Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (GBA, NSO) Retro Review

We're continuing our Mario retro review theme from a few weeks ago with a look at one of Mario's greatest 2D adventures turned portable on the Game Boy Advance. It also received a release on Nintendo Switch Online's Expansion Pass. I'm talking about Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3. 

The Mushroom Kingdom cast takes stage once more for a riveting encore performance.

In what must be one of the more absurd naming conventions in gaming history, the Super Mario Advance series saw its fourth entry--this time featuring the third Super Mario Bros. game in all of its remade Super Mario All-Stars glory--with Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3. Of course, Super Mario Bros. 2 was Super Mario Advance, while Super Mario World (aka Super Mario Bros. 4 in Japan) was Super Mario Advance 2, and the completely different series, Yoshi's Island, was Super Mario Advance 3, because Nintendo makes no sense sometimes. Just like calling the Wii successor the Wii U, or calling a revised Nintendo 3DS the NEW Nintendo 3DS XL.

Anyway, mini rant over. Super Mario Advance 4 isn't just the original Super Mario Bros. 3 with the Super Nintendo-style visuals from Super Mario All-Stars. Even still, it'd be a pretty sweet package, if not a bit bare content-wise. In addition to the main game, there is of course Mario Bros., a mainstay of the Super Mario Advance line, but more interestingly, Nintendo added power-ups and even MORE interestingly, never-before-seen levels that could be added to the game via the e-Reader peripheral for the Game Boy Advance original version. The Nintendo Switch Online version comes with them already available in a separate menu. More on those levels later.

Every great platforming adventure has to start somewhere.
Super Mario Bros. 3 begins here in Grass Land's first level.

As for the base Super Mario Bros. 3 game, it's just as fantastic as it's always been. It presents players with over 80 levels of platforming nirvana. The game begins with the easy and breezy Grass Land that helps players find and establish their footing as well as their running and jumping groove. It features simple-enough courses with minimal bottomless pits, not-so-tricky enemy positions, and coins and power-ups aplenty.

World 2, Desert Land, immediately turns up the heat in more ways than one.

From there, the game gets increasingly more complex with worlds with multiple more levels to them on their individual maps. Some of these can be avoided, but in order to get that much-desired "World Complete", you do have to beat every level on a given world's map. Mario and/or Luigi will see themselves braving dangerous deserts (with one infamous level home to a particularly angry Sun), diving into the ocean depths, facing enemies and obstacles of giant proportions, taking a trip to the skies above, chilling out in an ice world, finding their way through a pipe maze, all before reaching the kingdom of Bowser himself in hopes of rescuing Princess Peach. 

Giant Land will have you wondering what Bowser feeds his troops here! Aren't you all big!

Levels include basic left-to-right courses, but also some vertical ones, as well as auto-scrolling courses too, particularly the auto-scrolling airships that round out almost every world save for the last. The levels in general are usually short affairs, able to be run through within a minute or so each, if you're keeping a good pace. This is a positive aspect, as there are no checkpoints in levels, meaning that if you make a costly mistake in a level, you start from the beginning of it. The brevity of levels means that you won't have to make up too much progress with each attempt, and with some of these levels, especially later levels, you'll be making a LOT of attempts.

These auto-scrolling levels, especially in the final world, can make anyone can-"tank"-erous!

Super Mario Bros. 3 is a challenging game. It's by no means "NES Hard", a term coined by fans and players of the era, but it's also not a cakewalk either. With the Super Mario Advance 4 version, niceties like save anywhere, being able to stockpile more power-ups and items in your inventory to use on the map (collected from Toad Houses, Hammer Bros (or some variant of Bro) battles, and other methods from each world's map), and the ability to revisit worlds make for a less frustrating, less agonizing experience.

Mario's "nope-ing" out of being here faster than you can say that enemy's name!

Speaking of challenging levels, perhaps the most intriguing part of the Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mario Bros. package (the latter of which has been in every Super Mario Advance game prior, so it's really well-trodden territory at this point) is that of e-Reader bonus content. Think of it as DLC via scannable cards courtesy of an old Game Boy Advance peripheral--you guessed it, the e-Reader. Thankfully, the recently released Nintendo Switch Online version of the game arrived with the major part of the e-Reader's functionality--new levels made specifically for Super Mario Advance 4--already included. 

It's difficult to speak the importance of all-new 2D Mario levels for when this game originally released. The last full 2D Mario game released prior to the Super Mario Advance series and this fourth installment was Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins waaaay back in 1992. Note: I'm talking about a game with a fully playable Mario, so my apologies to Yoshi's Island, even though one can make a very well presented argument of the contrary. That said, until Super Mario Advance 4, all entries in the Advance series featured no new levels at all, so this was a pretty big deal in many ways. We wouldn't get a new 2D Mario until New Super Mario Bros., which was event unto itself, but I digress there!

The over 30 unique levels featured as essentially bonus DLC to Super Mario Advance 4 are quite extensive and elaborate levels. They're also some of the most difficult in Mario series history. Much like Super Mario Bros. 3's base levels, these e-Reader ones feature no checkpoints, which can make them more frustrating to tackle. This is especially so if you're searching high and low for Advance Coins in each level, or in some levels, the super-hidden, hard-to-reach e-Reader Coins. 

Either way, levels basically take everything from past Super Mario Advance games. Some levels feature plucking up vegetables from the ground or digging into sand a la Super Mario Bros. 2 (aka the original Super Mario Advance), while others feature power-ups like Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World's Cape Feather, enemies like Bumptys of Super Mario World 2: Super Mario Advance 3 fame, and even some challenges grabbed straight from Super Mario Bros. 3, only made harder--like a battle with TWO Boom-Booms as opposed to the usual one. 

Hey! You're in the wrong game! ..Aren't you? I guess the rulebook is thrown out of the window in these e-Reader levels!

Super Mario Advance 4 has a similar presentation to that of the Super Mario All-Stars version back on the Super Nintendo. Essentially the visuals were taken almost 1:1 directly from that compilation, much like Super Mario Advance's version of Super Mario Bros. 2. There are some added effects as well as some missing ones, too. The major difference is that of sound. If you're not a stranger to the GBA hardware, particularly that sound chip, then you are familiar with how tinny the monaural sound and music can be. The music is lesser quality than the Super Nintendo version of Super Mario Bros. 3, but serviceable yet as always, suitably catchy as well. Like past Super Mario Advance games, Nintendo laid it thick on the voice clips, so be ready to hear "Just what I needed" from Mario a few hundred times throughout your adventures together.

One of the lovely but perilous world maps Mario/Luigi will find themselves venturing along.

Overall, Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 unquestionably had the most love and care put into it by virtue of the endearingly made bonus levels originally an e-Reader exclusive. Now, with an NSO Expansion subscription, one need not track down packs of cards hoping to get something good out of them. As stated earlier, instead they're all within the game as is. With tight controls that one would expect from the Super Mario series, over 100 levels to enjoy (and curse towards, at times, admittedly), and one of Mario's finest adventures in handheld form, Super Mario Bros. 3 shines like the portly plumber racing through a level with a Starman--colorful and brightly, making Super Mario Advance 4 a fantastic package for any SMB3 or platforming fan in general.

[SPC Says: A]

The Most Improved Video Game Sequels - Part One

A new SuperPhillip Central segment approaches! We've looked at the best levels in gaming, we've looked at the best bosses in gaming, and now SuperPhillip Central looks at the most improved video game sequels. These sequels greatly surpassed their predecessors, added features that are now mainstays for their respective franchises, or even made the originals look like student projects by comparison.

Once you've checked out the inaugural class of six entries to Most Improved Video Game Sequels, what games do you think should be on future installments?

Super Smash Bros. Melee (GCN)

The original Super Smash Bros. was such a creative premise and dream scenario for Nintendo fans--pitting their favorite characters against one another to determine who would win in a fight. The Nintendo 64 game laid a successful foundation for the Super Smash Bros. franchise, but it wasn't until the GameCube's Super Smash Bros. Melee that the series really kicked into high gear. Adding more characters (such as Bowser, Peach, Zelda, Ice Climbers, Marth, Roy, Mewtwo, and more), more stages, more items, and just an abundance of content and improved combat, Super Smash Bros. Melee for some is still uncontested as the best game in the series. The additions of Adventure Mode, All-Star Mode, character and series-specific trophies, and other goodies took an already fantastic foundation from the N64 original and made a truly special game that wouldn't be dethroned for  almost two decades.

Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)

Regardless of whether or not you consider the tough-as-nails Lost Levels or the Doki Doki Panic retooled Super Mario Bros. 2 to the be sequel to the nowadays rather basic Super Mario Bros., there's no denying that Super Mario Bros. 3 took the Mario to extremely high new heights. Taking Mario and Luigi on a lengthy adventure though eight themed worlds complete with world maps, bestowing them with new suits such as the Tanooki and Hammer Suits, giving them the power of flight with the Super Leaf power-up, having an onslaught of new enemy types, inspired and creative levels, and the first appearance of the Koopalings, Super Mario Bros. 3 did arguably more for the Super Mario series than any other 2D platformer bar the original. 

Super Metroid (SNES)

The third installment of the Metroid series and the last Metroid game to be released until the one-two punch of Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion (on the GameCube and the Game Boy Advance respectively), Super Metroid brought so much to the franchise and games of this platformer style in general. For Metroid as a series, Super Metroid brought a godsend to players who found themselves lost and stumbling through the similar corridors and chambers of the original Metroid and its Game Boy sequel. That godsend was a helpful map. Super Metroid also introduced many items and power-ups that are now common for the series, such as the Charge Beam, Grappling Beam, Gravity Suit, Power Bombs, and Super Missiles, to name a handful. There's a reason that Super Metroid is held as the standard that all current Metroidvania games strive to be and are measured against. It's just that darn good.

Street Fighter II (ARC)

Perhaps the most substantial marked improvement from an original game to its sequel, the original Street Fighter was less than a stellar fighting game--to put it charitably. The stiff and unresponsive controls, the frustrating AI opponents, and the general quality were not up to snuff. Street Fighter II, on the other hand, introduced and established so many new features to the fighting game franchise formula that it's no wonder that so many fell in love with Capcom's fantastic fighter. From the addition of new playable characters, varying and distinguishable characteristics for each, combo-based gameplay, and controller commands that were easily more accessible to players. Street Fighter II managed to not only improve on its predecessor, but it managed to influence (and continues to influence) essentially all future fighting games worth their muster in quarters.

Mega Man 2 (NES)

"If at first you don't succeed" started the story of both Capcom's retro gambles. We've seen it already with Street Fighter, and now Mega Man is the second instance of this. The original Mega Man, for the most part, did not reach sales success. It was a pure risk to give the Blue Bomber a second chance, but the development team of Mega Man 2 did just that. The game was a tale of having both quality and quantity, with its addition of eight new Robot Masters instead of the original Mega Man's six. Though the inclusion of now series standbys like a save system (via password in this case) and health and weapon energy-restoring items like E-Tanks and W-Tanks, Mega Man 2 was still quite the challenging game even with these improvements to the formula. Despite dozens upon dozens of Mega Man games release since, to this day, fans of the Blue Bomber find Mega Man 2 to be the pinnacle of the long-running series.

Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (PS2)

The original Ratchet & Clank brought an unlikely lombax and robot pair together in one intergalactic adventure. The sequel, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, upped the ante and the arsenal quite a bit, including introducing several mainstays to the series that would appear in most of the games in the franchise. For one, the ability to strafe more easily was extremely helpful, and the addition of being able to level up weapons through dealing damage with them made it so Ratchet's collection of firepower could become one devastating repertoire of destruction. Added gameplay types like racing and gladiator battles rounded out this excellent package, making Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando one of the best entries in the series and one of the PlayStation 2's best games in general.

SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs - "Mario Madness 2017" Edition

Fresh off the excitement of SuperPhillip Central's 750th review which featured Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs continues the wave of celebration with an all-Mario edition to kick off this next batch of one-hundred VGM volumes.

We begin this Mario-fied edition of the VGMs with Super Mario 3D World and Super Mario 3D Land, a duo of Mario games in a similar style. Then, we go retro in a big way with Super Mario Bros. 3 before returning to the present with Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. Finally, we go back to the past with Super Mario Land, and a catchy theme at that.

Just click on the VGM volume name to hear the song described. Click on the VGM Database link right here to hear all 1400 past VGM volumes. If you didn't know by now, SuperPhillip Central's Favorite VGMs have been going on for a good while now! Now, let's get on to the music!

v1401. Super Mario 3D World (Wii U) - Switch Scramble Circus

We begin with a celebratory uptempo theme from one of Super Mario 3D World's earliest stages, a song that appears in every circus-based level in the game. Whether Mario and friends are vaulting from trapeze to trapeze, scrambling across switches, or on the big stage, this high energy theme plays, a great way to kick off the first of our 1400th series of VGM volumes!

v1402. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) - Castle Theme

But, before there was Super Mario 3D World on Wii U, there was Super Mario 3D Land on the Nintendo 3DS. It merged the 2D style of point-to-point platforming and flagpole goals with 3D environments and spaces. An awesome game, and the castle levels were some of the greatest found in the game, all ending with a confrontation with either Bowser or Dry Bowser (and all based on platforming which I really loved). This tense tune lets you know you're in for a challenge indeed!

v1403. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES) - Waterfront (Akihabara Electric Circus Version)

A special soundtrack was released alongside the launch of Super Mario Bros. 3 featuring performances, medleys, and remixes from the the game, all done by the Akihabara Electric Circus. This particular track is a combination of multiple themes, such as the Dark Land theme, but mostly the theme of Water Land, hence its title of Waterfront. It's definitely got a '90s feel to it, but it still manages to be satisfying to the ears.

v1404. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (3DS) - Where's Toad?

Where's Toad? Well, Toads are everywhere in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, and that was one of the problems a good deal of players and critics had with the game. I didn't dislike the game as much as some players did, but one spot that everyone was agreement with was how good the soundtrack was. Then again, how could it have been bad when Yoko Shimomura was behind it! This theme plays during one of many sections in Paper Jam where Mario, Luigi, and Paper Mario must hunt for missing Toads.

v1405. Super Mario Land (GB) - Muda Kingdom

Super Mario Land stands as one of the weakest Mario platformers to me, even being a little weaker than the very vanilla New Super Mario Bros. That said, I happen to like both games regardless. "Hip" Tanaka provided a much better soundtrack to Super Mario Land than Nintendo's new batch of composers did with New Super Mario Bros., and the proof is in themes like this, the Muda Kingdom's theme. Catchy, infectious, and delightful, Tanaka-san's work is exquisite.