Super Mario Bros. 3 had major regional differences

Japan had the harder game, of course

I’ve mentioned on several occasions that my family lived in Japan for a few years, thus my first games console was not an NES but a Famicom. I grew up playing the Japanese versions of famed Nintendo classics, and it was only once we moved to the States and I visited friends’ homes that I realized just how different my experiences had been.

So many things I thought I knew were flipped on their head. Mega Man 2? I never had an option to select difficulty. Batman? The first and second level themes were swapped. Battletoads? I started with five lives instead of three and the Turbo Tunnel was actually easier.

Then there was Super Mario Bros. 3. I played that game to death and never thought for a second that I was actually having a tougher time than my American buds. When you take damage while carrying a power-up in the US version, you revert to big Mario. In the Japanese version, it’s right back to little Mario. There are some other subtle differences as well that I was unaware of until this video, but I’ve been privy to that first bit since I was a young lad.

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