Super Mario 3 by Alyse Knorr: Book Review
Boss Fight Books is an independent publisher founded by Gabe Durham that publishes short books about video games, and, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m obsessed with them. After reading Gabe Durham’s book in the same series about Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask (which I really want to write a review of too at some point) I decided to try reading Alyse Knorr’s book Super Mario 3 largely because it was a game I spent a fair amount of time playing when I kid.
I managed to finish Alyse Knorr’s book before I actually finished playing Super Mario Bros 3. I add here that I’ve technically been playing that game since I was a kid and I’m now, as of this writing, 34 years old.
I have no good excuses for my failure, only recommendations that you read Knorr’s book. It's pretty great.
Knorr’s review is not just a list of all the elements that make Super Mario Bros. 3 a great game. It’s a memoir about her experiences playing video games with her father and brother, it’s an exploration of how her sexuality informed by relationship with video games and her family, it’s a critical analysis of the structure of Super Mario Bros 3, it’s a history of the development and release of the game, it’s a work of journalism to understand the game in the context of its present existence, and finally it’s a beautiful summation of a game that she clearly loves and has spent plenty of time playing.
In one early passage she describes the actual sensation of playing game:
Many factors contribute to a players flow state in SMB3, but the most important is the game’s level design. SMB3, like it’s Mario, game forefathers, carefully paces new content to create a constant state of challenge and learning. According to Ryan Mattson, an independent game developer with level design experience on BioShock 2 and many others, SMB3’s levels exemplify a concept called rational game design. Every block, power up, and enemy is meticulously placed to create challenges that, with enough practice, are always surmountable. Subtly and intuitively, SMB3’s levels, teach you how to play and how to improve through the game alone—no tutorial, manual, or in-game text are ever necessary (15)
Knorr writes honestly and candidly about being a gay woman who enjoyed playing video games and the conflicts this created. Girls were supposed to play with Barbies, not save Princesses from evil giant turtles in digital simulations. I found myself smiling with a kind of familiar sadness that any queer person who has had to navigate gender-expectations in traditionally conservative regions knows all too well. And by framing the quest of Super Mario Bros 3 in this context was an opportunity to understand how my own bisexuality has created unique and often frustrating moments when playing video games. Knorr manages to capture that frustration in her prose, but manages to touch on how being a queer player is often a fluid experience of “finding the gay in games” and making it your own (my words by the way not hers).
In my favorite passage of the book Knorr says
As a young girl, the attractions I had for other girls felt monstrous and dangerous, and when I was aware of crushes I had on girls I saw myself as a lumbering Bowser-like freak. I feared what would happen if I didn’t keep my desires under tight control—I didn’t know what they meant and I wouldn’t try to find out for a long, long time.
Instead, I put on a mask inside the safe world of games. I vicariously experienced the non-threatening platonic love between Mario and Princess Toadstool. The most romance there ever is between the two is a kiss on Mario’s nose or a chased cake baked by the princess to thank him. Still, it’s clear there together. […]
This always implied, never fulfilled romance is what captivated me most about SMB3. In a game, we’re capable of actions impossible in real life, whether that’s turning into a frog or rescuing—or even desiring!—a princess. Games, grade possible worlds, or, as [Jesper]Juul puts it, “playgrounds or players can experiment with things they would, or would not normally do.” In this way, games are just like plays. In a play, you can shed the expectation of reality and be anyone you want—you can play. Costumes, both in and outside of games, offer limitless freedoms to explore, to hide, and to reveal. And stages—whether in a game or in a theatre—are perfect sites for exploration. (86)
Of course this is also a book about video games, Super Mario Bros 3 to be exact, and Knorr did her homework.
The book abounds with details about the production of the game, while also observing personal reflections on individual levels and characters, most notably Boss Bass who inspired most of the panic attacks I ever had playing the game, unless of course we count the angry sun. She describes this npc and how his role in the game affects the player
The design of Boss Bass levels is brilliant because of the terrifying vulnerability you feel when the land sinks down and you’re within his gulp-zone. It feels so personal when he eats you—it’s so belittling to be swallowed by a stupid fish, and if you’re anywhere, near Boss Bass (who can jump by the way) when he opens his mouth, you will be a goner. If you fall into the water while Boss Bass is on the other side of the screen, you have only a few seconds to pull yourself out, and no moment in the game is more panic inducing than this one. (45.)
Knorr’s commentary provided me with a new understanding of how level design was approached by developers, and how these designs illustrated a concern for making the game fun, while also being wonderful challenges to test players' resolve. I found myself regularly turning on my switch after reading chapters of this book to try levels I had played over and over again as a kid to see these elements for myself. And part of this exercise too was rediscovering Super Mario Bros 3.
As I mentioned in a previous essay about Super Mario Bros, I never had an NES system, I only piggybacked off of my parents SNES. My perception of what Super Mario Bros 3 was highly colored by the fact I only ever played it on the Mario All Stars game. Being old enough to afford my own game consoles I now have a Switch, and access to original NES titles. And let me tell you, I was shocked at how different the game was visually and tonally. Thanks to Knorr’s book I took the initiative to rediscover a game I had played for literal days worth of hours on the SNES.
This is what a great book about video games should do.
Part of the appeal of Boss Fight Books is that they are short, usually around the mark of 30,000 words or more. This makes the book a wonderful and, more importantly, accessible for anyone who wants to learn more either about Super Mario Bros 3 or even video games themselves. Knorr writes in a non-academic prose that’s inviting. Reading the book I felt more like I was listening to a friend tell me about something cool they had played rather than an accomplished poet, teacher, and academic lecturing me. Knorr is, for the record, all of the latter in case you’d like to learn more about her. I want to avoid the word “approachable,” mostly because I just finished Zoe Thorogood’s graphic novel It’s Lonely at the Center of the Earth and that word is used often as an alienating and frustrating one for artists and creative individuals. Instead I would describe Knorr’s book as reachable.
That’s literally a synonym for approachable but hear me out.
In my experience digging into video-game discourse the market is flooded with books that are either heavy academic studies that drown the reader with jargon, or else they are often bound “listicles” that drop titles on the reader and provide a pithy explanation as to their importance. Neither of these methods ever make me want to play video games. By contrast, Knorr’s book was like the final box at the end of every level of Super Mario Bros 3: it was something that was possible to reach and acquire And when I had finished it I knew that I had actually experienced the book rather than pushing through it. All it took was a small jump.
A jump in this instance was reading, I think I lost the metaphor halfway through that paragraph.
Brevity was my goal in this essay, so I’ll end where I began: Alyse Knorr has written a wonderful book about Super Mario Bros 3, and even if the reader has never played the game they will be charmed, delighted, and intellectually stimulated. Knorr’s work has given me new understanding and appreciation of the game because of how passionate she is about video games. I can’t wait to reread this book, and maybe even finally finish Super Mario Bros 3.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
11.13.2023
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I included it in a hyperlink above, but just in case you missed it you can find Boss Fight Books: Super Mario Bros 3 by following the link below:
Super Mario Bros. 3 by Alyse Knorr – Boss Fight Books
Also I would highly recommend watching this video of Alyse Knorr reading passages of her book.