Editorial: Koopalings, Airships and Tanookis Oh My! - Mario Mania #3

Koopalings, Airships and Tanookis Oh My! - Mario Mania #3

The finale of the NES trilogy is truly a classic to behold.

The year was 1990. It is about a year before the Super Nintendo makes its debut, but the NES is enjoying brisk sales of both hardware and games. The previous year Nintendo released its first handheld system, the Game Boy, and unleashed the addiction known as Tetris. This was, however, in North America. As I eluded to in Mario Mania #2, a Famicom player often had a different, exclusive set of hardware to play with than his counterpart in North America. The Japan-only accessory, the Famicom Disk System, was one of them.

Released in 1986, the same year as the Lost Levels in Japan, the Famicom Disk System was made so that Nintendo and third party developers could develop bigger games for the Famicom. Rather than the multi-colored carts the Famicom originally used, games for the Disk System were made on yellow diskettes, slightly thicker and smaller then the computer diskettes. While games were larger, diskettes needed to be flipped from side A to side B. The NES cartridge eliminated this, but some features like saving and an extra sound channel were taken out. While the Zelda games managed to have a save feature when they came to North America, they were also delayed due to a shortage of ROM chips. This, in turn, caused a massive two-year delay in Super Mario Bros. 3's arrival in North America. SMB3 was released on a normal Famicom cartridge in Japan, in 1988, and finally in North America in 1990.

Before Nintendo of America released SMB3 in North America, it had to do something to show everyone it existed (besides, you know, advertising in Nintendo Power). What better way to hype SMB3 in North America then prove its existence in… a stupid movie.

The Wizard's real rise to fame in 1989 was the fact it was the first and only media advertisement that showed SMB3 actually existed. Other than that, is this movie any good? No. No it's not. In fact, it tries to be heart-warming but comes across as stupid and slightly creepy. Even worse, despite Super Mario Bros. 3 being unveiled to the audience at the near end of the movie for the first time, one of the main characters knows where the first warp whistle is.