• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

Super Mario Bros. 3's Frog Suit is the worst power-up in the series

Professor Beef

Professor Beef

Official ResetEra™ Chao Puncher
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,498
The Digital World
200px-Sea_Side.jpg


Sure looks nice, though! Unfortunately that's all it really has going for it. The intended use for the Frog Suit is to enable more precise swimming in water levels, but SMB3 is easy enough as it is, the Frog Suit is never necessary. The Fire Flower may not allow you to swim with precision, but it allows you to eliminate almost anything in your path in the average underwater level. That just leaves the regular levels, and the Frog Suit controls worse than you may remember. Even when you try and hold a shell to let yourself run, the controls are super loose and slippery.

Hell, at least the Spring power-up from Galaxy has a use in the areas that it's introduced, even if it's rough to control. Frog Suit can't even be considered the best choice in any level!
 
RagnarokX

RagnarokX

Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,742
And the Penguin Suit has the benefits of the Frog Suit (more control while swimming) plus the ability to throw ice balls, the ability to run on ice without slipping, and an upgraded slide that can continue indefinitely on flat ground and skip across the surface of water and breaks brick blocks.
 
Bakercat

Bakercat

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,153
'merica
The only level I remember that I thought it was needed was the auto scroll water level with all the jellyfish. Even then if you get hit you lose that precision anyway, so yeah it's not that great.
 
Het_Nkik

Het_Nkik

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,392
It's pretty terrible as intended but it's a fun challenge modifier. Beating one of the Koopalings while wearing it always feels great.
 
DDayton

DDayton

Member
Oct 27, 2017
341
It's fun to wear, especially when carrying a block. But... yes.... it's a pain to use.
 

Deleted member 27921

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 30, 2017
1,735
Frog suit is pretty bad but I think the Mini Mushroom has got it beat.
200px_Powerup_mini_mushroom_sm.png

It makes your jumps control like garbage, eliminating enemies is a pain in the butt, and you die in one hit.
 
Lucas M. Thomas

Lucas M. Thomas

Editor-in-Chief of Nintendo Force Magazine
Verified
Oct 30, 2017
2,290
Kentucky
The Frog Suit was incredible in that it represented an optional self-imposed Hard Mode for the game. Sure, you could beat Super Mario Bros. 3. But could you beat it by intentionally putting on the Frog Suit before entering non-water levels and avoid taking any hits all the way through? The rescued kings at the end of each world had special messages for players who managed to clear the airships and Koopaling boss battles while maintaining it (and the Tanooki and Hammer Bros. Suits too), and seeing that text was a badge of honor for young NES gamers. And if you could make it all the way through and take down the final Bowser while still in Frog form? You were the stuff of playground legend.
 
belteshazzar

belteshazzar

Member
Oct 27, 2017
148
LOL at the hard mode stuff. I did use it sometimes for the water levels, but you're stuck with it afterwards. Usually lost it pretty quickly on a non water level. It would be a cool challenge to see for how long you can go without losing the suit
 
ilfait

ilfait

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
327
It doesn't need to be useful or make anything easier in order to be good. And it's good. If it weren't, we wouldn't have felt that little thrill when we got it, or the sting when we lost it a minute later.
 
StarPhlox

StarPhlox

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,369
Wisconsin
I feel personally attacked by this post, OP

Frog suit Mario is a brilliant design and so charming. Can't call it the worst in SMB 3 let alone the series in general.
 
Amory

Amory

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,161
Tanooki suit sucks too, tbh...

Well ok it doesn't suck, but it's functionally no better than just the leaf
 
Nocturnowl

Nocturnowl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,060
I'll always want it for that World 7 water stage, the autoscroller with the jellyfish clusterfuck.
The main thing I always recall outside of water stages with the Frog suit is an inability to duck, I'm sure there's an ice world stage I started in the suit and you have to kill yourself since the very first obstacle involves crouching.

Penguin Suit is the truth though, and the arguable best 2D Mario suit.

(worst power up is probably something really boring like Boo Mario, yeah he looks funny but it's not much fun to use at all)
 
Mathieran

Mathieran

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,853
Fuck that. I haven't played Mario 3 in a long time but it was my favorite after Tanooki suit.
 
Kasey

Kasey

Member
Nov 1, 2017
10,822
Boise
I always used it in the water level on world 7.

Hammer suit will always be the best power up in the entire series.
 
Thatguy

Thatguy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
6,207
Seattle WA
Frog suit was one of the more FUN suits in the game, and I hated losing it. Yeah it's not as powerful or useful in beating the level, but that assumes that beating the game is the goal. I would content that having fun is the actual goal in playing games, but that's just me.
 
Dary

Dary

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,404
The English Wilderness
There were secret areas you could only access with the frog suit because it was the only way to swim against currents. Pretty sure one of the hammer suits was hidden in such an area.
 
DwightEvans

DwightEvans

Member
Oct 31, 2017
6
I agree. My problem with all of the suits in Super Mario 3 is that you lost them, like, 45 seconds after getting them. Of course, the fact that I am not very good at the game contributes to my personal experience with this issue.
 
FSLink

FSLink

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,261
ilfait said:
Spring was good too. Not saying this applies to you, but most of the spring detractors I've heard from coincidentally (?) sound like they're bad at controlling it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Honestly for me, I personally just found Spring Mario boring, controlled it just fine. I think the controls for it were pretty easy to grasp so hearing that people had issues with it surprised me.
 
'3y Kingdom

'3y Kingdom

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,494
I agree, but for the sake of argument, I'll choose the Fire Flower from Galaxy. It was both extremely situational and not very fun to use, and while I never had issues with the game's other uses of motion controls, a far cry from the all-destroying Fire Flower of old, I found the slight delay between swinging the WiiMote and shooting a fireball annoying. Plus, whenever you collected it, that obnoxious power music would play (perhaps the only music in Galaxy that got on my nerves).
 
ilfait

ilfait

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
327
FSLink said:
Honestly for me, I personally just found Spring Mario boring, controlled it just fine. I think the controls for it were pretty easy to grasp so hearing that people had issues with it surprised me.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah, I can see that. Lateral motion was kind of slow with it, I think.
 
MrSaturn99

MrSaturn99

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,447
I live in a giant bucket.
Nah, I always loved goofy stuff like that and Spring Mario.

There are a couple Mario power-ups I can recall being underwhelming (Vanish Cap comes to mind: seldom used and felt like a one-trick pony), but I don't think I can say I hated any of them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.