I remember acquiring Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990) at a Sears shortly after the game was released. I think I simply stumbled onto its giant display area by chance: I don’t recall being too keyed into what new games were coming out and when, although I did have a subscription to Nintendo Power at the time so I’m sure I knew of the game at least. The best thing about Mario games is that, as a kid, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have your parents buy you one, because EVERYONE knows about Mario and that having his name plastered on a video game means the game is going to be, above all else, familiar and non-threatening (and, not to mention, of a relatively high quality too, third-party licensed garbage aside).

So, home we went, and I had a brand new shrink wrapped Mario Bros. game in my possession. I remember twisting the yellow box in my hot little hands and being VERY EXCITED about the cover. Mario had raccoon ears! And a tail! It was going to be a totally different game than the ones that came before it!

And man oh man, was it ever. The sheer variety of stuff to see and do and have done to you was immense at the time. I dare say that almost every single level in the game is different, and I don’t mean merely in the layout of the levels or “theme” of the world, but significantly different in terms of gameplay, enemy type, and objective. Remember that stage with the Angry Sun following your every move and then actually swooping down in an attempt to sear through Mario’s very flesh? At least, that’s how I remember it, and it frightened the hell out of me. I also remember thinking that riding in Kuribo’s Shoe during certain levels was a nice addition…it was essentially a vehicular control segment, but when translated into the Mario universe of hopping along, jumping and being able to traverse over obstacles—like spikes and Munchers—that would otherwise kill you, it didn’t feel like you were just in a tank-like object ; you were utilizing a tool in a very fleshed out and breathing world, carving your own destiny out among all the other creatures that share the same habitat.

I could go on and on about how great the music is (seriously, using Latin percussion samples was a stroke of genius at the time); how the Koopa Airships and Super Tanks evoke the white knuckle difficulty of  Bowser’s castles in the first Super Mario Bros.; how the card and “line the pictures up” mini-games help to break up the otherwise relentless flow of levels, right before the feeling of fatigue and frustration sets in (you cannot save in this game, after all)…but unfortunately, this story isn’t about how I grew to love Mario Bros. 3. It’s about how I lost my copy of it.

There was only one other family on my street that had an NES, and they would come over on a regular basis to borrow games from me (the mother of this particular household did day-care as well, so there were always new “clientele” dropping by). They would want to borrow Mario games mostly, but occasionally they would ask for other titles like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 or Adventure Island or Double Dribble. I could always take a game in trade, but there wasn’t much that they had that I actually wanted to play…maybe Ikari Warriors, but that’s about it. In any event, I was happy to do it—I mean, this is MARIO we’re talking about. I couldn’t imagine a house with a Nintendo system that didn’t also have more than one Mario game. Mario games are the BEST.

One day, I remember going over to their house to get my copy of Mario 3 back, and on the way back home a few other friends rode up on their bikes (baseball cards clothes-pinned to the spokes, naturally) and we chatted about something or another for a while in my driveway. Whatever nine year old boys in 1991 talked about. The Oakland Athletics, I guess?

Later that evening, the family (Mom, Dad, and older brother) piled into our beige Jeep Cherokee to go visit my Grandmother, who lived maybe 45 minutes away from us. As our Jeep turned onto the main road that would feed into the freeway (680 North, for all you Bay Area readers), I heard a pretty prominent scraping sound coming from behind my seat. I turned around and, out the back window, I saw my copy of SMB3 slide off the roof of our car and onto the road. Earlier, while I was talking with my friends in our driveway, I placed the cartridge on the roof of our car, so nobody would make a grab for it (yeah, nine year old boys in 1991 thought like that).

“OHNOMYGAME!” I shouted as the rest of my family looked at me, confused. I furiously tried to explain what happened and my Dad pulled over and jumped out of the car, thinking that maybe he could recover the game before someone else ran it over. He made it about four steps into the road before another car barreled past. No sound. It was still safe!

Another car hurdled by.

KA-FWOP.

My Dad turned on his heels and, without breaking stride, returned to the car, where I was witnessing all of this transpire, horrified. He put the car into drive and, without looking back at me, said (in that matter-of-fact tone that all Dads are able to conjure up when they need to):

“Well, that’s the end of that.”

Say what you will about the sorry state of Virtual Console, digital distribution, and how Nintendo seems to be milking every dollar out of every game that comes out of their pipeline—having Super Mario Bros. 3 available for an eight dollar download is one of the best things that company has ever done. Now I’m able to finally tell my story of childhood heartbreak with a miraculously happy ending. And I can discover the joys of platform gaming all over again.

Have your own Mario 3 memory? Please share in the comments!

Links:
Bob Mackey on Nintendo Power’s SMB3 strategy guide (which contained meticulously hand-drawn maps!!)
The Retronauts‘ podcast on the NES Mario games, in which they share their own fond personal memories/perverted fantasies
The Angry Sun
The Sun
The Sun

Screenshots courtesy of VGMuseum. Thanks also to the Mario Wiki for jogging my memory on the more esoteric enemy names. The amount of detail in that thing is frightening. Seriously, they have separate articles for the Sun as a character, the Sun as an enemy, and the Sun as a cosmic entity in the Mushroom Kingdom. That alone demands respect (?).

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Posted by Kurt Shulenberger on March 2nd, 2009 :: Posts :: Tags : Mario, NES, Nintendo, Super Mario Bros. 3, Virtual Console
2 Comments

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