If one game is the high-water mark of NES platforming, it's Super Mario Bros. 3. Japan got it in October 1988; American kids waited until February 1990, which is part of why the hype had grown to absurd proportions by the time it landed here.

Everything clicked. A branching world map replaced the straight line of levels, so you could dodge a stage you hated or hunt one out for its treasure. An inventory let you carry power-ups between levels and spend them when you needed them. Eight worlds, each with its own look and its own airship to chase down, and a costume rack nobody has topped: the raccoon tail, the frog suit, the Tanooki statue, the Hammer Bros. suit.

Some of that generosity comes down to the cartridge itself. The game uses Nintendo's MMC3 mapper chip, which gave the developers far more memory to page in and, crucially, a scanline counter. That counter is why the status bar sits rock-steady at the bottom of the screen while the level scrolls above it. The NES hardware did not change between 1985 and 1990; what changed was the silicon Nintendo was willing to put inside the plastic.

It also arrived on a marketing wave nothing had matched, including a feature-length commercial disguised as a movie. The Wizard exists largely so that a theater full of children could watch someone find the first warp whistle.

And there's the sly secret hiding in plain sight. Look at the backgrounds and you'll notice the stages are a stage play: bolts holding platforms up, guy wires, a black curtain behind everything, enemies entering from the wings. Nobody tells you. It's just there once you see it.

The warp whistles, the airships, that overworld theme. Around 17 million cartridges went out the door. For many of us this is simply the best the NES ever produced.