Here's a video John Romero just posted of a prototype for a PC port of Super Mario Bros. 3 that soon-to-be Id Software developed for Nintendo. Interesting stuff!
Thanks for the video ! I have to admit that the "feeling" is totally different than the SNES one. And the behavior of Mario looks a little bit creepy and not smooth like on the SNES Version. Still a great piece of History !
I agree, looks awkward as hell, but a cool piece of history that's nice to see in video form. Thanks for sharing!
Pretty neat video. Reading "Masters of Doom" gives you some pretty good stories about how they threw this together and got shut down by Nintendo. Kind of makes sense from Nintendo's aspect though. Since of course they wanted the NES to be the only platform people would want to play Mario on.
Great share. Mario looks like he has crapped himself, his movement is very awkward looking. The Tanooki suit mechanics also seem to be different, doesn't look like you need to build up speed and power you can just fly, anywhere and everywhere. Although this could have been changed for the final game I guess. Shame PC owners never got the chance to play it.
I think your mixing up the Tanooki suit with the Racoon suit. The Tanooki suit is the one which turns you into stone. At least from what I remember.
Both the Tanooki Suit and the Racoon Suit have the same flight mechanics (you can fly if you do a max-speed running jump and then spin your tail to gain height). It was the P Suit that allowed you to fly at any time. It seems likely to me that they had not completed the implementation of those mechanics in this prototype, so you could just fly whenever you wanted.
It's common for prototypes to have things like unlimited jumps to help devs. Look at the sonic xtreme proto for example.
wait, wasntt this somthing in copy infringement land (wghat ever the name was) thenhe created a prototype to sell off to nintedo so they could develop pc ports ( if im correct)
Jesus Christ that Mario sprite is horrifying. Those big, beady black eyes... Somehow more nightmare-inducing than his Hotel Mario and Teaches Typing appearances.
I didn't notice those eyes until you said that. It's like he's looking into my soul... Some of those sounds seem similar to sounds from Pinball for the NES.
For a prototype from a couple of then unknown developers, that is pretty darn good looking despite the awkwardness.
I'd would've LOVED to play this if it ever came out officially released back then! Such a shame Nintendo didn't wanna compete with their own game but didn't mind shitty educational games :-\