Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

Nostalgia continues to reign on the GBA as the missing mini-Mario goes portable at last.

If Super Mario Bros. 3 was your favorite Mario game, then, dude, you?re like seriously hardcore. Even back in the day, it was a skill3d gamerz game; today, it still seems ingeniously crafted to hone your hand-eye coordination and pattern recognition skills to cyborg-level. Heck, it?s even a chore to cheat in this game. Why else would they have chosen it for the end tournament in The Wizard?

Tanooki Tale
In case the Mario lore center in your brain is scrambled, here?s a quick refresher: Super Mario Bros. 3 is the birthplace of Raccoon Mario and the Tanooki Suit; it introduced the ?overworld map? concept to Mario games; and it?s the game where Bowser?s kids battle you with magic wands on airships at the end of every world. There are too many levels to count (and even more now, plus additional weirdness from other Mario games, if you have an e-Reader and special e-Cards), and really tough-to-find secrets are hidden behind rocks, dunes, and platforms. The presentation is ripped from the Super NES remake in Super Mario Bros. All-Stars rather than the 8-bit NES original, so the graphics and sound are pretty comparable to latter-day SNES Mario titles. Sure, swimming is slow and tough, but it?s by design rather than by way of poor programming?rest assured, Mario?s jump rate, B-button acceleration, and coefficient of ?coon flight have been endlessly, carefully tweaked. It?s Mario, for heaven?s sake.

Plumber?s Anachronism
Admittedly, Super Mario Bros. 3 seems like a weird step back from Super Mario World and Yoshi?s Island, two successors to this game that are already available on the Game Boy Advance (if you haven?t already, get those games before getting this one?they?re a little more accessible). But that doesn?t make it any less of a classic?it?s a test of your true gaming mettle, a must for the Mario completist, and validation for your sense of nostalgia.

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