I went home last weekend and returned with a good friend of mine: my family's Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
For reasons unknown I did not bring the SNES back to school with me this fall. Maybe because I thought I was Nintendoed out from last semester. Collectively, my friends and I had either beaten all of the games in my possession or had gotten sick of them in the process. Whatever the reason, the absence of a gaming system in my current abode left me feeling empty.
SNES is my system of choice for many reasons. Yes, I realize that this system is highly outdated in the gaming world. But I've found that I just can't get used to superior graphics, vibrating controllers with 14 buttons on them, and the worst part: three-dimensional gaming space. When I play video games, I want to escape from the vast freedom of this 3-D world and travel in a straight line. Anything beyond that is just disorienting. Meanwhile, SNES is better than NES because even though it lacks the old-school charm, it works on a more consistent basis and you are allowed to save your progress.
But sometimes when playing SNES I just need to go back to good old days without having to resort to inferior technology. And that is why one of my favorite games is Super Mario All-Stars, which combines all of the Super Mario goodness of NES into a convenient SNES package.
Once I begin playing this game, I am faced with the challenge: which Mario should I play today? Pretty easy answer, my friends. Super Mario Bros. is just the same level over and over again with different backgrounds and increasing lengths and difficulties. Mario Two is just strange in a way I can't fully explain; instead of trying to save Princess Toadstool we can play with her? Not to mention those weird pink dinosaurs that spit eggs at you. Where's Bowser?
But, ahhh... Super Mario Bros. Three: the pinnacle of the great trilogy. It goes back to the original roots of Mario while including creative-themed worlds, tons of hidden stuff and different suits! The frog suit, the hammer suit and the greatest of them all: the tanooki suit. If you don't know what that one does, just get out.
To add to its coolness, Super Mario Bros. Three was featured in the 1989 Nintendo classic \The Wizard."" It starred a young Fred Savage, a young Jenny Lewis, who now fronts an indie rock band and the ""wizard"" himself, whose name isn't important since his only line in the movie is ""California."" Even though it is cheesy at best, I have a certain fondness for this movie dating back to third grade sleepovers.
Where was I? Oh yes, I was explaining the wonderfulness of SMB3. There is one level that every Mario aficionado should look forward to, and that is level 5-3: the boot level. Whoever thought to create a boot that Mario can jump in and hop around? Yes, video game characters have always been unrealistically magical, what with their ability to increase and decrease their size while shooting fireballs at weird looking turtles. But to fit Mario in a shoe is just insanely ingenious.
I could theoretically write about this game for pages, but I am hoping to beat this game by the end of the weekend. Midterms, what? I have the Princess to save!
