Often hailed as the greatest game of all time for the NES--if not one of the greatest games of all time, period--Super Mario Bros. 3 continues to enjoy a strong following and fan loyalty. Having not actually played it until I got it on the Game Boy Advance almost two decades after its original release I asked myself "so why is this one of the greatest games of all time?" I honestly couldn't help but agree with the notion, but the question bared answering, so I pulled on my analysis pants and took a good hard look.
The game builds on the original Super Mario Bros.'s mechanics a bit by taking the momentum-based platforming control, refining it to be more fluid by giving the player more control over Mario's speed with a run button, and adding the "P" bar as a visual cue for how fast Mario is actually going. A full bar not only indicates maximum speed but rewards the player with a boost to jump height, making it easier to traverse obstacles and pits provided Mario can keep his momentum going. It's a small adjustment but gave players a much-needed edge and played off the already "speed run"-based culture of the original Super Mario Bros.'s player base and the game's scoring system, which rewarded players for completing levels more quickly.
The levels themselves were compartmentalized more than they had been in the original Super Mario Bros., having been effectively condensed into self-contained platforming puzzles emphasizing a specific theme or focus, the challenge for the player being to understand that focus and then maximize his or her high score by beating the level as quickly as possible while collecting as many coins as possible and stomping as many enemies as possible. It was a balance of speed and precision coupled with problem-solving and quick thinking, with the high score being unnecessary to completing the game--it was still at its heart a simple and accessible two-button platformer--but nontheless an effective reward for playing better as a higher and higher score would award both 1-ups and bragging rights. Meanwhile the nature of levels as each being self-contained, themed puzzles made them satisfying and focused chunks of gameplay that gave players a sense of accomplishment without being overwhelming. It goes without saying that a great deal of thought was put into each one in order to insure that they each flowed smoothly and had a strong variety. As said before each level has a "focus" that players need to pay attention to along with the usual matters of speed and precision, such as attention during the battleship levels, where cannons are firing at set intervals all over the screen and the player has to be more mindful of what they're doing than what Mario is doing in order to survive as the screen scrolls by. Another example of a focus, logic, can be found in an early level, where Mario is able to change a lift's direction by jumping on it and must guide it upward towards the goal. Many variations are present throughout the game, but all of them focus on speed and precision.
There's something to be said for the organization of the levels as well. Rather than using a linear progression Mario 3 provided an overworld map of 8 different themed worlds with multiple paths. The themes made the worlds more memorable and provided each of their levels with a number of unique and interesting setpieces, such as the angry sun in the desert world or the oversized blocks and enemies in the giant world. Although players couldn't avoid certain paths through these worlds the fact that they could move between levels at will enabled them to avoid frustration; if they ever got stuck or didn't like one level they could always try another.
The strongest feature of Super Mario Bros. 3, however, is its power-up system. Mario fans were already familiar with the super mushroom, fire flower, and super star from the original game, but Mario 3 added several more both to play off the new "P" bar mechanic and add novelty. In addition to the originals players could now find a raccoon tail that allowed Mario to spin and smack enemies with it, hover by flicking it in mid-air, or even fly with a full "P" bar. There was also a Hammer Bros. suit that allowed Mario to throw hammers, which unlike the fireballs from the fire flower could pass through objects and scenery; a frog suit that made Mario a better swimmer; the "P" wing, which gave Mario a raccoon tail and infinite flight for a single level; and the famed "tanooki" suit: a rare power-up that both gave Mario a raccoon tail and allowed him to transform into a statue and become invincible as long as he remained perfectly still. All of these power-ups can be obtained either from blocks inside the levels or from special stages--usually represented with mushroom houses--that offer players a chance to win them through games of chance.
Ordinarily these would just be novel power-ups, but what makes them transcend into the realm of greatness is the fact that players were able to stockpile them in an inventory screen on the world map and use them at will between levels. Now rather than just being a device to make the game slightly easier and buy Mario a free hit from enemies the items became valuable tools, taking some part of the challenge--mobility in the case of the raccoon tail, enemies in the case of the fire flower, etc.--and reducing it as players saw fit, tailoring the game to their individual play styles and offering a variety of ways to approach the problems of any given level in the game. This presented a sense of replay value as well: players could ask themselves one day what one level might be like with the fire flower, then another what the same level might be like with a raccoon tail. This was a freedom of choice--really significant choice as it had a very strong impact on players, the way they perceived levels, and the way they played the game--that hadn't been seen in a game before and is hardly seen in games today. Mario Galaxy, while it certainly employs a broad variety of power-ups and level themes, doesn't employ power-ups as effectively in that they are all fixed setpieces that Mario can't carry between levels. They're factored directly into the levels' design and often required to proceed, usually through just one small fragment of a level, where Mario 3's power-ups were strictly optional but always rewarding and therefore much more satisfying to use. It's a simple matter of providing players exactly one way to proceed through any given problem versus providing them with the freedom to proceed in one of many ways, but it is so often overlooked in the face of the sheer novelty of the power-ups themselves that many players believe it was that alone that made Mario 3 great. The other factor in this that is overlooked, simply because the game puts players so at-ease with it thanks to its length and promise of many opportunities to acquire items, is that of risk and reward. Items can be lost even more easily than they can be found with one mis-step into a Goomba or a pit, and meanwhile players will overwrite their previous items any time they find one in a level or use one on the world map, and they don't stack, meaning that players may have exactly one at any given time. This self-explanitory limit built into the rules of the items is the important aspect that makes the act of picking one or another interesting.
There's one last aspect of this game we haven't explored: multiplayer. By today's standards what passed as a multiplayer mode back when Mario 3 came out is very rudimentary, almost a tacked-on feature of the game as it doesn't allow simultaneous play, but if we look a little more closely we see that there was some thought put into this. It changes the way players look at the game with still yet a more radical option, with the first player as Mario taking turns with the second player as Luigi between levels. Whether a level is completed or whether the player dies trying, once one player's attempt at completing a level ends the next player is given a chance, effectively transforming Mario 3 from a nonlinear single-player platforming fest into a diceless two-player board game broken up by puzzle-solving segments. How players choose to interact on this board game is up to them. Just as many people have played Mario 3 cooperatively, giving each other a leg up to the next level, as have played competetively, trying their best to leave each other in the dust and beat the game before one another and vying for the best items. On the cooperative front players are presented with the challenge of coordinating with each other and their items as many of them--the frog suit in particular--are well-suited to very specific levels, while on the competetive front players are faced with strategic problems, having to decide whether to branch off from the main path to obtain items or to continue as straight as a bullet through only the important levels and having to decie which levels to play and which ones to leave to the other player. In this way it's almost like a game of chess as each of them tries to maneuver themselves across 90 levels into a position to complete the last level.
For such a simple game Super Mario Bros. 3 proves to have a remarkable amount of depth and variety, milking simple two-button run-and-jump mechanics for all they're worth, drawing from a series of themes and focuses to seed a bafflingly huge number of high-quality levels to explore and conquer, and providing players with dozens of satisfying ways to approach all of them and the freedom to choose almost any of them, making any play-through a unique and rewarding experience. At the same time the game's simple, focused play mechanic also prevents the game from becoming diluted with all of this variety, and Mario 3 provides a cohesive experience for it--as well as a wonderous 8-bit journey through many fantastic worlds, rewarding players with the pleasure of exploration and discovery alongside its strong gameplay. It becomes clear now that all of these major elements combined with a spotless presentation are what are responsible for Mario 3's ability to withstand the test of time in so many gamers' hearts and minds.