I think I’d have to go with SMW
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Super Mario World all day long.
SMB3 was an absolute banger and revolutionised the platforming genre while making the hardware run things it had no business doing, so much so that even id Software took inspiration from it.
World just improved the formula in every single way though. Far from ragging on SMB3, World just took an amazing game and polished it up beyond what was expected.
They made both games at the same time. In my opinion there isn’t even a competition. Both games are showcases of the best of each console.
Sorry, that’s not correct. SMB3 was released in 1988 in Japan. It was delayed in North America until 1990 and released in the same year as SMW, while Nintendo of America ironed out its Super Nintendo console launch.
Super Mario World, in fact, started development as a port of Super Mario Bros. 3.
SMB3 has better powerups, though.
They’re interesting but aren’t used in novel ways. Leaf is great and Cape expands on it. Frog is entirely optional, Tanooki and Hammer are nice upgrades to Leaf and Fire Flower but don’t meaningfully change how you approach the game, the Shoe exists for a single level gimmick, and the map items are all little shortcuts to play less of the game. SMB3 does not use its unique tools to build new kinds of puzzles or present alternate paths through a level they just make the challenges a little easier.
Cape, P-Balloon, and Yoshi are much better utilized.
SMB3 does not use its unique tools to build new kinds of puzzles or present alternate paths through a level they just make the challenges a little easier.
This is extraordinarily wrong!
There are secrets that you need specific power ups to get to.
- Raccoon/Tanuki are used to fly to secret areas or break blocks with the tail
- Fire is used to melt blocks in the ice world
- Frog can swim against strong currents
- If you start some levels with an invincible star from the map, it will cause some blocks to drop a star instead of a coin, letting you chain invincibility through the whole level
- Tanuki and Hammer aren’t necessary for anything in the main game, but they are for some e-reader levels where they can break blocks that can’t be broken normally
This is almost nothing, though. The secret areas are a handful of coins, or an extra power-up, or a magic whistle. Three sections of a water level or a wall of ice in one world is not a puzzle nor an “alternate path” in a meaningful way. E-reader? The niche peripheral adds a tiny bit of extra content for the GBA release of the NES game and that’s among your best arguments?
SMB3 is very good for what it is and a technical achievement but ranking it above World is pure nostalgia.
making the hardware run things it had no business doing,
Speaking of hardware limitations, Kirby’s Adventure plays like a mid gen SNES game, I have no idea how they got it running on NES. I need to play through it again
World has everything 3 introduced and more with better visuals. So SMW is the right answer.
Really it comes down to level design. And IMO, the secret star road levels are some of the best even counting later games. Tubular! Gnarly! Radical!
But if Yoshi’s Island was an option…
SMBWorld had a much deeper realm of secrets and challenges, and a much sharper aesthetic, and was tired directly to the new, shining world of 16-bit gaming which it took full advantage of to make better visuals and audio. I would love to be able to relive those weeks of playing SMBWorld for the first time and the feelings of awe and amazement and discovery that went with them.
SMB3 was a revolution. SMW was an evolution.
I personally prefer SMB3 because the controls feel tighter, where SMW sometimes feels “floaty”. But it’s a subtle difference. SMW gives you way more content, but not all of it is as good or as well-designed as the levels from SMB3 (though again, the difference is subtle.)
They are both all-time top games, as is Mario 64.
Mario Sunshine’s level design was not as well structured, but it had a lot of really interesting content. SMB3, SMW, and Mario 64 are my top 3 Mario games, but I can’t decide the order.
Sunshine was rushed and it shows. I played it contemporaneously but never got terribly far.
I played it a couple years ago all the way through when I got my Steam Deck and it had a ton of rough edges. It was a bit of a struggle to get through.
SMW for me but that’s not to downplay just how unbelievably good SMB3 was at the time.
Especially coming from the Jank that was smb2.
I can’t see SMB3 without remembering that once I was playing it with my brother and my dad comes in, saying he hates that game.
Later, we ask him why does he hate the game, he says he’s really got no reasons, but still hates the game.
My dad would routinely come in and see anything we had going on the TV, from cartoons to video games, and express how much he hated that thing, or how he didn’t understand how we could enjoy it.
Parents out there… don’t do this. Stop feeling envious or resentful of children for being able to be happy.
B. For the simple reason the color palette doesn’t look like shit.
also it is full of more variety,Yoshi, better secrets, better audio, Yoshi, better physics, you can go backwards and Yoshi,
Yoshi, full stop.
The choice is obvious.
3 has Tanukis.
And kuribo’s shoe
i swear i never saw a kuribo shoe on this and played the game for five months now
edit: damn now i have the song in my head
“i am roy, the sailor boy. my life here is a joy”
I played and beat world with my dad on a rented Super Famicom before Super Nintendo came out.
We didn’t have an instruction booklet and all the tutorial stuff that came up was in Japanese so we went the entire game without knowing you could throw shells upwards. So when we got to Bowser at the end we thought you had to be able to fly so you could dive-bomb the motherfucker. Took us so many tries getting there with a cape and a backup before we eventually each got it. Man, did I feel dumb when SNES came out and I learned the truth, but also a perverse pride, like being one of the few people to beat something before it gets nerfed.
Not really related but this made me think of that for the first time in years.
SMB3 controls better.
3 is my favorite of the two, but World was objectively better in terms of mechanics and overall design. Still, I’ll always play 3 if given the choice between them.
3 is extremely cool and all, epecially for what NES can output. But SMW has an insane mechanics with higher skill ceiling. Speaking as a player who haven’t played any of these two but watched some pros/speedrunners play them.
There’s people alive who haven’t played these??
TIL
World.
As much as I love SMB3’s powerups (hammer bro 4 life), I’d go with World because you can replay levels and even castles with L+R. Fuck Tubular, tho
The meme options should have been B then A
Actually it’s Kitsune Tails.
