Or Castlevania. At least it had good music for me to hum.
Oh, and why is SMB3 so awesome?
In the US, Nintendo entered Extreme Hype Mode. Heck they even had a movie whose climax was SMB3. The ushers gave out free Nintendo Power subscriptions afterwards! Halo3's got NOTHING on SMB3's hype machine.
There is no such thing as a console war. This is the first step to game design.