Anniversary Super Mario Bros. 3 Is Now 35 Years Old

For many years I considered this the best game of all time. I put so many hours into this as a child, it's a truly incredible game.
I think it more than holds up today even with all the nostalgia I have!

The first image I ever saw of this was in a free book on an issue of CVG (had Robocop on the front) and they had stickers of upcoming games to put in. It was of world 1-2 with it's green sloping hills. I only had Mario 1 at that point and that single screenshot Blew. My. Mind.

One of my all time faves I still regularly play through it - this and MarioWorld haven't been bettered by anyone as per 2D platformers IMO. I've seen Wonder might be the closest we've had to this style of game since... but I haven't played it yet cos I'm getting it for my Birthday start of November...

...which neatly brings me to this EU release date I constantly see; August 29th? We certainly didn't get it that soon in the UK - we got it later. I'm assuming it was probably released on mainland Europe before us as I see this earlier release date everywhere.

It wasn't reviewed in the UK press till the October 1991 issues (man that review and cover on Mean Machines #13...) and as my Birthday was early November, I have very fond and firm memories of me and my Dad going into our local Dixons and purchasing it on Saturday 2nd November. I knew it had just been released and we weren't even sure they'd have it in stock, such was the way back then. But have it they did and I actually got the last copy. It had literally just been released.

So the UK release date was late October/early November '91. Not in August. Anyone else remember it this way?!

Still the best 2D Mario game.

SMW is great and what I've played of Wonder is promising. But they just don't hold a candle to this masterpiece.

You just can't beat the size and scale, the freewheeling level design, or the best variety of power-ups in the entire franchise. Mario has been in plenty of magnificent games since then, no question. But all of them fall short of SMB3's timeless excellence.

I never owned a copy on the NES but I did rent it numerous times. I play it now on the NES mini. I think it’s the best way to play, with the original controller.
I think it’s the best of the 2D games. The graphics, sounds, power-ups and the worlds.

Man, the old times were pretty bad, all things considered...

Almost 3 years from JP release to EU release? That's ridiculous, at the time i didn't know any better, since write-ups in "Club Nintendo"-magazine (More of an advertisement leaflet than a magazine) and "Hey, there's a new game in the store!" were the only ways to know what games were coming out...

Glad we're in the age of internet and worldwide releases now, i love retro games, but the release delays were the worst.

A classic to be sure. I'm a big fan of the Super Mario All-Stars version.

My folks rented me an NES from the corner store so I could play this game at the time. A true classic if there ever was one

Played it on the N.E.S.!
My best friend and I absolutely loved playing the hidden original Mario Brothers game! I think we spent more time playing that than three!
Three was nice, fun and a little hard, just like games should be!
Games nowadays leave out the fun!

I'm still waiting for a real Super Mario Brothers 4!

Back in the day, the Japanese version was out a year? before the canada/usa version. so this local place called the toy trader cashed in and got 10 Japanese copies with the adapter. so we all played it right before this movie came out haha.so it kind of spoiled the movie haha. I also played in a play choice 10 cab as well in English so not sure if those came out a bit before the game as well? but id always rent 25 in one carts from that place and that's how I got into Japanese games. also I really liked the Japanese box art too. pretty amazing they got all the mario 3 games in a time when importing was tough.

Played both Mario 3 and Super Mario World how they were meant to be played when they came out in the UK on original hardware and on a CRT.
I love them both and when I first played Mario 3 thought at the time obviously it was best platform game of all time...

Possibly the first time I bought a game. That yellow smb3 box at the store was magical.

@Spider-Kev IKR! But ofc in Japan MarioWorld was subtitled (on the box at least) Super Mario Bros 4, and I still call it that in my head as the UK press at the time all referred to it that way. I think it's a shame they didn't carry that through for the Western releases and one of the reasons I love my SFC copies of the game.

Didn't NCL make a new copyright for Super Mario Bros 4 a few years ago? I have vague memories of reading a rumour about that... Quite what they would then call whatever game that might have become in Japan Lord only knows...!

One thing that’s really changed in gaming the past 20 years is that games are more or less released at the same time all over the world. SMB3 was released in Japan only a month after SMB2 was released in America. SMB3 was released in Europe just after the SNES was released in America and 9 months after the SFC was released in Japan.

Got it as a gift a couple months after the US release. Was so insanely hyped for it (I didn’t get games real frequently in that era, as a kid, special occasions only). It exceeded my expectations and I spent all Summer playing it through to completion. My favorite Mario game to date and definitely one of the best NES games ever, and really one of the best games on any system. A true gaming must-play. It still holds up today.

I just played through Super Mario Bros. 3 twice a week or so ago. I didn't even think about it being an anniversary, so that's just a happy accident. I still consider it among the best games ever and certainly a very important game.

In terms of release schedules, that was a very strange time. Games took much longer to see releases outside of Japan, but this one had strange circumstances. First was how the original Super Mario 2 was rejected by Nintendo of America(NoA) which led to the conversion of Yume Kojou: Doki Doki Panic to be Super Mario 2(USA). Super Mario 2 was released in the US right around the same time as Super Mario 3 came out in Japan, so they needed to wait to let people miss Mario for a bit, at least in theory. Add to that, there were issues with the supply of ROM chips at that time, something which affected, but was also affected by, the releases of Zelda 2 and Mario 2. So Nintendo was waiting out that situation as well so that there would be fewer supply issues for Mario 3. I remember how surprising it was when I learned that Mario 3 was actually released in late 1988. Very impressive game design, especially for that moment in time.

Despite not being from Europe, I did most of my gaming in the 8-bit era on a Sega Master System, and I enjoyed that thing. Most of my friends had Nintendo, so I got to play it a lot as well, and I recognized that some games had no equal on the SMS. While I wanted the Genesis, I ended up getting a NES pretty late, I think it was in 1990, though it may have been 1989. And the NES was a lot of fun as well. Partly because I got the system so late, I wasn't caught up in the hype for Mario 3 and I never had it. Of course, all my friends had it so I played it plenty. It's funny, I ended up borrowing it two separate times for extended periods because those friends had basically played it so thoroughly that they were sick of it(they had lots of fun up to that point). They basically insisted I borrow it. I may still have one of those copies. But it's a fantastic game. The first copy I ever owned properly, oddly enough, was the GBA version(I had previously accidentally purchased an illegitimate copy) and I didn't get that until 2013, so my history with the game is odd.

I only played the SNES version that was part of the All-Stars package (I think I got that as a Christmas gift), good times.

Super Mario Bros. 3 is one of the best, if not the best 2D game of all time. My cousins let me borrow it for months when they were done with it in 1990 or 1991 and I spent so much time playing and replaying it. I still replay it to this day. It’s on my favorite games list, up there at the top with Castlevania 1 and 3, SOTN, RE4, Streets of Rage 2, etc.