Mario 1, 2, and 3 Comparison

This is a comparison of the three "Super" Mario games that launched Mario's career. They will be ranked on a scale from zero to four stars.

Obviously the graphics aren't going to be good, but the first game's graphics are extremely poor, being the first NES game. Mario 2 slightly improved that with things like the Mask and the sand pits, but nothing major. Mario 3, however, added a few 3D effects with the White Block, and made all the enemies look about as real as they ever were even on the Super NES. Mario 3 easily wins here, but being the final one, what do you expect?

The sound for Mario 1 includes that infamous Mario theme song, which had to then be in every N64 Mario

game since. Mario 2 had completely different music, copying the water music for its theme song. The only

good music is the Wart theme, and even that gets repetitive. And that outside music sounds really cheesy. Mario 3 has more excellent music then some N64 games. The game would switch outside music on and off,

had the nice famous underground music, and had excellent water music and doomship music. The best music in the game was its ending song. In fact, that music, in my opinion, ranks among the best video game music ever. So here Mario 3 wins easily again.

Difficulty: Mario 1: **** Mario 2: ***1/2 Mario 3: **

The only Mario game that I have never beaten is Mario 1, and, in fact, I don't think I'll ever beat it, or even see level 8-3. Mario 2 is pretty difficult, because it seems more like a maze in some levels, and requires more thinking. Mario 3 is easy. Simple. Except for 8-1, which either requires a P-Wing or a ton of luck to beat. The game gets one star from that level, and what makes that game simple is the fact that you have tons of items, don't fall back to little when getting hit when fully powered-up, and can skip half the game by just beating two levels (1-1 and 1-2). Mario 1 easily wins, thanks to fireballs not being entirely useful, going to little when getting hit, and having some very hard latter levels.

There’s nothing wrong with the gameplay in any of these three games, but Mario 3 wins here, again.

The characters are great, and realize that at least half of all Mario characters are from these games, and maybe another quarter of all Mario characters got their ideas off other characters in these games. The first Mario game had the Goombas, Troopas, Buzzies, Piranhas, Hammer Brothers, Bloopers, Cheep Cheeps, Lakitus, Spinys, Bullet Bills, Podoboos, and Bowsers we all know and hate. Or, I mean, love. Also, Mario 1 had Fire Bars, which was the only enemy NOT to appear in Mario 2 or 3 but appear in this one. Firesnake doesn’t count as a Fire Bar. I love the Sub-con characters, although they are not easily remembered. No one can forget Shy Guy or Bob-omb, especially, and Snifit keeps showing up at the Mario Parties. But where the

characters really were their best was in Mario 3. You have more Goombas, Troopas, and Piranhas, a ton more enemies from underwater and the fortress, and the ones from the doomships. Plus, you got the Boom Booms and, of course, the Koopalings, so how can you go wrong with this bunch of characters? Mario 3 wins once again.

Levels: Mario 1: ** Mario 2: *** Mario 3: ***1/2

The levels in Mario 1 aren’t really that detailed. I mean, 2-2 and 7-2 are the same. 2-3 and 7-3 are very similar, and the same goes for 1-4 and 6-4, 2-4 and 5-4. You don’t get much more than a whole bunch of obstacles thrown at you, and not many surprises other than the Springboards and Balancing Platforms. In Mario 2, you get mazes, having to go back and forth in levels, and levels with locked doors and the like. Mario 3 contains levels with all sorts of contraptions, lifts, doors, pipes, suits, hidden secrets, and a few mazes too. If any original NES game had detailed levels, this was it. There’s no denying that Mario 3 wins this one, again.

There’s not much that needs to be controlled in these games. They’re all basically the same in that category: A is jump, and B is run/weapon. No real winner here.

All right, this one is a no-brainer, Mario 3 has five different fully-powered-up suits. Mario 1 has only the Fire Flower, and if you get hit, there goes even being big. Mario 2 is just a life meter. No real advantage to being bigger except that you’ll live longer. Of course, there's the fact that Mario 2 wasn’t really Mario 2, so that explains the difference between it and the other games.

You may think I’m giving Mario 3 everything, but this is obvious again. Mario 1 has the three warp zones, the vines, and a Minus World, if you can ever find it. Mario 2 has practically nothing besides the warp jars and a couple of shortcuts. Mario 3 has, to name a few, Warp Whistles, turning the Hammer Brothers into a doomship, vines, Switch Blocks, hidden Note Blocks and Coin Heaven, the White Mushroom House, the White Blocks in the levels themselves, hidden power-ups, several shortcuts, and tons of extra ways to get

1-Ups. Now is there a contest?

Replayability: Mario 1: **1/2 Mario 2: **1/2 Mario 3: ***

All three games are very replayable, and you won’t want to stop playing them. First of all, if you beat the game after taking a warp, you may want to play the game again and try to beat it a different way. Second of all, you may want to do something special, like win with Toad on the final level or try to beat Bowser using a Frog Suit. Simply put, you can play these ones over and over again, as long as they work. Mario 3 gets a small edge for being the biggest game.

All three games are worth buying if you ever found a working one to buy. All three are worth having and not

selling if you have them. Of course, this is value for your money, and not really the overall ranking.

Fun Factor!: Mario 1: * Mario 2: *1/2 Mario 3: ****

All right, Mario 3 seems like nearly a flawless game, and it almost is. The other two... well, let’s just say that frustration takes away fun, and frustration is more prominent in them than fun.

The original Super Mario Bros. was what started it all. That means it’s a pretty good one. The second was

some other game with Mario thrown in it because the original Mario 2 was “too hard” for anyone who doesn’t speak Japanese. It couldn’t beat the original, but try Super Mario Advance for an updated, and slightly improved, Mario 2. Super Mario Bros. 3, of course, is still the best Mario game ever made. Better than Super Mario RPG. Better than Mario 64. What the heck, it’s even better than Pokémon, or Link, or whatever is supposed to be the “best game ever”. Mario 3 used an 8-bit system to make a game which is much better than some of the Super NES games. It had the Koopalings, which give it only maybe one-half of a star. The Koopalings didn't make this game perfect just by their appearance. Was Mario is Missing perfect? Mario 3 was a complete game, and besides it being a little too easy, it was unbeatable anywhere else. The Koopalings just added to it. All this out of an 8-bit game. If there is a “winner” out of these three, it is Super Mario Bros. 3.