Super Mario Bros. 3 is heading to the Wii U and 3DS Virtual Consoles.
If you haven’t heard of Super Mario Bros. , you’re probably not a gamer. Super Mario Bros. was part of the great comeback of the video game industry after the movie tie-in E.T. for Atari crashed it.
Super Mario Bros. starred a supposedly Italian plumber who defeated mostly non-threatening animals by stomping them under his well-worn boots and saved a princess (eventually) by defeating a giant fire-breathing lizard called Bowser. The video game was an instant hit, bundled with the Nintendo Entertainment System and Duck Hunt (alongside a light gun for the latter game), and it sold better than almost any other game of its time. It was the first time we were given the opportunity to make our way through a collection of different levels that actually looked and played differently.
Super Mario Bros. 2 in the US was really just Japan’s Doki Doki Panic with Mario characters thrown in, but it still did well enough to warrant a second sequel. The real Super Mario Bros. 2 was released later as The Lost Levels.
Super Mario Bros. 3 was a hit once again, bringing the series back to its “roots” and leaving the weirdness that was Super Mario Bros. 2 in the US behind. It gave us the chance to suit up as a frog for enhanced swimming abilities, a raccoon for flying abilities (don’t think about that too much), or a statue for temporary invulnerability.
Now in the days of Nintendo’s flagging sales for its consoles all around, a true classic has come to the rescue. Super Mario Bros. 3 is coming to the Virtual Consoles for the 3DS and Wii U , as announced in today’s Nintendo Direct presentation. Other classics coming to the Virtual Consoles are the NES version of Donkey Kong, and Tecmo Bowl (a football game) in September. More recent titles include Carnival ’92: Recca (a two-player shoot-em-up) and Wario Land 3, both coming soon at an unspecified date.
What do you think of Super Mario Bros. 3 coming to the Wii U and 3DS Virtual Consoles?
[Image Credit: Scott Hirst ]