Again, I am just going to link to my previous Super Mario Bros 3 blog post. This is a game that I come back to fairly often and I don’t have anything in the way of fresh realizations from my recent play through. As much as I like to point out Super Mario Bros 2 as an underrated gem, its real problem is being sandwiched between possibly the most influential video game ever in Super Mario Bros and a legitimate, best game of all-time masterpiece in Super Mario Bros 3. SMB3 does essentially everything right, gets all the juice it possibly can out of the NES and most importantly is just a blast to play. It is possibly for a knowledgeable player to blast through in an hour or so and is just as much fun for a novice to wander around in for five.

Playing the three NES games as the All-Stars version did a lot to make the experience feel fresh. The games still play like they should, but there is novelty to playing these NES games when they look like early SNES games. Other than the graphics, the one big change this game brings is save functionality. Being able to save would fundamentally change the series, but all it does with these games made without that feature in mind is let you play the game at your own pace. That is not a big deal in this age of Virtual Console save states, but you do play a game differently when you have to beat it all in one sitting or start over from the beginning. I don’t think it will ever be more than a curiosity, but I am glad it exists. Next time, I’ll probably stick with the originals, but I am glad to have seen these versions of the game.