By now there’s a good chance you’ve played through Super Mario Bros. 3 from beginning to end a dozen times. What you’ve likely never seen is footage from before the game was complete.
The video above surfaced on Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga and comes from the September 1988 edition of Famimaga. It shows a chunk of World 1-3 along with screenshots of other, unknown areas of the game.
There are a number of differences in the level design of areas recognizable in the final game. In the section pictured below (seen at about the 17-second mark in the video) highlights this fairly well. Another change is seen in the HUD: Mario’s name was replaced by the number of the world you’re on, with the number of lives you have left being simplified to “M X number of lives” in the bottom left corner. It’s been noted that the timer runs down noticeably faster in the old footage than it does in the final game.
