Super Mario Advance 4 : Super Mario Bros. 3

Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 for Game Boy Advance is Nintendo's 2003 portable version of the celebrated NES platform game. Developed by Nintendo EAD and published by Nintendo, it reworks Super Mario Bros. 3 using the look and sound of the Super Mario All-Stars remake while retaining the original adventure's side-scrolling structure. Mario or Luigi sets out across the Mushroom World after Bowser and his Koopalings use magic to transform the rulers of seven kingdoms and abduct Princess Peach. First released in Japan in July 2003, the game reached North America in October and Europe later that month.

The main quest is built around eight kingdoms connected by overworld maps. From those maps, players choose routes through grasslands, deserts, seas, giant-sized territory, clouds, ice, pipes, and Bowser's dark final region. Most stages end at a goal panel, but forts, enemy encounters, wandering Hammer Bros., optional paths, bridges, and airship battles make the journey more than a straight line from one level to the next. Clearing an airship returns a kingdom's magic wand and opens the way toward the confrontation with Bowser.

Mario and Luigi run, jump, swim, crouch on slopes, stomp foes, and break blocks while looking for concealed rooms, coins, and useful items. A Super Mushroom increases their size, a Fire Flower supplies fireballs, and a Starman grants temporary invincibility. The returning Super Leaf lets the heroes attack with a tail and build momentum for flight, while the Tanooki Suit adds a statue form. The Frog Suit improves movement in water, and the Hammer Bros. Suit provides thrown hammers. Inventory items such as the Warp Whistle, Hammer, and Lakitu's Cloud can change how players approach the world map and its stages.

This Game Boy Advance edition adds details designed around a handheld release. It includes recorded character voices, quick-save functionality, and a separate Mario Bros. game. That arcade-style mode supports up to four players through Game Boy Advance link play, while the main Super Mario Bros. 3 adventure remains a one-player experience. The base game preserves its recognizable stage goals, secret areas, power-up transformations, and map-based progression, making it a substantial portable take on one of Nintendo's foundational 2D Mario adventures rather than a new sequel.

Its defining addition was compatibility with Nintendo's e-Reader accessory in regions where that hardware and the cards were released. Scanning compatible cards could add extra courses, demonstration movies, power-ups, and special effects. The extra levels used the Super Mario Bros. 3 framework for unusual challenges and introduced ideas outside the original campaign, giving card owners a separate collection of stages to tackle. Availability differed by territory: the European Game Boy Advance release did not support the e-Reader, and not every card series reached every market.

Super Mario Advance 4 also belongs to the four-game Super Mario Advance line, following Game Boy Advance adaptations of Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario World, and Yoshi's Island. Its later Wii U Virtual Console release made the e-Reader material accessible from within the game, including content that had once been region-specific, although that edition did not retain the original link features. The Game Boy Advance original is therefore both a carefully updated version of a classic platformer and a snapshot of Nintendo's early experiment with physical cards expanding a console game.