Bust out $6 and your P-wings...

Yes folks, the greatest game of all time is available on the Virtual Console. Just as I would've expected, this is a precursory promotional tool for Mario Galaxy. I'm glad the day has come because my old cart refuses to work without freezing on my top loader...

GO AND BUY NOW.

Obligatory disagreement from me: I played Mario 3 last year and found it very unfun. Not as awesome as it was when I was a kid. Notice how it's an extra $1, too?

Sorry I misunderstood. It's only $5.

Alien Soldier

Greatest game of all time? Never! Not even the best Mario game, thanks to the unparalleled Super Mario World. However, SMB3 is only 500 points and works with the standard Wiimote, so it's still a great release for the Virtual Console.

Super Mario World 2:Yoshi's Island was better in my opinion than Super Mario Brothers 3.

Is it weird that my favorite Mario games are the original NES one and the Mario All Stars version of Lost Levels?

I don't know if it's the greatest (it's damn close however [in my top five for sure], and so I have no issue with someone who calls it the greatest), but I definitely think that it's the best Mario game.  I've played it now and again over the years and it has never stopped being fun and addictive.  The sense of variety and imagination is unmatched.  It's incredibly ambitious and yet it maintains a thread of consistency through its great controls and themed worlds.  I think it's the best platformer there is, 2D or otherwise.

Another great game.  Better than the slightly overrated Gunstar Heroes. *hides behind a wall*

It depends on how you look at it, I guess.  SMB was the title that revitalized the gaming world and all that.  I think it's still my sister's favorite of the Mario games.  Lost Levels is probably the most challenging, and challenge by virtue of good design (as in not the cheap, unfair kind of challenge) adds value.

Yoshi's Island is obviously a great game too.  Totally different from the usual Mario formula, but great in its own unique way.  Super Mario World is certainly excellent, but I probably don't love it as much as some.  It does have my favorite Mario track though.  It's all about Sub Castle BGM.

SMB3 is the best Mario ever. I think that was proven back in 2001 by a team of expert scientists after an experiment that took four years, cost over 7 million dollars and killed two and a half test subjects. End result: SMB3 rocks.

"Another great game.  Better than the slightly overrated Gunstar Heroes. *hides behind a wall*"

I thought so too.  I got the Gunstar pack this summer at the behest of my friend because "Gunstar is awesome!," only to be totally smitten with Alien Soldier.  Barely even played Gunstar (and didn't even touch Headdy,) go figure   Too bad the scoring system is oddly BROKEN in the PS2 version, hopefully this isn't an issue in the VC release.

I played SMB3 on the All-Stars pack, after playing pretty much all of the SNES/N64 Mario games and some of the Game Boy ones.  I was pretty... confused?  I had some fun with it, but not as much as SMB or the Lost Levels.  And speaking of weirdness, the game I enjoyed the most on the cart was the one that wasn't even a Mario game!

I really like Super Mario World, and I loved Mario 64 and Yoshi's Island.  Yoshi's Island is just so offbeat and damn creative, it really caught me when I first played it and even now I still am amazed by some of the detail in the game.  Of course I also favour Super Mario RPG, but I guess that doesn't count...

Hmmm... Mario 3.  I can never really decide if this is better than Mario World or Yoshi's Island, but it's a really fantastic game anyway you want to slice it.  Any time I feel like just relaxing with a fun platformer, I reach for this one.  It's so easy to just pick up and play and the nostalgia of fighting over the controller at friends' houses back in the day brings back fond memories too.

how so? I was under the impression that, aside from some relatively mild sound accuracy issue, the ports were about as faithful as ports get.

I dont know where all this SMB 3 anti-sentiment is coming from, but, its not here.
Clearly, it is, the greatest Mario game of all time.

"how so? I was under the impression that, aside from some relatively mild sound accuracy issue, the ports were about as faithful as ports get."

I thought so too, but I really have no idea where this could have come from.  You see, the problem with Soldier's scoring is the player's total score will LOOP after 9,999 point (or it may be 999 or even 99,999, but in any case after a certain number of digits) and start at zero again!  My friend and I were totally in the dark about why our progress, which would be similar and consistant, would result in one run at 8,000 some points and one at, 200 or 300!  It's totally spoiled and ruins the 'score attack' aspect of the game; to be honest, its the only thing that let me lose interest in playing the game as 'toughly' as I was.

Mario 3 is one of the few perfect games I've played. It's a game that modern game designers desperately need to look at as a foundation and build upon. One of those games where if you die, you normally have no one to blame but yourself because the level designs and controls are spot-on perfect (an aspect I really wish New SMB would have taken, since it's more similar to the original than anything...I prefer it over the looseness and flying mechanics of SMW).

Megaman owned late-era NES for me, but no question Mario 3 was always THE game for the system after it was released. The worst thing I can say about it is I overplayed it over the years...And there aren't enough Hammer Suits. And it's a little TOO easy to amass 1UP's, even without infinite lives tricks.

One of these days, I might have to try a 100% non-powerup run and see if I can make it through.

Don't really get the anti-SMB3 on here.  I'm fairly sure it holds up the test of time more so than SM64.

As for Alien Soldier, I DLed it because it is a Treasure game just now (looked up why there was such love here for it), and I'm curious if Sega did it because Sin & Punishment sold well.  If only the Genesis Castlevania Bloodlines game and the EU Zero Wing would find its way onto the VC.

I remember the first time I played SMB3. Amazing experience. Even if I played the game today, I could probably run through it in no time, having played the hell out of it over 14 years ago.

That's really a shame.  Dynamite Headdy showed innovation well beyond the standard platformer.  Totally worth the $6.00 on the VC.

As for my fav. Mario?  I don't know, really.  There was a wonderful progression from SMB 1 to 3 to SMWorld to SM64.  They all brought something new to the table.  If I have to pick one, it'd be Super Mario World.  That game was just fantastic in every way.  I miss 2-d platformers...

I dunno... with Mario All-Stars and the GBA port, I own two versions of SMB3 that have save functionality built-in.  That's something that really should've been in the original, and I have a hard time justifying going back to the NES version without it.  That said, Mario 3 itself is a total classic and one of the first games I can remember being excited about it before it even came out (I remember the first teeny tiny screenshot of Mario with the ears and tail in... EGM, I think?).  Yay nostalgia.

The VC has a save function regardless if the game had it originally or not.

And don't think that I don't appreciate that, but it's not quite the same.