While many games can compete for the title of greatest game of all time. It is doubtful that any other game can come up with the same level of argument as the 20 year old Super Mario Brothers 3. In the hearts and minds of many of us, we have considered this game the greatest game ever made at various points of our lives. Today I feel the same, I consider Super Mario Brothers 3 to be the greatest game of all time.
Why is this the case?
1. Brand recognition - 20 years ago, everyone knew Mario, for many people it was among the first videogames ever played. For many others it was perhaps the first game that made people think "Wow, this game is actually a lot of fun." The Mario brand was the first real brand which brokeout into the main stream. Videogames, while they were around, were not mainstream until that point. By 1989, the Super Mario brand was more recognizable to children than Mickey Mouse.
2. Hype - In North America, the millions of children who were familiar with Mario, but lacked any other view as to what was going on in Japan - we didn't have the Internet or publications that were around in the 90's - were introduced to a movie about young gamers competing to be the best in The Wizard. The Wizard discussed many games that we had become familiar with; the starring characters were characters we could identify with. There was a lot of buzz about this movie. In the end of it, the stars made it to the finals, and to the North American audience Super Mario Brothers 3 was unveiled. This created an enormous amount of hype of a type not seen often, in fact I can only recall Donkey Kong Country and Ocarina of Time being so hyped.
3. High accessibility combined with high difficulty - Super Mario Brothers 3 played from start to finish is a game that begins easy, and gradually increases in difficulty until it gets to be incredibly difficult. There are, however, various power-ups throughout the game which allow the player to much more easily succeed in the task of completing the game, and getting to almost any point within the game. There are flutes which allow warping to other worlds, clouds which allow flying over worlds. Along with less powerful powerups, which include some things as basic as a mushroom or a star. The user could use these wide range of powerups to decide how easy or difficult they want this game to be for them. In fact, this is the only game many people have played where they don't use the best means available to accomplish the task of completing the game; simply because they want to experience the whole thing.
4. Level Design - The game is designed to feel much more like an adventure through a diverse world. One world features a palace looking structure at the end of what appears to be a small world, upon inspection, the player is led on a journey upwards through this strange palace, but no king or enemy boss of any sort resides here; rather, the more vast sky world is revealed. There are the stages. The boot stage - players will know what is meant when this is said; or the sun stage, and many would know that one as well; coin castle? There are unique features that stand out in many of the stages on this adventure through the world of Mario. On top of this, the stages are all done very well, the player is always engaged.
5. Success - There are many more factors that I haven't touched on above, but then there are the cold hard facts about the game's success:
-Original NES version: 2008's Guinness book of records lists Mario 3 as the best selling game sold separately from a console at 18 million.
-SNES Super Mario Allstar sold 10.5 million
-GBA Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros 3 sold an additional 5.2 million
-Wii Virtual Console Mario 3 continues to top the chart and sell millions more.
There are ~35 million legit copies of Super Mario Brothers 3 out there which have sold over the past 20 years, and continue to sell to this day. Super Mario Brothers 3 still sells tens of thousands of units per week.
That's why.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
Leatherhat on July 6th, 2012 3pm. Vita sales:"3 mil for COD 2 mil for AC. Maybe more. " thehusbo on July 6th, 2012 5pm. Vita sales:"5 mil for COD 2.2 mil for AC."
