Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World?

[Oldgamingfart]

I really like SMW3, but World just captivated me as soon as I flicked the power switch on the SNES. It still has excellent re-play value, which is quite hard to find when it comes to platform games, especially one nearly twenty years old!

[Max P.]

As a SNES nut SMW will for ever be the best game in the world bar none. I guess though if you didn't come to SMB3 after SMW (ie on the SNES Mario collection) then you may feel differently. If the tech part of Yoshi's Island had been utilised in a true SMW follow-up that could have been the defining one of the 16 bit glory days.

[jnm23]

hmmm:

SMW:
+ nicer controls, more responsive
+ better music and graphics obviously
+ less linear, lots of routes through the game

SMB3:
+ tougher (that bloody ship!)
+ more random events happening on the map (hammer bros)
+ more of a technical achievement

I actually played SMW first and that's why it's more special for me. I suspect if I owned a NES in 1990 it would be the other way round.

Both would be in my top 3 platform games ever

[nakamura]

Easy , Super Mario IV.

Along with Exhumed , Mario is the most perfect game I've ever played, both games feature the best level design I've ever experienced in a game . And before people jump on my back, I'll stress imo

You aren't the first i have heard say that. I am assuming you mean the Saturn version right?


Anyway, SMW is for me miles better the SMB3. I didn't enjoy 3 all the much at all. I didn't like the music or map design. I didn't bond with the levels.

SMW had everything. I dare say it is flawless. Its without peers in not only the genre but gaming itself. It still looks great and sounds superb. Yoshi was a great addition as was the cape. Also the way the music was enhanced when riding the little dude was fantastic.

[Ouenben]

Sonic was THE game for me in my schooldays though , Mario was considered to girly

A game where you go around as a plumber riding dinosaurs, shooting fireballs, dropping lizards in lava and saving a princess was considered too girly compared to a game where you control a cute blue hedgehog that runs fast to defeat an evil scientest and rescue his animal friends?

I have to say Super Mario world is my favourite of the two but I do love Super mario bros 3 as well.

[parkinho]

World for me - everything about it is videogame perfection. I honestly cannot imagine any other platformer ever getting close to the quality of this bad boy. Just thinking about it has got me in the mood for replaying it this weekend

YOU ARE A SUPER PLAYER!

[yesteryeargames]

both in the top 10 of all time games easy

i think smw just a little better than mario 3, still id proberly rate them 99% each

[BaudAttitude]

While I played the first two Marios on the NES, I didn't play 3 or World until the GBA remakes, so take this with that perspective in mind.

I played Super Mario World to the finish and enjoyed it. I didn't go back through the levels looking for secrets or anything; I beat Bowser, rescued the Princess, felt good about it, and moved on. It had some levels that were hard, and the Bowser fight itself took a good dozen tries to get through, but I was enjoying it enough to keep at it.

I played Mario 3 and absolutely hated it after a certain point; I came to the realization that I was constantly repeating earlier levels in order to build up enough lives to learn later levels, that that had sucked all the enjoyment out of it for me, and that I was only keeping at it because everyone said it was the greatest Mario ever.

If it were, oh, 1990, as someone mentioned earlier, and SMB3 was the only game I was going to own for the next three months and all my friends were playing it too, I might have had the patience to get past the point I got stuck, but in a modern context it was a cheap GBA game that got tossed aside in favor of any of the couple hundred unplayed games on my backlog.

I can only admit this because, well, there's a good sized ocean between me and most of the forum members and you'd have to buy transatlantic tickets in order to come lynch me.

[Team Andromeda]

You aren't the first i have heard say that. I am assuming you mean the Saturn version right?

Yeah , though to be fair the PS versions isn't far off, just not quite as good and doesn't control as well thanks to the dire PS pad

[Wil]

I can understand folks in the US getting all nostalgic about SMB3 (after all, I've watched The Wizard ) but, for me, Super Mario World (or SMB 4) has both the nostagia factor and the longevity. I've only dabbled in 3 on the Virtual Console after completing it on Mario All-Stars but SMW is constantly next to the SFC (it's plugged into it right in front of me, now) and I always enjoy playing it (and have, regularly since 1990).
As the C&VG Complete Guide to Consoles said something to the effect of 'having that cart in your pocket was like the ultimate conker.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=nTRzaG_GbVQ&feature=channel

[abigsmurf]

SMB3 is a bigger challenge (especially the dark world) and possible far more impressive for the innovations and technical achievements it acheived.

However SMW is bigger, has more secrets and more enemies and obstacles and most importantly, it's just more fun.

[Geoff D]

I'd have to give it to World as well - it's the perfect 2D platforming package; that said, 3 comes very close indeed & is utterly marvelous as well.

[samanosuke]

I vote for SMB3 just because it was so ground-breaking. Plus I liked the extra suits and who can forget the big world?

[Shoju]

I think I remember liking SMB2 more than both of them for it's great innovation. I don't think any other platformer plays like it.

Something I didn't really care about at the time was secret hidden areas. I did really like having a variety of powerups though so I vaguely remember preferring SMB3.

Although I really liked the SMB series they weren't my favourite games on the NES or SNES. Maybe they've aged better than anything else from that period though so I might have to get the GBA versions to try them again.

[DeathAdder]

SMB3 for me. SMW would have taken it if it had come first, but by the time I got it, it didn't seem like much of a leap, so I enjoyed 3 more the first time I played it.