Super Mario Party 3: Playing Together
by Eric Fellner
I wrestled for a long time over how I wanted to represent Mario Party 3. Everybody has Nintendo memories. I know how important they are to people. The first I remember is going to my Aunt’s house and playing Super Mario Bros. 3.
Years after the Super Nintendo at Aunt Kathy’s, we got our Nintendo 64. I grew up in a family of five boys. Next door was a family with six girls, one boy. Another, additional set of kids from all over the neighborhood would come to our house and play. It was the only house on the only road without heavy traffic.
The day after we got the N64, my parents took us to Walmart and let us pick out any three games. My father’s only stipulation was: they had to be games that could be played with four players. It rains a lot in Florida. He wasn’t going to have fifteen kids stuck inside, all fighting over the one hogging the Nintendo.
That’s how we ended up with Mario Party 3.
I said before that everyone has Nintendo memories. It could be Super Mario Bros. 3 at their Aunt’s house. It could be playing Donkey Kong at the arcade for the first time. Maybe it could be taking out real-world aggression over a round of Super Smash Bros. At the house on Gimlett Avenue, the game with which we shared the most memories was Mario Party 3.
Nintendo makes great games. When you pick up the controller to play a Nintendo game, you know what the rules are. Their multiplayer games ensure that experienced players are rewarded for their skill, while a balanced amount of randomness keeps the uninitiated engaged. The best Mario games pair fun with a rewarding sense of challenge. Mario Party 3 is all of these things. It’s everything that makes Mario great.
Pretending to have a valid enough opinion about the game, or the clout, to write a retrospective review would be disingenuous. An essay that went into great detail about my specific nostalgia for the game would be a disservice to what makes it great. It’s impossible for me to write about Mario Party 3 in a way that’s truthful and interesting.
After months debating over the best way to represent Mario Party 3, I decided to play the game.
About a month ago, my girlfriend’s family had to put their family dog to rest. I don’t know how I made this decision other than an impulse; I felt like I had to find something for us to do. Not to distract from the event. Something to do as a means of being together. We got beer. We got pizza bagels. I dug through my mom’s garage for the Nintendo 64 with the family copy of Mario Party 3. And we played the game.
In the spirit of Mario, and of Multiverses; in addition to my piece here, I will post the game from that night on Twitter. One turn=one tweet. In the spirit of playing together, I hope you enjoy.
Wahoo! You are a Super Reader! But the adventure doesn’t stop here… There’s more of this project in another castle! This article is just one level in an entire Super Mario Multiverse, a galactic collaboration between writers around the world sharing a bit of our hearts and memories about our favorite Mario games. Visit the Center of the Multiverse to see more:
