Highlights
- Super Mario Bros. 3, released over 30 years ago, continues to be a beloved and influential game with new discoveries still being made by players.
- A mini-game in the game, the roulette, was found to be rigged against players, making it difficult to obtain extra lives outside of levels.
- Despite the rigging, players still find enjoyment in discovering secrets in video games, contributing to the enduring appeal of Super Mario Bros. 3.
It turns out that one of the mini-games in Super Mario Bros. 3 was rigged against the player. Super Mario Bros. 3 players are still making new discoveries even after over thirty years.
Released on NES between 1988 and 1991 depending on the region, Super Mario Bros. 3 has been hailed as one of the greatest video games of all time. Not only did it spawn many elements that have been a part of Mario's platforming adventures ever since, but it's also garnered multiple remakes, ports, a short-lived TV series, and even a canceled PC version. There are almost no Nintendo platforms that cannot play some version of this title, and Nintendo itself has referenced it to varying degrees across the franchise to this day, whether it be alluding to its visuals, remixing its music, or bringing back one of its many power-ups.
Nintendo Collector Finds Super Mario Bros. 3 Happy Meal Display from 1990
A retro Nintendo fan discovers a store display from the original Super Mario Bros. 3 McDonald's Happy Meal promotion from 1990.
Super Mario Bros. 3 has been noted for being challenging even by Nintendo itself, but as revealed by YouTube channel Retro Game Mechanics Explained, one factor in this is just how hard it is to obtain extra lives outside of levels. Apparently, the roulette mini-game, which can net Mario 1-Ups upon matching the three rows, is rigged by its coding. Super Mario Bros. 3 makes use of a 15-bit Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) to generate random numbers, which are then assigned to each of the three rows of the roulette, determining how many frames it will let pass before it starts to slow down, and the range of frames expands with each row. To put it simply, while Rows 1 and 2 spin at a rate where they're easy enough to match, Row 3 is where the rigging lies, as it moves fast enough to complete one full round of the roulette. Thus, that's where many players fail the mini-game, due to them essentially having no control over where that row lands.
This mini-game has become infamous among Super Mario Bros. 3 fans, and while some in the comments stated that they didn't have much trouble with it, many expressed their catharsis over finally seeing proof that it was rigged. Others commented on the decidedly easier card-matching mini-game, which the same video noted was originally meant to be completely randomized as well, before the developers settled on just having eight set card arrangements.
Whether they be intentional Easter eggs, random coincidences, or a faux pas or even intentional trolling on the part of the developers, it's always fun to discover secrets in video games no matter how old, and Super Mario Bros. 3 is no exception. Such a feature might not be the main reason, but it certainly is a factor in why some games just never stop being played even decades later.
Super Mario Bros. 3 is available on Nintendo Switch and legacy platforms.