4/5 ★ – Tye_Boy's review of Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3.

Colourful, charming, and all-around fun, Super Mario Advance 4 is a wonderful time. With the Wii U and 3DS’s digital stores closing down the line, I took up the recommendations of some games on both platforms. This was one of them. Especially with how there are a bunch of levels that you were supposed to unlock on the GBA version with e-reader cards. Some of those never released. The Wii U virtual console release of this game is the only way to play those levels, and for $8 CAD, I knew I had to nab this before the eshop closes. Compared with the original on NES, this enhanced version of Super Mario Brothers 3 is of great quality. Containing touched-up visuals (which somewhat suffer from screen-crunch), a memorable plethora of music, with voice clips of the characters (even with the GBA’s soundchip), and other quality of life improvements, it’s makes for a version worthy of checking out. The levels are (mostly) short, and highly fun to jump and play through. Even if I ran into some frustration at points with momentum, and what I perceived to be unfair deaths from questionable hitboxes. Control-wise, aside from what is likely my own movements made on a Wii U gamepad, it works quite well. I should also confess that I started abusing save-states towards the end of the game, but compared to some other games I’ve played through virtual console, I went the longest into my playthrough without using them here. It’s just hard to resist not using them between the Wii U, 3DS, and Switch. They’re right there and super convenient to use. Rounding out the package furthermore, this game contains an enhanced version of the Mario Brothers arcade game. I spent a bit of time with it after finishing the main game of Mario Brothers 3, and had a blast with it. It had been a long time since I played the arcade game. I had thought about playing the e-reader levels, but decided not to, given my strong wants to move onto other games, and to give platformers a bit of a rest for the time being. At least I have the game and those otherwise-inaccessible levels, even if digitally. Overall, this is a superb, cleaned-up, and terrific version of a classic Mario game.