What is the best world of Super Mario 3?

i will rep big island til i die

World 3 wins

sky level.

Giant land is totally great and gorgeous looking. I have a feeling the worlds warped past the most are going to rank higher - at a certain point one just gets sick of plowing through the desert world AGAIN.

The pipe world is godawful though. Sky has the most zaniness per square inch, in a good way - I mean, the Shoe!

http://www.solargeo.com/man.gif

World 4 & 5 are K-CLASSIK, esp. climbing up the giant Babel thing. I hate the obligatory ice level in any game; I'm just not coordinated enough to handle it. That's why I stay safe with ADVENTURES OF LOLO.

Giant World, no fucking contest. That was the coolest shit ever when I was 10.

World 5.

You get to hop around in a boot and turn into a statue and shit=AMAZING.

In all fairness, I remember turning into a statue in World 4 much more clearly - and 6 does offer, if you go incredibly out of your way, the temptation of the Hammer Brother Suit, which beats the statue in my mind (tho not the shoe).

worst one = desert world, that's some boring shit. giant world and pipe land were the best.

Didn't they release this for the GBA? I need to get that shit.

OH MAN I FORGOT ABOUT THE BOOT PLS CAN I CHANGE VOTE TO SKY

Sky level for sure.

No one will vote for Pipe level, but I always found that to be really challenging (in a fun way).

world 6, because it has 10 normal levels and 3 castles! i always thought it was awesome how it just keeps going.

How come no one's even mentioned World 8? That one's awesome 'cause it only has TWO normal levels!

Wow, this is quite coincidental.

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/6264/fgdie8.jpg

I dunno if I would vote for seaside though, Big Island is big.

the Hammer Bros suit in 6 = gold, but dammit does it ever suck to lose

3 > 5 > 4 > 6 > 1 > 8 > 7 > 2

but I still like all of them.

Giant Land is the best.

World 3 sucked because of that damn fish guy that jumped out of the water and swallowed you. I think Nintendo Power referred to him as "Boss Bass."

when my brother and I were young kids, it was known to us as the "man-eating ferotus". no, i have no idea what a ferotus is.

Worst thing about Boss Bass was that you could merk him with a fireball and the cunt reappears within about five seconds.

Best: Giant
Worst: Ice

Everyone I know (I was in 4th grade at the time) referred to Boss Bass as "Big Bertha," although I did not, so maybe it wasn't everyone I know. But lots of kids certainly did.

yeah, i called that asshole big birtha too.

In the spirit of Curtis' post, but in a completely different order:

5 > 4 > 1 > 8 > 2 > 7 > 3 > 6

But, of course, the best thing with SMB3 is to play from 1->8 playing every level. :)

haha I wonder where the Big Bertha thing came from. I did it too.

Big Island. I'm having trouble remember the pipe one, which is weird b/c I've beaten this game eight billion times?

Adventures of Lolo OTM, favorite puzzle game ever.

I'm pretty sure "Big Bertha" is documented somewhere as the name of that fish. It's also the name of the fat lady in the SMB movie!

big bertha is a variety of cheep cheep. i'm pretty sure big bertha came from the manual

the one with the swirley castle and you go up to the clouds

Can you think of a better (concise) description?

i like that description! i wasn't mocking, just saying what i voted for.

Where is the LOVE for World 6?! That was probably the most difficult world! For me it's something like

6 > 8 > 1 > 5 > 3 > 7 > 4 > 2

But really, all but 4 and 2 were really neat (sorry, I think Big Island was overrated... yeah, they're big, not a lot else going on though)

I believe it's world 6.5 that was UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE for me to beat when I was 7. I think I beat it when I tried last year though.

Yeah I think maybe there was some second island in 6? I always, ALWAYS skipped over that one. I liked the pipe maze a lot, because hey, pipes.

My proudest video game moment to date is discovering how to warp from world 1 -> world 8 in this game, all by myself.

(fyi it involves using a whistle while ALREADY IN the whistle/stage select zone)

yeah that shit is awesome, but then you skip the coolest levels!

I'm playing mario 64 start to finish for the first time right now and the soundtrack is yoga flame for all time.

haha I remember when I first did that double-warp-whistle thing, I was actually disappointed it didn't take me to some kind of alternate universe/minusworld place.

nicka did you try using it a THIRD TIME????

not saying it will, that's just the eight-year-old in me applying his brute-force "well why the fuck not" heuristic to the situation

The sky world has a lot of forced-scrolling stages that I hate, so I voted for big island. But I agree that the sky has some whacked out crazy shit.

http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2007-06/mario-cake.jpg

nicka did you try using it a THIRD TIME????

I think I actually did this and it just picks you up and drops you back off in the same stage.

this clearly calls for a fourth attempt

perhaps the game genie could be useful here

man there are so many situations there that would result in an inevitable, unsighted death on the first time of playing.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5c/Yiyiposter.jpg

it's so soothing to watch a well-played platform game.

i remember playing battletoads at a friend's house but i think we never got past a level where you're on like jetcycles and have to avoid all kinds of obstacles

watching some of those levels i can't imagine how it would work with the 2p co-op

The funny thing is I think there's a glitched level in Battletoads that wasn't even tested for 2-player, and is literally impassable - 2P speedruns have them forced to kill off one partner and complete that level solo.

http://www.giantbomb.com/super-mario-bros-3/3030-10299/forums/super-mario-bros-3-was-a-stage-play-my-mind-is-blo-463610

I've played this game a kazillion times, but somehow I never figured this out. Obviously I noticed the various elements (the rising curtain, the 2-dimensional "hills", levels ending with going beyond the "stage", etc), but they never clicked together.

Miyamoto confirms this theory here.

Sorry, here's the link to the Miyamoto video:

https://twitter.com/NintendoUK/status/641929274719608832

that's kind of a weirdly phrased question though

Well yeah, but once you look at it all through this theory, it's kinda impossible to think it wasn't intentional. There's even the famous cheat in the first(?) level where you have to crouch long enough on top of the white pillar, and then you get to run behind the theatre set to a warp point.

Also, it explains how Mario can "transform" into a raccoon and tanuki while he's quite obviously wearing a mere costume.

I (subconsciously) knew it all along

whoa, wait a second

what if ALL 2D platformers are secretly stage plays? think about it...they all have 2D set-like objects....they all have "stages"

many of them feature conversations and boss battles, AKA "climaxes"

Kinda cool. Of course there are also underwater levels and airship levels and tons of stuff that has no resemblance to anything that could be done in a stage play, so the idea doesn't seem super deep.

i have lifelong grudges against the ice world in this game

Yeah, it's a cute little framing device, nothing more, but nonetheless a nice flourish. Basically anything 'extra' on an NES game shows love and care IMHO, given how many titles in the library were just the barest of bitter bones.

I played it again on the 3DS a couple weeks ago. Pretty amazing game still. I must have warp-whistled a lot as a kid because some stages I really didn't remember.

playing aaaaaaaall the way through, 1-1 to 8-bowser, is one of the best ways to spend a morning/afternoon.

I've been playing it on the Wii U and trying to go through every single level. This game was such a huge part of my childhood but I was the same way, some worlds I must've been constantly warping past, and I don't think I ever actually beat the game, all those World 8 ship levels were too bonkers for me. I've kinda come to believe that the warp whistles were sort of a rudimentary save function since it would take hours to go through every world.

Yeah, worlds 7 and 8 were Nintendo hard. I prefer the All Stars version for the saves.

i was too young to spend much time w/ the original NES but i had the 4-in-1 SNES version w/ M1, M2, and M3 + "Mario lost levels" or some shit. but i played this a fucking TON on the SNES

i think world 7 was one of the most challenging. world 5 probably the most fun. all the free shit though in world 3 was pretty dope.

world 8 is pretty fuckin crazy, those ships are intense.

I was all about building up a stockpile of P-wings in case the worst of the World 8 ship levels proved too much for me (that, and swimming under the boats), so I guess maybe the game is harder than I remember. Feel like 6 and 7, for paucity of 1-ups, were the only places I really ran the risk of Game Over. Anyway, the P-wing supply alone poses a reason to plow through every world, I think.

The death flowers popping in and out of the small pipes on World 7 were incredibly difficult and frustrating.

The air armada level on World 8 I never completed without a P-wing.

Underwater levels and the frog suit were annoying. I can't remember if you could ever actually kill Bowser with hammers, but I know I tried. I loved the difficult scrolling levels, the airships bosses, the music when you see that "The King has been transformed!", the underground theme from SMB1 re-imagined with beat-boxing, Bowser's beautiful flowing J-pop mane,

and most of all, this spooky room from the World 5 tower:

http://www.mariowiki.com/images/5/55/SMAS_5-T.PNG

swimming under the boats was so terrifying even it helped bypass some even scarier shit xp

the music when you see that "The King has been transformed!"

I love this too. This Pulse Emitter track reminds me of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KURmpdcplhI

my biggest criticism of SMB3 (and a humblebrag as well) is that i think the minibosses (the bosses at the end of each fort ~halfway through each world + bowser's maniacal offspring at the end of each world) were way too easy. particularly the fort boss guys. it was way too easy to jump on them and then time the follow-up jump to land on them again a split second after they started moving again.

oh yea it is a total joke how easy they are

same goes for hammer bros

if you act fast you can take out these motherfuckers in like 3 seconds, you can do this every time. it so anticlimactic

if you stall though it can be challenging

the one koopa kid who pounds the floor when he walks (ludwig) was pretty tough to beat, i think.

meant to put a "?" after his name. but yeah most of them were pretty easy. i wish they'd come up with more than one type of fort boss, that one guy never changed through the entire game, even when you're in level 7/8 and everything else is horrifically hard.

haha yea it gets to be pretty hilarious to keep seeing this same boss with the same corny music

i present a transcription of the music and sound effects that you hear during the 5 seconds it takes to defeat the fort boss guy, whose name i just learned is Boom Boom:

http://i.imgur.com/5NhogcA.jpg

♫DOO-DOO-DOO-DOOOOOoooooooooo♫
♫bum bum BUM-ba♫ *DOOWIP!* ba-bum-ba♫
♫bum bum BUM-ba♫ *DOOWIP!* ba-bum-ba♫
♫bum bum BUM-ba♫ *DOOWIP!* ba-bum-ba♫

*midi guitar solo*

Boom Boom needed to be made invincible for a few more seconds after he unfroze, or some other ability. he never had a chance...;_;

lmao xp

not smb3, but i wanted to share my story about the first and only time my mom ever played a videogame. it was the first mario bros., level 1-3. i don't know why we didn't start her out at 1-1. my mom stared at the NES controller as my sister and i told her how to walk left and right, jump, and run. as i recall i explained this in a very lucid and logical way but since i was about 5 or 6 at the time it was probably a completely insane explanation interrupted by me making fart sounds into my palms. she listened to our instructions but was clearly agitated and tense. suddenly the timer ticked down to 100 and the music shifted into intense mode. i told her to hurry the fuck up or she would die. she started panicking and finally walked to the right and immediately fell off the cliff. she got really mad and left the room.

my biggest criticism of SMB3 (and a humblebrag as well) is that i think the minibosses (the bosses at the end of each fort ~halfway through each world + bowser's maniacal offspring at the end of each world) were way too easy.

true but it was shot through with the fear that you'd have to redo the whole level if you choked.

exactly - I like that the bosses were easy b/c those castles were really challenging sometimes. I see them as just one more obstacle.

Mario Maker came out on Friday in the U.S. I'm disappointed there's no option to use the SMB2/DokiDoki Panic tilesets

the music when you see that "The King has been transformed!"

This later made an appearance as the outro of a Mutya Keisha Siobhan single.

the one koopa kid who pounds the floor when he walks (ludwig) was pretty tough to beat, i think.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, September 14, 2015 3:15 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

roy

but everybody OTM re: the repetitive bosses. maybe one small way they ran up against the space limitations of the system, or rather, chose to compromise there rather than elsewhere. feel like the same problem plagues SMW but i can't even remember the bosses in that besides "REZNOR" (lol). yoshi's island suddenly has a range of really different, individually designed bosses. it was wonderful, but we'll get there in time i guess.

i remember at the time, fervent playground and backyard speculation on what mario 4 might bring. in fact, we understood vaguely that games came out first in japan, and that for all we knew, they were already up to mario 5 over there. anything was possible. we imagined many additional costume-transformations for mario, of which i remember only the (inevitable) ninja mario. was kinda disappointing that SMW dialed it back down to super, fiery and flying. i don't know if we ever thought about other bosses, but if the option of more varied/individualized koopas had been presented we would have been all about it - like mega man, or most other games really. wonder if they could have done more with the hammer brothers, too; beefed up or with a variety of attacks (the FIERY hammer brothers!) they could have been plausibly tough and varied without having to add that many new things to the engine. oh well.

o wait this isn't the poll thread. well, still, we'll get there in due time.

lol at this alternate ending line

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_lewfEdv2Q

in fact, we understood vaguely that games came out first in japan

this was so embedded in the 90s kid psyche that in 8th grade my token pathological liar friend insisted he'd played starcraft 2 because he "had a friend in japan"

haha awesome

Level 4 by a mile

i never beat this. my brother and my best friend at the time were in a sort-of "arms race" to beat it first, and both of them reached the final level around the same time the night before.

so my brother is fighting Koopa and my sly friend is like "YO he keeps breaking those bricks, maybe if you jump down that hole they'll give you something to beat him with".

fuckin' scumbag.

playing aaaaaaaall the way through, 1-1 to 8-bowser, is one of the best ways to spend a morning/afternoon.

― 1996 ball boy (Karl Malone), Monday, September 14, 2015 12:10 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh yeah, I did this one in a 2-player game, it was incredible. And when you get to the nightmare that is World 8 you actually have a million lives and power ups to use.

At age 11 I got very far in this game and was on World 7 castle or something and my brother wrapped himself up in blankets and said "Look! I'm a thwomp trap!" and timber'd to the ground and the impact caused the system to reset and I may have cried about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAMSZmyymOo

shit was intense.