Players control brothers Mario or Luigi, who must save Princess Toadstool and the rulers of seven different kingdoms from the antagonist Bowser.

As in previous Mario games, they defeat enemies by stomping on them or using items that bestow magical powers; they also have new abilities, including flight and sliding down slopes.

In addition to the running and jumping found in previous games, the player character can slide down slopes, pick up and throw certain items, and freely climb vines.

Paths connect to action panels, fortresses, and other map icons, and allow players to take different routes to reach the kingdom's goal.

Moving the on-screen character to an action panel or fortress will allow access to that course, a linear stage populated with obstacles and enemies.

The majority of the game takes place in these levels, with the player traversing the stage by dashing, jumping, flying, swimming, and dodging or defeating enemies.

Mario and Luigi lose a life if they take damage while small, fall into lava or a bottomless pit, or run out of time.

[citation needed] Super Mario Bros. 3 includes a multiplayer option which allows two players to play the game by taking turns at navigating the overworld map and accessing stage levels.

In the Mushroom World, Bowser has his seven children, the Koopalings, conquer each of the seven kingdoms by stealing its king's magical wand and using it to transform him into an animal.

Princess Toadstool receives news of Bowser's actions and dispatches Mario and Luigi to travel to each kingdom, retrieve the stolen wand, and restore its king to normal.

When they rescue the seventh king, they instead receive a note from Bowser, boasting that he has kidnapped Toadstool and imprisoned her within the castle of his own realm, Dark Land.

The title screen features a stage curtain being drawn open, and in the original NES version, in-game objects hang from off-screen catwalks, are bolted to the background, or cast shadows on the skyline.

[19] The development team introduced new power-ups and concepts that would give Mario the appearance of different creatures as a means of providing him with new abilities.

An early idea changed Mario into a centaur, but was dropped in favor of a raccoon tail with limited flying ability.

[19] Bowser's children, the Koopalings, were designed to be unique in appearance and personality; Miyamoto based the characters on seven of his programmers as a tribute to their work and efforts.

Shapes in the collection were assigned numbers that the game's code used to access and combine to form complete images on the screen in real time.

The MMC3 chip allows for animated tiles, extra RAM for diagonal scrolling, and a scan line timer to split the screen.

During the movie's production, the filmmakers requested and were granted approval from Nintendo regarding the script and the portrayal of the company's games.

Boone commented that the game is nearly flawless in its utterly "stupendous incredibility and absolutely impossible to put down for anything less than a fire alarm and even then you find yourself weighing down the odds."

[38] Julian Rignall of Mean Machines referred to Super Mario Bros. 3 as the "finest video game" he had ever played, citing its addictiveness, depth, and challenge.

Regan further stated that the game offered elements which tested the player's "brains and reflexes", and that though the graphics were simple, they were "incredibly varied".

[23] In Japan, it appeared at the top of the Famitsu sales charts in December 1988[51] and January 1989,[51] and became the second best-selling game of 1988 after Dragon Quest III.

[56] In North America, the inclusion of Super Mario Bros. 3 in The Wizard served as a preview which generated a high level of anticipation in the United States prior to its release.

Former 1Up.com journalist Ray Barnholt panned Super Mario 3 Special as a "horrible, awful, rank piece of software."

Barnholt criticized its extremely short length, "atrocious" controls leading him to liken Mario's movement to "a drunken Sonic," poor level design, coloring, and music, and lack of a proper ending.

[18] Through a collaboration between NBC and Nintendo of America, an animated television series, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, was created from September to December 1990 by DIC Entertainment.

The show aired weekly on Saturday mornings on NBC alongside the second season of Captain N: The Game Master as part of the hour-long Captain N & The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 programming block with 26 episodes and featured numerous characters, enemies, and settings from the video game; the original seven Koopalings are given different names based on their given personalities and are also given a new age order.

[117] Carmack and Hall went on to found id Software and develop Commander Keen, a series of platform games inspired by Super Mario Bros.

[118][119][120][121][122] The Super Mario Bros. 3 demo had not been readily shared, but a working copy was discovered and preserved in the Museum of Play in July 2021.

[125] On November 20, 2020, a sealed copy with rare alternate cover art featuring "Bros." on the left instead of the center was sold for $156,000, the most money ever paid for a video game at the time.