Nintendo 35th Anniversary Super Mario Bros. 3 Retrospective
Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. 3 celebrates its 35th anniversary today, as it was originally released on October 23, 1988 in Japan. This side-scrolling game has players controlling Mario or Luigi, who must save Princess Toadstool and the rulers of seven different kingdoms from King Bowser.



This installment shares similar gameplay mechanics with previous games, but also introduces several new elements. Aside from running and jumping found, players can now slide down slopes, pick up as well as throw certain items, and climb vines freely. Some of the new power-ups include the Super Leaf, Tanooki Suit, Frog Suit, and the Hammer Suit. Super Mario Bros. 3 is the third best-selling NES game of all time, with over 17 million copies sold worldwide.

We decided that getting hit as Small Mario would cause you to lose a life, whereas getting hit as Big Mario would only turn you small. We planned out all of the new mechanics for it at that whiteboard meeting. We thought it was much more fun to grow bigger after starting as Small Mario, rather than starting off as Big Mario already. I think we decided that pretty quickly,” said Shigeru Miyamoto, Game Director at Nintendo.