Hammer Suit

"Hey you! How about lending me your clothes? No dice!? What a drag!"

- Mushroom Kings

The Hammer Suit (also referred to as Sledge Bros.' Suit) is an item found in Super Mario Bros. 3. This item transforms Mario or Luigi into Hammer Mario or Hammer Luigi, which gives him the ability to throw Hammers. He also gains a fireproof shell when ducking, but loses his ability to slide down hills. If Mario or Luigi ducks, he resembles a Buster Beetle.

Hammers defeat almost everything, including Bowser, but like all the suits, one hit from an enemy causes Mario to lose the power.

In the original Super Mario Bros. 3, retrieving a Hammer Suit will make Mario and Luigi's skin turn a darker, yellowish tone, while no other power-ups in the game do so. It is unknown what purpose this skin color change has, but it is possible that Nintendo placed the odd effect in to make the textures of Mario and Luigi's skin bear more resemblance to that of the Koopas and Hammer Brothers themselves. In remakes, Mario and Luigi's skin color stay the same when they wear the suit.

Trivia

 * The Hammer Suit (as well as Hammer Mario) is not mentioned in the original NES instruction booklet. The Virtual Console re-release's Operations Guide, which is based on it, also has no reference to it.