it is still the same idea, right? Bop them on the head, wait for them to come out of their shell, and then bop them on the head again. Do you need it to be any more challenging, though, really? Yeah, honestly, the, the game, the, the going into those, uh, those castles, like, yeah, the level itself may be pretty difficult. Um, but, the actual boss actually felt like a, a relief moment, so I don't think that was the intended effect, so, probably not for the best.
See, I'm, maybe I'm, I'm just particularly bad at those bosses, but, like, other than the boom-boom ones, which, like you said, like I said, you could cheese. These, those, those main, the Koopa kids, they, like, their timing is different enough that, like, if I get through the whole level, which I will agree that the, the level itself usually is harder of those ships with the cannons and everything, but if I get through the whole level and get to it, I am, like, a little bit like, oh shit, like, this is gonna be, like, if I'm small, if I don't have Super Mario, if I'm just, like, regular small Mario, I'm, like, I'm in danger. Just because, like, I'm, like, they change it up enough.
And, like, I've played this game so many times, but I still forget, like, which one's which, that there's, like, one that, when he lands, you can't move for a couple seconds because there's, like, shockwave, and there's one where, like, the projectiles bounce all over the place, and, like, those, those change-ups always get me.
People who say Super Mario Bros. 3 is an easy game, uh, must be very good at not losing power-ups because, yeah, it's a very easy game when you're Raccoon Mario or Tanooki Mario or Frog Mario or whatever Mario, right? But, like, if you're the small Mario, you're always just one bad move or, or misplaced enemy away from dying. And so I think that is pretty challenging. Playing as Frog Mario was actually playing hard mode, though, so. Unless you're in water, yeah.
I was just trying to list off power-ups. Do people say what, Joe? Is that a common thing, that Super Mario Bros. 3 is an easy game? No, no. I consider myself pretty good at this game compared to any other NES game, and, like, I played through this once this, this past week with a friend of mine, and it took us a while, we had some stuff, but now that I got, like, my muscle memory of it back, played through it again, I can get through most of, like, the first five levels, the five worlds
pretty easily, but, like, those last, like, seven and eight, there's some challenging stuff, especially eight. Eight is a nightmare. Well, I'll just say right off the bat that I was not able to. Get even past World 4.
So, uh, even there, there's some difficulty, but I'm a historically bad video game player, so. I think people just say that it's an easier game because it is one that you can complete, and there are many NES games that, if you're not good at NES games, you just can't get very far in. But, Joe, I completely agree with you. People who say that this game is easy are talking about World 1, 2, maybe 3.
They're not, they don't even get to World 8, and that World 8 tank, to this day, still gives me nightmares. Like, it's so hard. It's just such a hard level that if you don't have, if you don't have the right power up going into it, I feel like, for me, that's, like, a thing where I've gotta, I've gotta figure out, like, okay, well then what is my game plan? Like, how many lives do I have?
Yeah, exactly. You have all these, like, variations of that tank, which are basically just variations of the ship levels at the end of every world. You got, like, six of them, or something, or four of them, or something, and then level one. Like, you gotta go through all these things, and they're like, oh, there are actual stages in this, too? So, like, that always just, like, is discouraging. Right, but that's thematically really, it's thematically really cool that you're basically going through the Koopa Armada, you know? Absolutely, yeah.
And so, you know, that brings me to my next point. This is not a belief I have, but I think it's worth the discussion since we're all, you know, so positive on the game. Could you explain, potentially, if there is somebody listening to the show, I'm not saying that this person exists, if there was someone on the show who didn't like this game, could you explain why it's okay that basically all the worlds follow the same format of just, you know, three levels, then a mid-castle, then a couple more levels, then an airship,
you know, rinse and repeat with some mini-games in between? Can you explain? So you're saying that that's the only problem that they'd have with this game? Well, I'm saying that it gets, you could see that as a gameplay loop. You could see that as a very repetitive thing, where it's like, okay, I beat, you know, we've had that complaint before, that, like, once you beat the gameplay loop, you just get thrown into the next set of levels, and I think that somebody would say that, like, yeah, this game's great, but you just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I would say to that person that that is all video games.
I'd say that's a pretty long loop. I mean, it takes, they're relatively short levels, but if you add all of the, all of those levels together and adding in the mini-games and taking into account you dying and having to play them again, like, I'd say that that's a lot of variety put into a standard play session, and I don't, I would say that that is not a valid argument. Yeah, I mean, the game is levels, so, like, the loop of being like, oh, you finished this, you're just thrown into more levels, is like, yeah, that's just more of the game.
But, like, as far as, like, the world map feeling repetitive, I, personally, I don't think that that matters so much. One, because it's just really sort of a vehicle to get you to each level. It's a framing device, yeah.
Yeah, exactly, and we have talked about already how, like, the levels just, they, you could be almost done with the game and they just throw something new at you, like, there's even, like, things that are just, like, one-off game design elements. I like the big world, yeah. Yeah, where it's like, there's always, like, something new or some new trick or some new, like, way to approach a level that keeps it fresh in that sense. But as far as, like, the world map thing goes, even each world map is, like, I mean, there are secrets and differences on that. We're like, oh, my God, now all of a sudden there's two. The secret island over here, yeah. Mid-world dungeons in each one, yeah, the secret island in the second world and, like,
you know, like, power-ups that appear and stuff. And there's even, like, things that for years, I mean, literally decades of me playing this game, suddenly I see, like, new things. There's, like, that, um, I mean, there's, like, a secret mushroom hut where you can get, like, an anchor power-up that I never knew about for so long. And actually, I think I learned about it, like, a couple years ago and totally forgot
about it and just saw it again while researching for the game. And I'm like, how have I played this game so many times and never organically come across that? So, like, I guess my point is that there's just, it's not repetitive. It's just, like, you know, like, I guess it is, like, literally on some sense, but I think that it's always throwing something new at you.
Yeah, no, 100%. I think that's what I would say, too, to anybody who thinks that, like, you know, it's 90 levels, first off, which is crazy that we went from 32 in Super Mario Bros. 1 to 90 unique levels in this game. But also that through each world, like, even just the layouts of the world are different. Like, when you get to World 4 where Sean got to, now it's, like, everything is giant. Like, so even just the types of enemies and the layouts of the levels change between, like, when you get to the Iceland and now everything's even more slippery.
Like, what keeps the game fresh over and over again, despite just moving through a map of, you know, level, level, level, castle, level, level, level, airship. Like, what keeps the game so fresh is that they're constantly changing the, you know, the elements around you in a way that isn't just, okay, well, here's another, you know, like, if anything, Super Mario Bros.
1 would have that complaint more because they, they, there's every video game would have that complaint to some extent. Well, I just, yeah, I don't think that, though, because I think we've made that argument about other games that, like, yeah, like, this is the game and then, like, you know, then you go on to the next level.
But the, the gameplay loop itself is stale. But I'm saying, I think Super Mario Bros. 3, the gameplay loop never gets stale because even if you are just going from beginning to end, the way you do that on a level to level basis, on a world to world basis, completely changes. Yeah. In a way that's exciting. Unlike, you know, I guess for a really bad example, like the Legend of Kage for me. Like that, you know, you are, there are completely different levels.
Yeah. But the, the gameplay loop of getting from the beginning and the end to those stages is very frustrating and not fun. And so I don't want to do that again after I've done it once, you know, let alone 90 times.
Exactly. That's why I'm saying if you have that complaint for this game, then you would find that fault in all games. Thanks. you don't go very long in this game without like a little dopamine hit you know it's like there's a there's a slot machine game that you come across a lot there's like the little mushroom hunts with power-ups there's like a card game where you match the cards there's always like a little thing that's like oh this is a fun little like almost like gambling moment where i can get some power-ups i like that also probably uh contributes the card matching one is for me the the most fun but also
the most frustrating because the other ones are are instant gratification things where you either you either line up the puzzle or you didn't you either collect uh the power-up in uh chest number one or two or three but you can't get the other two the matching the cards is like this thing that happens over the span of an entire world map and it's like you're expected to remember but you're only given like enough guesses to definitely be wrong the first time you know like you there's not enough time you only get two guesses and there's 15 things to match it's like knock it off
but the good news is that all those mini games are inconsequential a bad video game again a bad video game would make it so that the matching card thing is like if you didn't match it you lose a life yeah or like if you didn't get the prize from it you can't beat bowser right right right like tower of draga vibes yeah which is on our bites uh feed if you're like what the heck like no no you didn't miss an episode you'd have to be on the bites for that and i'm just plugging shit um on a very special episode of nostalgia anyway so
so
be be specific here there are a lot of things that you could describe in this game as satisfying and most people would talk about for better or for worse the you know the weight of mario and the and the sliding mechanics in this game but just whatever it is that you find most satisfying about super mario brothers 3 uh a particular enemy a thing mario does a particular power up what scratches that itch for you the most um no matter how many times you boot up this game joe
i mean so many things i feel like honestly like i almost feel like i like i'm trying to like not just gush about this game but like it really just has such a place in my heart that like honestly everything like literally kicking a turtle kicking a koopa troopa rather or whatever uh in this game just like sounds and feels like it sounds like i sound like really like sadistic like i love kicking these helpless animals but kicking a koopa koopa troopa like turtle shell at something else and knocking into something else like the sound it makes and the feeling like of like the physics of it just like
feel really good but then also like at the end of each level i mean if you haven't played this game play it but like if you have it just so you know at the end of the level instead of like jumping on a flagpole there's this little slot machine thing that's rotating between star mushroom fire flower
really fast and you pick one and if you get for three levels in a row you get three stars you get a five level ups and there actually is like a a method to making sure you get the one you want like there's a there's a spot you got to hit the the box at the right speed and everything but getting three stars in a row and getting those five level ups is very satisfying for me um yeah i in terms of just a specific moment or moments in this game i'd say uh when you've beaten a boss and they drop the uh they drop the wand just like timing that perfectly right at the apex of the bounce of the wand and then hearing the music change to that whole like kind of dreamy like i'm falling back to earth to give this
back to a weird uh king that's very satisfying i've always i i find that like yeah that that gives me that gives me some kind of fuzzies um and then on a more uh general concept level uh all of the designed moments of i mean i guess that's also a design moment of of satisfaction for the player but anytime you see like oh i wonder if there's something over here there almost always is um
whether it's like a hidden block or uh just something you too high to normally be drawn on the screen but if you you jump a little bit it's there and you got this whole other platform with some goodies on it just those little moments i'd say uh are very satisfying the most satisfying moment in this game of which you both have noted there are many is when you um have your p meter
like at full capacity and you're at the end of the stage and you hit the uh you know well it's like a uh it cycles through star mushroom and flower in a box and if you have your p meter at full and you hit it at just like the uh bottom left of the box you are guaranteed a star it happens every single time three of those stars lights up a uh firework animation where it like shoots up into the sky the camera tracks with it it blows up a big star and you get five one-ups and that is such a
satisfying thing to happen um doesn't necessarily happen often in the later stages but early on it's very easy to make sure that you end especially because there's very little pitfalls and stuff like that and you're mostly rocking the raccoon suit it's very easy to see that animation a few times and it feels good and it keeps me motivated to continue to collect stars and not just like you know it's it's the same thing as like with the flagpole in the original super mario brothers one it's like you want to you want to pull down the flagpole from the top you don't want to just jump into the end of the
level you want to finish the level with style which is another cool thing about this game most games you're just happy with beating the level i i think it's hard to say that like yeah in this game i want to finish with style like there's not too many games uh you know a weird comparison is like the sonic adventure games or all the 3d sonic games like they give you a score at the end of the level
uh and you you want to get the s one right you don't want to just finish with like a c that that feels bad it feels like yeah i beat the level but like on what grounds yeah i would associate that with uh i guess more devil may cry because i sonic's just not my style but i get you i hear you it felt right to compare sonic to mario i i don't see the connection yeah devil may cry i think is devil may cry is
better closer to mario did any of us uh mention the whole like you know in the original game uh the koopa troopa infinite one-up glitch in this game it's just much easier to like constantly jump on goombas that are coming out of warp pipes but use the raccoon suit to to float in the air until the next goomba comes out and then get one-ups that way that's like another thing that's like i think some people would say that's satisfying for me that's just like uh i don't know if i need that many lives in my life you you have mentioned two situations in this segment that like you seem to be taking for granted that we all know but i did not know
the one-up glitch and then like the specific mechanics to to guarantee a star were both unknown to me uh the one-up glitch i always forget about but i will say that i i do think that's a flaw
because if you don't do that i mean i guess it is legitimate because it's in the game but if we consider it illegitimate like if you don't do that there are so many legitimate ways that are really fun and and as satisfying as all these other things we've been talking about to get like a ton of extra lives one of them just being the one you just described mike of the of the getting three stars at
the end but there are so many secret hidden hidden ways to get these extra lives that like clearly so much thought and care were put into like having every level have like these secrets or at least most levels have these secrets and like you feel good when you find it and sean like you said like there's always it's never like impossible to find because there's always like a feel like oh i bet you there's
something over there because something looks a little different over there like sometimes it even feels like subconscious but it's like oh like that block's sticking out weird i bet you i can like jump off of that onto something else or whatever and it's it so like it feels like that glitch that you're glitch that uh hack that you're describing mike is like takes away from that if you know how to
do that because it's like well why should i do that if just in literally level two i can use this glitch to get as many lives as i want as long as i get them within the time limit right right yeah i don't condone it either joe i agree with you disavowed i don't think you need i don't think you need 99 lives this isn't that kind of game you know like that's that's for the person who's already beat this game and now just wants to like try something different
so mario is known for the power-ups uh but only like only like looking backwards right like i feel like in zoomer brothers one it's the mushroom is is a cool power-up that makes a bigger man like that's a that's a funny thing and you know we take that for granted that like he's a you know you eat a mushroom and you become bigger and now that's like the true mario form like whatever that's funny that's silly and then there was the fire flower which felt really powerful
in the first game in zoomer brothers three i want to avoid the fire flower at all costs yeah like i do not want day every day yeah so uh one is the raccoon suit to op for the game and um two what's your favorite power-up i i think i'd say that the raccoon suit like it feels wrong to play this game without maining the raccoon suit it's like uh uh i don't know i i there's definitely an analogy here but like playing something with that made all of these innovations and then like going to a
restaurant going to a mcdonald's that's got the mcrib and you know you've been waiting for the mcrib but you're just gonna get a big mac you know you want to go with the new thing so wait a minute is the raccoon suit the the raccoon suit is the mcrib okay i thought maybe like some of these other rarer ones were the mcrib well i meant like you know because there hasn't been a raccoon suit before gotcha the um the frog is the uh like a mick milkshake that doesn't actually come out this shamrock it's the shamrock shape yes um i i i mean i do i'll say i think that the raccoon suit is the
most maybe not necessarily the most useful but the most useful thing that is normally accessible like i guess the tanuki suit is like definitively a better version of the raccoon suit but the the yeah the raccoon tail is like you should main that and i've always agreed that like i generally avoid the fire flower in this game literally until this week when i played through it there were a couple times where i was like i guess the fire flower i've never i've always been so pro raccoon suit that like there
are some levels uh world three like level three where there's that giant cheap cheap fish jumping around he kills you in one hit no matter what that always gave me so much trouble and it just like dawned on me like if i just have the fire flower there i'll just kill that thing like every time it comes back i just kill it again and it's like actually not that hard of a level when i was replaying it uh today so like there are some times where i will say that uh i go fire flower but yeah
raccoon suit is the best one that you can get frequently yeah frequently is a good point too joe because i think when people think of the power-ups in this game you would think of super mario fire mario raccoon mario there is tanuki mario which um at first i was like is this just a different skin like what's what's the like isn't this just raccoon mario but now he's like full uh raccoon like you know like in a suit uh but no he can also turn into a statue uh to avoid enemies which is
really cool uh a really cool idea but you don't get that often so when you get that that feels like extra special uh also hammer brothers mario which um besides being able to throw hammers which is a really cool thing i wish i wish you could just be every kind of enemy in this game like i just wish you could turn into you know koopa troopa mario like that would that would be interesting to uh move hammer brothers mario sort of is koopa troopa mario because you're in like a shell you can duck down into your shell and protect yourself yeah yeah you can even shield yourself from the fireballs which is cool but i guess what i meant is like koopa troopa mario could like uh move faster
in the shell but like you know and like wipe through enemies that way but maybe like there'd have to be another there'd have to be a reason why you wouldn't just use that all the time i i they should they should try and like try and find a way to work his hat into that concept too like that would be pretty cool little koopa helmet hat no like you use your hat and then you can okay it went over my head for a second like most hats do but now i got it
and it was funny when we're talking about the power-ups is whether whether the raccoon mario is um is too good or not it's it's it's either something that you can lose very frequently if you're not being careful with it right so it does require a certain amount of skill to be able to main it granted they do give it to you a lot but also this whole thing of you know raccoon mario tanuki mario frog mario hammer mario even p-wing mario which is probably the most op one because it gives you indefinite p power but also you get to be raccoon mario so it's like that's the one that you really want all these to say that like i guess that's the point i was making earlier is like future
mario games are just going to be like yeah and now um he has uh he's a helicopter and now he's you know like now he has a cape it's like it's interesting that this game really like went to town on the like on the levels and the power-ups and like how they work together and then the other game just kind of say like well here's here's one new thing like it's like man this game really front-loaded mario power-ups and how we see them yeah i mean i haven't played admittedly a much modern mario honestly past super mario world i haven't played i don't think any uh like side-scrolling mario
other than like levels in mario maker but from what i understand it seems to be like it's mostly like references and callbacks to older marios rather than like i don't know i've seen like isn't there one where you can turn to like a cat or something yeah cat mario and look look that's great and it's a whole like cat mario is different because that's like a 3d mario game so it is kind you know it's not
like in the super so like there's the new super mario brothers games which totally are you know working off the super mario brothers 3 format and then what you're saying with cat mario is kind of like super mario brothers because it's less like super mario 64 if that makes sense it's more like super mario brothers but it's 3d so it's not really like super mario brothers 3 uh that said yes the cat power up at the end of the day really is just another new power up uh that this game really introduced the idea of power ups too is what i'm getting around to
so
and it's also this game the introduction of the booze the ghosts that uh only follow you when you are not looking at them i you know there are other enemies in this game that are in the mario lore that uh still like show up from time to time and stuff like that but the booze are definitely the most famous introduction but also what an amazing idea for for an enemy like a ghost that is shy uh when you look at it it's just such a smart idea yeah this is uh but i i think one of
my the sounds that are are most uh easy to call back in my childhood memory brain is like that creaky door from the haunted houses in super mario world and seeing them because i could totally forgot that that they were in this game seeing them here kind of like gave me that whole nostalgia for it um um i i think it's a brilliant uh little piece of micro ai uh that that adds to certain natural
puzzles in the level design here i i think it's cool that they're they're they're not just making oh this is a cool enemy who shoots another thing at you like a lot of these enemies are like oh you have to think about this enemy differently than you did anything else and the booze and those flames that do the same thing they like walk at you when you're not looking like yeah it's just an interesting concept where you have to be running through the level but also focusing on like keeping like you're literally keeping these ghosts at bay by facing them gives it gives me like good anxiety because it could be like video game anxiety we're like oh no like what do i do next you have to face
your fears yeah exactly yeah and and it's like twofold like first it is a um you know an anxiety thing where you're like oh there this boo is going to tag me like i'm going to get caught and then once you get familiar with the enemy it becomes this thing where you're like strategically like as soon as you're getting in front of them you're like staring right at them you know it's like nope don't come any closer you know like once you've figured them out then it becomes a new game of like well you know now that i know how to keep them away how do i manage that while going forward there's there's two ways to play it which which is another cool thing about you know any enemy in this game is that
unlike you know koopa troopas it's like you can you can hit them and and take them out and use them to clear blocks or whatever or you can just outright avoid them like so many other enemies in this game it's a choice to avoid them or not the the booze you don't get that choice you can't defeat the booze unless you have the star power so you have to choose whether to have them chase you and just be faster and rush through the level or play this game of like peekaboo with them yeah whoa that's the name of the enemy whoa other than the power-ups too there are items in this game that are uh unique
to this game and that you can collect and store in your inventory another really cool thing uh who would have expected an inventory in a super mario brothers game i certainly uh wasn't expecting that when i was a kid and and it's really fun to uh forget about it for a while and then like get to the later stages and be like shit i have all these awesome power-ups and you can use them on the world map too uh with because there's certain obstacles uh like if you there's there'll be like a rock pile in your way you can use the hammer to clear that out and get to maybe there's a a little mushroom house
to you know to gamble a little bit uh it's it's a cool aspect because yeah i did forget that i had all these things for a while yeah it feels really good to collect those and i mean i'll i'll say like later in the game especially even not even that late in the game like i said uh like earlier today i got decently far uh without too much challenge because i was using all these power-ups all the time like it for me at least the way i play the game it's important for me to have at least one power-up as a safety net so like it's nice when you get like okay this level's hard i can always have a power-up
stock and you really feel it when you run out of items in your inventory and there's a few unique items that i wanted to call out um the anchor which joe mentioned earlier that uh locks an airship in place on the world map which will be useful in some of the worlds the uh cloud uh that you can use to skip a level if it's too hard you can just use the cloud to go over it and can i can i just jump in and say that cloud is definitely and has always been a tooth in my mind yeah i always thought it was a tooth the tooth power-up and then like one day i like realized some of the clouds look like it
the uh music box which will uh put enemies to sleep the enemies not in the levels themselves but the hammer brothers and such that are on the world map and probably the most famous of any item in super mario brothers 3 the magic whistle which is this game's version of the warp zones uh does anybody actually use these ones like i feel like in super mario brothers it's so it's so obvious like when
you're in uh the underground levels like world 1 2 and such you you can see where the warp zone leads to it feels natural i just i have to jump over it every time like i i feel like i never play world 1 3 when i go back and play super mario brothers these days just because it's like it's so obvious but with the warp whistle uh with the magic whistle to get to the warp zones it's a little more involved and so i just kind of say i don't think i need to do this yeah you know what like i i always get them
because in my like in my weird brain which is like just totally making shit up like somebody will like burst into my room and be like did you use the warp whistles and i'll have to prove to them that they're still in my inventory like i would always get it like in case somebody ever asked i could be like no i got here without the whistles but uh it's funny i have in my notes that all the
secrets are like unlike like puzzles in some other games or secrets like they're all findable but now that you mention it like i guess if i didn't know this at a young age like and it wasn't like it's actually like the least obvious thing is where some of these whistles are especially the first one like it i don't know if i would ever find it without somebody telling me how to find it i just you know for our listeners because i definitely know where they are but like where is it so the first one if you on on level on world 1 3 you know how there are like platforms that are like
pieces of like solid they're like solid rectangles that look like they're like bolted to the to the background so the white ones if you stand on the white one and duck for like six seconds or five seconds or something you fall through and then you're in the background you're behind all like the bushes and all the stuff that's on the ground then you can go behind the you know how when you get to the end of the level there's that like black background you can go behind that blackness
and in there is a warp whistle so you'd have to literally duck down on a white platform for five seconds and then go to the end of the level wow yeah i definitely didn't do that so so that one you the other ones i think are more findable but like that one i guess i'll walk back what i wrote in my notes there are some secrets in here that like i don't know are that particularly like intuitive to find uh so just another example because i think that one's really cool but uh an example of one that
might be more findable just you know again not that findable but if you figure out um like if something's going on with that world map like i should take a look at it to obtain the third magic whistle you have to defeat the boomerang brother who will give you a hammer you use the hammer to break a rock on the world map screen which opens up a secret passage behind a palm tree the passage leads to um uh a toad's house with a frog suit as well as a pair of fire brothers defeating both fire
brothers awards the player the whistle okay that'll that'll that's easier that seems a bit more straightforward yes whereas joe's first one is like literally um you know pulling the curtain if you will uh this whole like it's all a play and you're actually leaving the stage to go backstage and pick up a warp whistle to be like uh guys we need to do the express version of the show tonight because these guys have a reservation at nine
and that leads me to another point that i was gonna make later but we're we've arrived on it it's all a stage play this game that's the you you find out at the very beginning with the opening the curtain opens up and everybody's just acting their part and everything uh good or bad idea what does it matter is it does it make the game inconsequential could you care less could you could you not care less yeah honestly this uh this whole concept uh really made me lose any kind of stakes in this game um it's a play like i i know that i'm gonna not have any emotional
feelings if i know that this is actors now mario is a liar actor that's explain that this game sucks this game is horrible yeah but are they acting it out in the mushroom kingdom or is it even further like this is in brooklyn well the the manuals oh you're saying that like this is like not even mario this is like an actor playing mario yeah like this is timothy chalamet is it a stage play happening in the mushroom kingdom right which is weird in itself or is it like no this is just a uh rendition of you know like somebody's imagination of super mario brothers being told in a play well i was gonna say the funny thing is is that the manual doesn't say
doesn't say it's a play it says like oh now that the mushroom kingdom's safe you have to go to the mushroom world with all these other countries so like that almost implies that it's like not a play but also in the manual the levels are called action scenes okay so i don't know it's never stated that it's a play but like yeah a curtain rises at the beginning and like i said platforms are bolted to
the background here here's what i think that's going on here um mario hasn't really done much since uh mario one mario this where mario brothers 2 is not canon um he's only done this one thing and that was the events that happened in mario one this is him now with a little bit of money putting on his own show exaggerating everything that happened in mario one uh he had to hire actors to play peach or you know the princess um and this is just his self-aggrandizement
i could see that yeah i know because that's what it is oh oh that's why i see it to go back to um what joe was saying about how they call them action scenes joe that makes sense because the director always says action before the scene starts so it's just short it's just shorthand now they're action scenes yeah even mid-performance but who's the director here is it miyamoto does it get that meta like is he the director is he the stage play showrunner like what what's going on here you're the director yeah no you're the you're like the main actor that's true you're the timothy chalet of this whole production i just thought it'd be more poetic if i said that oh yeah we're
definitely going to use that in the trailer for season five of nostalgia you should is super mario brothers 3 haunted yeah i mean that sean was pitching it i think it might still be the part where the enemies get bigger than you in that one world is kind of haunted yeah it's a little messed up kind of gave me weird feelings we have talked about um like a lot of features that involve this but i don't think we really talked about the p meter in this game and and that just feels strange i don't know what the p is supposed to stand for power is that really what it is like you're you're running so you're running and you're generating power which the power lets you fly i i never thought of
it as power but today again reading the manual that's called the power meter which is weird because it really only to me equates to speed but yeah that's the power meter right and so okay that's cool it's all good i like power meter i can i guess i just associated it with like a power block yeah well that's what i was gonna say it's like i don't know what what that would be representing in terms of
speed but okay speed is power i like it it's it's true on some levels the the meter builds up and it builds up as you're running it has this like thing where even though you never like i don't know about you guys i never pay attention to the p meter i'm never like up i'm at three uh you know i'm at two thirds of the way there like it just happens so fast and everything i don't really watch the ui and yet
there's something satisfying about both hearing the sound you know build up and then when you finally hit the p the like you know like the constant sound that's like all right soar baby soar um all these things you know whether you have the power-ups for them or not the p meter is working and doing something it's a it's a more satisfying way of showing mario's momentum yeah definitely and and like
you said like the sound is really what does it because it's actually kind of crazy now that i think about how many games didn't figure this out but like who wants to look at the ui when they have to be looking at the the character they're controlling so the sound is the one is the thing that actually indicates when you're ready yeah i don't actually know how useful the ui element really is i guess it's
cute that it's there um it it really ties the whole uh window together um but i don't think it's necessary i think that you could learn just the rhythm that if you've been sprinting for this long you will be able to do something else yeah i guess the only time i would say it's useful is like if i'm sprinting and there's like a short distance yeah or like that i'm that like a flat distance i can like at least when i'm done like look and see how close i was granted i still don't really need that i could probably just then i'll just sprint for a little longer somewhere where i have more time but but that is like a i guess quality of life little edition
how would you remake slash remaster super mario brothers 3 today if you were nintendo in order to sell it for 70 dollars it's a great question i don't know i mean like i said i think that like any other game even games that i love on the nes i could probably give you a good answer but like i think you could just make it look a little i mean it's hard to even say clear because this game looks so clean already i mean i guess just i think it just works like a game right now i guess give it
a save state or give it a save function and i i don't know i don't think it needs this but i guess for like modern players that aren't used to like losing progress i guess maybe have like checkpoints again i don't it already does sort of have checkpoints but like more of them i guess i think that it's designed well the way it is but i could see people appreciating that who just like don't have the time that we used to have to play video games i'd say um give mario the ability to move while aiming
and then make all the zombies a little bit faster to compensate for it uh and you've got a good remake on your hands yeah you're you're getting the assignment here sean but uh it's true right like people i'm not saying people can't handle old nes games right like this doesn't even feel like an old nes game like so many other uh games that we've listed as skip it on our website like this doesn't feel like it's outdated however there is an appetite whether you know whether people are buying them or not like a lot of publishers these days are re-releasing older games as hd remakes or um they're remastering these games and they're selling them for large sums of money dragon quest
three is getting a uh alleged remake where it's basically going to be the game again but now in that octopath traveler look like joe joe any any appetite for that if they made this like it's a mario brothers 3 but it's 2.5 hd you know like it's mario brothers 3 but post-processing they just put every setting on bloom everywhere like the 2.5 d like hd thing i don't know but like i guess super mario all-stars sort of already did an older version of what you're describing is just like cleaning up the look of everything and uh i mean that game was cheaper you got all of it
yeah that's true um but yeah i don't know like i mean i'm i'd be willing to try this another i guess my point is that like this game when i pick it up still works for me in its original form like really well whereas like you know like i'll replay like uh even like a 2d final fantasy game or or even like a uh uh playstation one final fantasy game and i love that it added the ability to take off random encounters when i'm feeling like just kind of running through things and stuff like that like
i don't know what this one needs for me for for that kind of thing like i don't know what it could do that would make me enjoy it that much more than just picking up my switch and playing the original version and nintendo's not really the kind of people that do that but i you know just noting what the game industry is like right now i just think it would be funny that you know if there's one old nintendo game that people would probably pay 70 for to have like the hd version of it it would
be super mario brothers 3 right yeah yeah exactly like people are paying 70 to have like all six final fantasy games on one cartridge for the switch but they didn't make any changes there really uh you know didn't they add the features i haven't played the pixel remasters i plan on it but didn't they add the sort of changes i was talking about yeah but i'm saying like they didn't they
didn't graphically change the games or any you know right so you could still you could get away with this like you could release and they do they just make you pay monthly to play super mario brothers three these days yeah yeah of course that would be that would be annoying but you're but you're also talking to a guy who's bought the kingdom hearts collection like six times so yeah i'm a sucker
and speaking of just like what would you you know add to this game to sell it for 70 bucks i mean nintendo did find a way to get people to buy this game again when it became super mario advance 4 on the game boy advance joe any experience with super mario advance 4 super mario brothers 3 that's confusing no wait is that i remember i remember one day when i was younger i was probably like in middle school or whatever discovering that it existed and being like i have to get that but i
didn't have a game boy advance but i was almost willing to buy a game boy advance just for that game just like the idea of having this game i played as a kid in my pocket was really cool but uh no i never actually ended up playing it it's so okay it's called super mario advance 4 super mario brothers 3 yes that's literally what it's called and is it just super mario brothers 3 it is super mario brothers 3 with the nas graphics and everything okay except for here comes here comes
the big twist uh i'm sure everybody who's listening knows this but you guys don't seem to there are like 32 uh or 24 new levels that are exclusive to super mario advance 4 that are basically like designed by nintendo in the super mario brothers 3 world it was a um it was like i think it was called world e-reader because it required e-reader cards that you had to scan those level cards uh to get into and those are exclusive levels uh that you could only play in that so that's pretty damn nifty that's why did not know yeah that's interesting i feel like it would have been better
marketing for uh for nintendo just to call us to mario brothers 3 advance but i get it i maybe not but i kind of get it oh and it's not the nes look it's not the nes look my bad oh is it the um all stars it's like yeah it's kind of like all stars but gate with game boy advance style graphics so like you know a little worse for wear my point stands yeah no your point totally stands and uh another
interesting thing is like these e-reader cards did way more than just add these extra levels now keep in mind you'd have to buy packs of cards and hope that you got the levels uh it's kind of funny oh is that how that worked i didn't even know yeah yeah that's how it works so uh you could also get like cards though for the um the cape mario from super mario world and put him into super mario
brothers three now that's crazy yeah see the the idea of like collecting cards to get the function of the game sounds both simultaneously stupid and really fucking cool to me i i lean towards stupid for this stuff because uh but i if it were a game about collecting cards maybe but yeah i guess just the cool part for me is like the idea of like getting the satisfaction that like collecting
pokemon or yugioh cards or whatever it gives you but then having like an additional function to that card where it's like now i can play a whole level like there's like a value especially when you're a kid when like you're not selling your pokemon cards you're like oh this this is worth 70 dollars like no this card is rare and it's worth a cool level on my game boy but yeah also i'd be very frustrated if i bought the game and it's like okay now you got to buy all these cards to to hope to get the
levels right right well to make matters even worse the the cards with the levels never came outside of japan so people in europe and america were just getting the other cards that didn't really do that much other than give you like some items or power-ups and stuff the levels were only existing in japan so the only way to play super mario advance 4 super mario brothers 3 secret e-reader levels is with your wii u because it was released on the virtual console on wii u and if you bought it there which
you could no longer buy it they took that thing down um you could you could have played they it came with the e-reader levels on the thing so you didn't have to buy cards or buy additional dlc packs it was included as part of that virtual console and that's like a rare cool moment for nintendo they finally gave you what you paid for yeah all those years ago instead of throwing you in jail you know which is like usually the alternative with nintendo
you you know super mario brothers 3 is a lot more than a video game though it's also a way of life is it a tv show it's a tv show it's it's it's got t-shirts it had a movie um not really the movie was uh the promote like the movie was the trailer for the game uh the wizard was the movie and everybody who's anybody knew that the wizard had footage of super mario brothers 3 in it and people were clamoring for information so uh jury's out on if that movie's any good i'm sure some people who like grew up with it because they wanted to see the super mario brothers 3 footage like might have
fond feelings towards it but that was like that was their e3 that year was like yeah go to the movies and watch the wizard that's the one with the uh the glove right yeah okay cool uh but it's also a chocolate chip swirl cookie cereal are we gonna go through all the merchandising i just think that's funny like no no you know you
try to pull out the most extreme one uh i i think like super mario brothers 3 getting a cereal where it's not just like super mario cereal something that you know became an amiibo that i actually own a box of super mario amiibo cereal yeah oh my god i did not know that yeah you can scan it on your switch and everything it works um but like you know that's that's like super mario the ip you know that's not like it wasn't super mario odyssey the cereal this is super mario brothers 3 the cereal which is just a bunch of cookies which are like just a bunch of spinies so they're not you know the
guys with the shells that uh you can't jump on the least uh appetizing looking ones yeah like the ones that would hurt you yeah what's the most appetizing looking out of me in this i mean to an extent like you know if you if you look at it in the right light like a goomba does look kind of like ooey gooey cookie looking no i always thought goomba looked mushroomy yeah i get it i wouldn't i wouldn't want a goomba i would want a cheap cheap i bet those things taste great i'd like a filet of the the fish that jumps out yeah that's the cheap cheap okay good i didn't i knew that
can we talk about the uh the multiplayer components of this specifically i mean the multiplayer itself is you know you go back and forth you beat levels together it's kind of like the original mario but like you're both on the world map whatever you're you're alternating but the fact that you can go to the last level that your that your partner beat and select it and then you'll end up in actual super mario brothers like a remake of
the original not super mario brothers mario brothers game for the nes and you compete against each other for like some of the cards that you've collected or just who gets whose turn it gets to be next like how cool is that yeah i remember like i remember doing that uh very briefly uh in the all stars version uh but i kind of forgot about that here i think that's that's very fun
yeah it's like you work together and when you play co-op with this game you work together like even though you're never playing at the same time you are like working okay you beat this level you got like sometimes it's like i have two star cards and you have one can you just sacrifice that give it to so i don't die like so then you go into that to that stage i'm talking about and what you can steal cards from each other but sometimes it's just like it's just fun to kind of like mess with your partner
and like try and like try and take his turn away or try and plant your flag where theirs is yeah and like in that super mario or i keep saying super mario that mario brothers stage isn't even the only stage it's the one that usually comes up like honestly like 90 of the time maybe 95 of the time but once in a while other little mini games that you compete against come up there's like three other ones that it's just like i don't know this game just is always throwing more things at you that like
that you can that you can discover but i i always thought that was such a cool addition yeah i would go as far as to say that that's the better implementation of multiplayer for a super mario brothers game than having two players on the screen at the same time as was introduced in new super mario brothers we i think uh it had four players on the screen at once chaos just absolute chaos the and you know it's usually if you're if you're playing super mario brothers it's usually like with very casual
people so there's going to be like two people that are amazing at the game one person that that knows video games and can keep up because it's super mario brothers and then one person who like just can't understand like that they control their character and that they have to like you know follow them along as they jump and they and it's just a mess it's like how do you keep track of four different people
on one screen and it becomes a less fun experience as a result whereas you know that this version of multiplayer is more like yeah like we're both gonna rock this game like we're both gonna get our go at beating these levels the way they were intended to be beaten but also like you know a little mischievous uh on the side well yeah yeah and the nice like give and take to the multiplayer too is that like
if you're playing single player you can get a lot of extra lives but then if you die and lose those lives you have to go back to the beginning of the world unless you've gotten like a a mid mid world dungeon which acts as sort of like a checkpoint or a shortcut but if you are playing two player you're not going to have as many lives you might lose your lives more quickly but then it's also like if luigi beat a stage and luigi loses all his lives then all of the stages that luigi beat are back so it's like
you have to kind of like weigh that and like work together a little bit where it's like okay you beat this stage that we both had a lot of trouble on so you can't die or else we got to do that stage again so it's like you know do what you can to try and get the other person extra lives that's kind of what i was talking about with like giving the extra star to someone or like i'll try and beat this stage so
you don't die like it gives you this little bit of like strategy and also gives you this uh if you're strategic about it gives you the safety net where it's like okay i have eight lives and you have one so let me beat this level so it's less likely that we have to redo it or or vice versa it just it gives you a lot to think about and like it's it's it's basic but it's uh it feels like a fun adventure together i guess it now that you mention all this it is kind of lame that in world they just switched
it to a lives transfer like bank account transaction um there was no uh goofy uh game that you'd play against each other it just sort of happens yeah and i sorry i feel like i'm just going on and on about this multiplayer mode but that i use like just the physics of this game are so fun that honestly my my brother and i used to play this game where we would like once in a while when you do that
multiplayer mode you get a mode where there's five coins whoever collects the most coins whoever collects three out of five coins quick enough wins basically we would collect all but one coin so then we could just run around on this map and not worry about it and we would literally play tag in these physics and it was like it's a blast because these physics feel so fun and like you know you could bounce off each other's heads you could bop each other from beneath you know it's fun stuff
when they were developing super mario brothers 3 which um pretty much started right after super mario brothers the lost levels uh aka super mario brothers 2 in japan they were actually first going to do something similar to the legend of zelda for super mario brothers with a top-down view of the game not saying it was going to be an rpg but that the viewpoint would completely change from side scrolling to top down there's not many documents that exist for that if at all like how that game would have worked but you know it's interesting for two reasons one you could tell that they were always trying to change super mario brothers and not just repeat like they did with the lost levels
like this was always going to be a different game but then on on the other hand it's like when you try to make something so different right or or so uh groundbreaking from what you know like what the successful path was you also open up a lot of opportunities to screw it up uh and so it's pretty amazing that they mostly just stuck to improving everything from the first game and making it you know bigger and expansive and you know going all in on the power-ups the enemies the levels again 30 32 levels in super mario brothers 1 90 in super mario brothers 3 um i can't help but feel like that top-down thing just can't work for a platformer
yeah i it's definitely like nintendo's usually pretty good about swinging for the fences and actually hitting um there are a lot of horror stories of uh you know franchises you know jumping shark and then they have to begrudgingly go back to their roots because they know it's the only way that it'll work i guess there is a universe that we we don't know maybe it maybe it would have worked but i i do agree that it it might have been a bridge too far uh but you know it's it's it's nintendo they they've
they've done weirder things yeah i mean i think that also back then it seems like a lot of these franchises like totally reinventing themselves was a was not uncommon maybe not quite that totally but still like more than than this does but i think that you know it's got to be it's got to be a challenge to find that happy medium between being doing the same thing and becoming stale and
reinventing yourself too much and becoming unrecognizable and i think even though we loved it i think that is something that maybe happened with super mario brothers 2 where it's like well this isn't what we wanted because it's not it's not the same kind of game yeah i mean they actually had no involvement with it it was mostly a um you know it wasn't a miyamoto thing and it was it was a smaller team just saying like all right just reskin it you know so uh i think that's why you're seeing almost no enemies carrying over like where are the shy guys you know like that's just not they they're they will be added to the uh mario universe right like they will appear again but
very little of what happened in super mario brothers 2 if anything appears in super mario brothers 3 there's maybe some vertical moments but they're not this like super mario brothers 2 was a very vertical game in general joe you had mentioned the uh tv show the adventures of super mario brothers 3 uh first off what a name for a show does does everything need to have because it's the video game is called super mario brothers 3 do we need everything to be branded around super mario
brothers 3 like we can't make the connection that if you just call the show the adventures of super mario brothers but it's all based off of the stuff that happened in super mario brothers 3 like the audience won't be able to come on i think maybe if they should have just made it something like everybody loves raymond but just called it mario you know i like the idea that like you're pitching like we just need to make this mario game like everybody like raymond it's something that i've wanted since i was a kid
super mario brothers 3 or sorry the adventures of super mario brothers 3 it was not the first mario show that went to um the super mario brothers super show which had um half live action half uh cartoon in super mario the avengers super mario brothers 3 it's all cartoon uh i guess they scaled back the budget a little bit i really enjoyed that weird live those weird live action segments where it was just you know like none of the super and it was all just the like real mario brothers plumbing company working out of brooklyn like weird mishaps happening and koopa being like
their boss uh it's just like that stuff's funny you know that's more like in line with the movie the super mario brothers movie that comes out in 1993 uh super the avengers super mario brothers 3 is like using the same cartoon style and the same voice actors from the cartoon for the most part i didn't fully check that but like bowser is definitely the same and he's not called bowser he's called koopa
um which is weird because he's koopa in uh japan which you know i only found out about sorry i'm going on a tangent here i only found out about that because in uh super smash brothers melee you can change it from english to japanese and you'd be able to see all the japanese consoles in your trophy closet and i thought that was cool but then you could bring it to the main menu screen for the character selection and it would say their japanese names and instead of saying bowser it would go koopa and i always thought that was really cool i was like oh wow it actually is a different name uh same thing with peach it would be uh princess toadstool or whatever um i think don't quote
me on that one maybe i'm making up memories anyway getting back to the show just thought it was funny that i was like oh let me check out like how does the show end does it end anything like like let's just jump right to the end does it end anything like the video game does where you have to like go through bowser's army and then infiltrate his castle no not at all the in the finale episode koopa becomes super koopa he's able to take all of the power-ups from super mario brothers 3 and uh retain them himself so he becomes frog koopa and raccoon koopa and tanuki koopa very interesting concept he kidnaps luigi takes him through the warp zone okay to paris france oh
go on and yeah what what does he do there what do they do they just vacation are they is this like a a tryst mario mario peach and um a guy that they a french submariner because that's like what they you know like that's what they're known for in france so they're on the water in paris and there's a submarine go figure um what's funny about that it's like where is there a body of water big enough in
paris for a submarine to be just like hiding out like it's gotta be the worst spot to build a submarine anyway uh they all team up and they take down um super koopa enough to get luigi back and then mario and luigi go use every single thing including even things like the goomba shoe that thing that you only have for like one level in super mario 3 yeah yeah they use the dragon balls to
wish back toad to life and um sure enough they defeat koopa and then the show immediately ends forever uh like it's just it's crazy how rushed it feels and uh one youtube comment summed it up as this was the worst episode of the show which i think is funny like there were probably all bad episodes but this was the worst huh yeah i didn't even know if the show existed until you started talking about it i feel like i only knew it from you mike i feel like you you when when we were roommates you had sort of an affinity for these old mario like bad shows like just that they existed and you would always tell me yeah they are they are terrible but at least the adventures of super
mario brothers 3 like tries to like revolve itself around the video games remember this 3 super mario brothers super show would be like okay yeah like this episode is aladdin but with mario like just take the plot of aladdin and do that like it was crazy stuff they were just like you know like okay it's the pyramids but with mario like it had nothing to do with the video games see i wonder
because it feels like it was like the wild west like like today branding for mario would like not allow like just like anything to happen i wonder how like much there was somebody who was like uh the authority on like what you could do or say with mario and like a quality checker for anything mario by the time of super mario brothers 3 well joe it's funny you bring that up because actually just a few years
later after super mario brothers 3 uh there would be another show um super mario world would get its own show but that's not interesting enough because that's mostly just the adventures of mario brothers 3 continued into super mario world no i want to talk about king koopa's cool cartoons all with k's king koopa's cool cartoons uh a local television show just airing out of california
on fox kids that had a guy dressed up like bowser but not really just like with prosthetics and green makeup and stuff like he didn't he didn't look like bowser at all and he is the host of the show and all these kids in the audience it's basically like the crusty the clown show where like he's crusty and the kids of the audience and they're all the koopa troopers if you will and they just keep going
koopa koopa and then he comes out and does some of the worst sketches i've ever seen in my life it's painful to sit through this show and then i guess like they would cut to cartoons you know that like fox kids had the rights to in between these segments but it was only airing in like this small little regional area of california so only like 12 total minutes still exist to this day and i posted
it on our discord if anybody has any interest in joining our discord patreon.com slash nostalgia but otherwise uh you can look this up on youtube for yourself this is one of those things that looks like uh you know like a rick and morty interdimensional cable thing where it's like no way this happened in our universe like to your point joe who who okayed that who from nintendo knew that this happened
are you saying that it's local access like is it possible that it's not actually licensed at all and this is just some dude no apparently it is licensed because it was on fox kids and it got as far as like the show had incredible ratings apparently wow but but the um the president of disney at the time or ceo of disney at the time uh michael eisner said like no this is not going forward like he personally stopped
it apparently granted there's so little information about this that i have a hard time believing that but that's what's on the wikipedia article wow i just have a hard time believing that michael eisner would would have that you know like he'd be one of those guys who they would tell him like hey king koopa's cool cartoons is doing really well like ratings are really high and he'd say i couldn't care not on my watch oh yeah i have some self-respect
so did all that to say would you have liked if world eight instead of it being like in the dark land or whatever it's called or koopa's castle would you have preferred it to be in paris france i think that'd be pretty cool you know a submarine in paris it would have been unexpected i'll i'll admit final battle on top of the eiffel tower
i don't know if this is a super mario brothers 3 question but i put it out there and i'm asking a lot of questions today so i figured let's go for it this is super mario brothers 3 we played super mario brothers 2 but not the real super mario brothers 2 but we call it super mario brothers 2 and nobody calls it super mario brothers 1 right like you just say super mario brothers like a normal person and everybody understands what you're talking about yes we we agree on all these things yes okay yes so yeah okay so joe i know you're like yes but it's okay to say super mario brothers 1 i do say it sometimes because i mean i say that about a lot of things that aren't actually a number one but
that's just that's just me right but like okay so we're we're gonna play ninja guide in two and three are you gonna call them are you gonna call ninja guide in one ninja guide in one or you're just gonna say ninja guide i i'm going to call it one all right like they did not not always but yeah i'm going to call it one just to like i don't know i guess i don't need to differentiate but i always did like ratchet and clank and then i mean they're not even called ratchet and clank two and three but like i still call it that but like i'll just say ratchet and clank one just to be absolutely clear
you know which one i'm talking about yeah kind of like or final fantasy one yeah i still call it like shadow of the colossus one but there's no two it's still it's still the first one it's still the first one yeah there's still a chance like uh we shouldn't say they're you know any e3 i'm just sending out good vibes you know yeah yeah yeah citizen kane one great movie um well you can call titanic one because they did make a titanic two that's true uh not the same people
so all this to say what i was getting to is should they have called super mario world super mario brothers 4 in america they did call it super mario brothers 4 in japan it was a good branding to have like just the numbers go up or are we supposed to be on super mario brothers 12 now like is that is it was it smart of them to draw the line and just the trilogy is the nes games and once they moved over to the super nintendo it's like abandoned numerals i don't know i feel like you know it's on a new system uh it's sort of starting something new
um the i guess you could also argue that it might confuse some consumers because we're all dumb i don't know uh i i i it's just what i'm used to so i don't find a problem with it but i i could see both being fine yeah and i don't think this was a problem back then or especially in this genre of video game but i know like a lot of movies and stuff stop using numbers because they're afraid that audiences won't watch it because they're like well i haven't seen one through eleven so i'm not gonna watch 12 you know fast and furious 12 so they stop using numbers i don't think that like a lot of
people were like no no i gotta understand the story and plot lines of super mario 4 so i gotta go back and play 3 but i don't know maybe it had something to do with it like the numbers maybe just made people think like oh i should play the other ones first which would you'd think that that would make them want to do that so that people would uh if they're half a decade behind just buy an nes as well or just buy all stuff i mean that could be true but like also it's like if they're if they're not buying new games like if they're just like not buy like if the nes is obsolete which i know it wasn't by this time but if it was and then it's like um if it's obsolete they're like not gonna buy
something from nintendo they're just not gonna buy it like because they they're not they haven't played all right i'm changing my answer i think they should have called it super mario brothers reckoning two super mario brothers two furious worse yet you could imagine a situation where um you know maybe next year nintendo goes the path of sega where they went a really long gap between sonic the hedgehog 1 2 3 and then they were like all right a couple you know like it's time to make sonic the hedgehog 4 you know like they made so many sonic the hedgehog games in between but this was their time to cash in on the fact that they never went to 4 you could see a world where nintendo does
announce uh super mario brothers 4 right and it's like the biggest thing ever it's like oh my god like they finally did it even though they've already done it so many times but now because it's the title of the game it's like it's like people are really excited it's like oh they're calling it super mario brothers 4 it's like what they did with crash bandicoot they just they made crash 4 after they were like there were like 11 other games after crash 3 i like to think that nintendo is savvy enough to you know look at what sega did or you know team sonic or whoever the hell has control of this property um to look at what they did and realize like oh we shouldn't do anything like that because that that whole ip is a mess
we haven't lately talked about music on this podcast but i feel like i'm not going to be a like it's very easy to talk about music when it comes to super mario games in general and super mario brothers 3 has uh some amazing tracks on it that i mostly associate with like early youtube where people would play on like ragtime style pianos and do these uh tracks again and i would listen to them that way and i realize that's just like a weird sentence but uh that's that's that's like that's just
like how classic these tunes are and it's funny because koji kondo uh who does all the music for the super mario games uh he said he actually had a very difficult time coming up with the music for this game just not sure like you know how to match super mario brothers one up i called it one joe uh how to match super mario brothers one or like just what kind of music it would call for but i i feel like personally it's all very memorable music i think it's called like the athletic theme one of them
on who doesn't love that oh yeah keep doing it no no i'm sure i played it at some point in the episode even the overworld map themes are all really like catchy and memorable and then there's even and then there's the one that's in a bunch of levels that's kind of like a beatboxy the you know theme they all sound great and i i give them credit for not just redoing the original mario theme so i feel like most games today would just be like oh this is our theme and it's iconic let's just do it again in like a little bit of a different way yeah i agree again like i i do agree that um there's a lot of iconic
music in this game uh but it's just that really simple uh when you're coming back down to earth after beating the boss and you got that little arpeggiation little twinkly noise like that's still like that's that's what it's all about you know it just makes you feel good um for the record i'm not positive but i'm pretty sure the athletic theme is is world right yeah yeah sorry but what do they call what do they call this one i don't know i've not i've never even thought about like i don't know if i ever knew the names of these let's find out super mario brothers three music gotta be a sonata number yeah see you could have been working with condo he had no idea what to call these things
uh no it just looks like it's called overworld uh which is different than like main theme but um i'm wrong i'm stupid i just love super mario world so much i'm working it into this episode
half these questions were about world that's true so we don't have to do that episode when it yeah when it comes up uh you know what's funny i did just start like playing a little bit of world because i'm like i've never really played through it so like i do want to compare it sometime and really really see where i land but i have a hard time even if i even if i end up on like oh world is definitively definitively better i just think this one is just too connected to me for me to like any mario game better than this one but we'll see well you see world's the better game because
super mario brothers 3 has 90 levels but super mario world has 96 exits exits yeah exits is yeah exit this probably means that it has less levels yeah yeah they're trying to use cheap tricks to make you think it's better speaking of worlds what's everybody's favorite uh world in super mario brothers 3 do you have one i know i have two um because that's i can't answer this question honestly
but like i think the giant land i don't actually enjoy playing through it but i think it's the most i think it's the most like imaginative they got like that's a really cool idea and i so i appreciate it on that level but i really do like uh as i mentioned early on i think even during my essential games list vote i really like world 5 where uh first you start out on land and you're like what
only three levels like this is weird uh and then and then you get to the part where it's like nope you're going up to the clouds and then you're up in the clouds and there's like a bunch of cloud themed levels where lots of you know lots of pitfalls and lots of like uh you know ride these coasters uh while all these enemies do all this crazy shit to you um you know not that like dying
is fun or anything but uh here we have like two creative themes in one world yeah i like that they all kind of tell their own story or just have a really unique theme um you know since i was only really good enough to to beat half this game um i will have to go with the big head mode levels because i just thought that it you know i didn't think that there was anything that could surprise me
graphically on this system but that did yeah i mean the fact that they had to design like alternate sprites for like everything for that world is kind of cool um i also did like um the the one you were talking about mike is that six no that's five yeah the with the clouds um i love that you have to go through like a specific dungeon and climb to the clouds but but my answer would probably be uh world seven the pipe land i knew you were gonna say that and it's funny because that's my least favorite because i just don't like being challenged well because it's it's not even like they're they're challenging but they're challenging in like i think world eight is like challenging and like you
have to be really good at mario world seven's like challenge like you gotta just think differently than you've been thinking like you get there's a vertical level and then there's a level where like the pipes are like this maze where you have to like get to the inner like the end of the level is like in the middle of the level you gotta find your way to the center of this maze like i feel like each level in world seven uh is like really innovative so i love world seven no you're actually right like it's very creative it's the same reasons as like why giant land like yeah like i don't enjoy it that much but it's very creative like same thing with pipe land i would actually say world six iceland would be my
least favorite i'm just not a big fan of like the game is already pretty slippery enough and then the ice adds to it and it just causes a lot of like you know thankfully there's power-ups all over this game but it just causes a lot of like unfun moments where i lose my cool power-up and then have to go like play a little more carefully to find the next one and yes that's part of the game so you get what i'm just saying i'm just saying it you know just saying you're it's allowed you're allowed to not
like that level it's that world that world and it's not like look it's not like there aren't good levels in that it's just like a whole thing devoted to slippery um landscapes is just not i don't know like yeah i didn't need that when the game itself already has some good weight behind it yeah and i'll say about that world too like that this whole game looks so clean and so good but the the what they
were trying to do by making it look like cold i guess is that the the whole sky is these vertical white and blue stripes which looks kind of weird in the first place but then like when there's a coin on it which is rotating it's just like a coin with like you can see the whole square outline of where the coin is sitting like it it i think that that breaks yeah the game's broken at that point
clean look yeah not not the game's broken but the clean look of the game breaks for a little bit uh in that world speaking of the game's broken um not that i'm going to uh i'm not going to get into like the science or mathematics behind this but everybody knows in super my brothers 3 um there is like this scrolling feature of the game where like a little bit of information is like tucked in to the
uh like the right side of the screen where uh the colors just look kind of weird as you're entering them and there's like this weird effect where uh the clouds that were white like they when they enter in on the screen they're green and it's like what's up with that uh i watched a video on it so i will link the video and i think that that is probably the better uh case here but just for those who are interested
forget about what's going on on the right side of the screen what's more interesting is on the left side of the screen does anybody notice that uh there's actually uh you know empty space on the left side of the screen that is a completely um solid bar of the the background color of the map so if you're on a uh light blue background the whole bar on the left side is light blue and that's actually
because it's masking the information that is being withheld uh on the sides because technically the game is showing you it's loading more information than it's showing you on the tv so the masking there is to avoid as it's scanning from side to side the information that you're not supposed to be seeing however because of the way that the pixels work there is a little bit on the right side that does show that they probably would have wanted to mask but it just isn't possible because um the amount of
information being shown and all that so what happens is the colors not the not the actual objects but the colors of what was on the area where it's being masked on the left side map over to the right side and so that's why like you know if you saw a green warp pipe and then um and then walked over and just loaded a part where there was a white cloud that white cloud would be green because the green warp pipe on the left side is carrying over back to the right side so what what is a really interesting graphical
glitch is just like which didn't bother me at all but some people complain about that feature um is just something really interesting you know where it's just things that they they couldn't possibly have solved like think about these are the these are the guys who made the nes and they couldn't figure out a workaround for it yeah i guess i did notice some some artifacting i guess i just thought it was you know i guess it didn't have a solved solution it was just a a part of playing an nes game but
i'm glad to know that you did the homework was that something that was visible on a crt tv or is it just because now we're not we're on you know like flat i guess it depends really i i i don't know for for certainty uh i i had it on my crt so i can't say like you know whether it's over scan or whatever um that causes it but it it you know it's a known thing but i think yeah it would depend on like how because it is just it's a very small um line on the right hand side so technically it's not even a full eight by eight and i think you know what's more interesting and it's probably more
interesting that it took us almost two hours into the show to get to we didn't talk about the fact that uh you know unlike the original super mario brothers in this one you can go left to right and re-explore land that you've already been to um a pretty nifty feature because in super mario brothers there's the original i'm trying not to say one joe uh in the original you couldn't do that once you had moved past the the left side of the screen you couldn't return to that left side area here you can uh revisit the entire stage honestly that should have been on the back of the box yeah really i used
to i used to honestly like i know you're joking but like i'm serious like i used to be when i would play super mario brothers one i used to get aggravated by that so much maybe because i was so used to this game but like uh there are a lot of levels in this game that are designed because of that you know that you couldn't have done in the in the first game because you can't go backwards but yet we don't have much to say about it because it's like we just kind of take that for granted these days you know like uh like yeah of course it lets you do that like it should yeah why wouldn't you be able
to people can people can go in both directions both of the existing directions well said joe that's uh that's what we were trying to tell people this whole episode is that uh life isn't just moving in one direction you can you are in control of your destiny life is moving in two directions entropy is kind of technically only moving in one direction so and that's really the only dimension that matters uh like all other dimensions are are kind of constructs what's your favorite dimension z yeah we wouldn't exist without it um but same with the other two
how do we yeah hold on no i can do this i can do this all jokes aside about dimensions and also just mario's time machine and mario is missing uh which are probably joke games uh we'll find out when we get there uh this is it this is it super mario brothers 3 is the final like super mario brothers entry in on the nes and so in some ways it's really sad for the show right yeah you don't really know how much of uh how much of the actual like bones and structure of the show is tied to the essential
games list being at the end yeah yeah that's true i was being serious for a second i'm saying think about it like we're not we're kind of like nintendo's kind of done in some regards like they put out their biggest hitter now it's like it's all like the mario team is working on super mario world for a totally different system they're abandoning us people at the time didn't know that right uh when
they were buying uh their nes games like they were just starting with super mario brothers 3 now and yes nintendo's going to publish more games but for what it's worth like they're they're absolutely all invested on super nintendo and the like and so super mario brothers 3 isn't just the end of super mario brothers on the nes or on this podcast for that matter it's also just kind of the end of like you know it's like the most important game on the nes arguably and it's here and it's
gone and hopefully people will still listen to this podcast now that this episode is over yeah my i mean my hope is that because like i i suspect very very very strongly suspect that this is going to be the marked high point of um like game quality like you know like technical quality that we play and i mean obviously also game design but um my hope is that other games now like there will find other games that that come somewhat even a little bit close to like this this quality like
going forward more and more of them because of this that were inspired by this my fear is that all those games are going to be on the super yeah yeah no guys you you really you're really both just saying that it's all downhill from here and we can't have that i i mean it could be argued that our better episodes are the yeah and i would say yeah we i know um an even better game that's you know on the horizon somewhere i'm not gonna say which episode it is uh but when when we get there you'll know
okay oh i know yeah wait uh i think i might too speaking of yeah speaking of episodes coming up just to show that all hope isn't lost actually next week we have abadox which is a game that i am familiar with on a weird on a weird scale just because it's like alphabetically sorted and at one point i was just booting up old emulators and playing games in alphabetical order for like five minutes so i have five minutes worth of abadox information that i will share next week and i'll probably probably play
some more too to give even more insight but then we have adventures of lolo 2 adventures of lolo is an essential game wow we're just doing we're doing franchise mania right now yeah yeah and um al unsur juniors turbo racing huh perfect sean will you be able to tell us a lot about al unsur jr al unsur uh
was actually really big into luge um and uh he like he started out just like working on cars you know like on that uh that thing that you you go under the car with like you lay down on it um and then he decided to race with it and that's how luge started and i think i don't think that has anything to do with the game i don't think it's a real story but yeah he was actually the developer it had nothing to do with his like his racing ability yeah it's like sid meyer's pirates
the next major release we get from nintendo on this console uh i'm not counting what is this game barker bill's trick shooting i'm not counting that um the next big game we get from them is dr mario so uh that episode airs uh in august 15th 2025 ah so right around the corner yeah yeah look forward to that i mean we let we joke but it's coming that's true 2025 is here just as soon as 2032 just as soon as you
