Heretical Inquiry

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Have you ever beaten Super Mario Bros. 1 without using Warp Zones?

I've done it in the past before, but I just now did it without farming 1-ups by exploiting the shell bug. Having coins be this these invaluable, game-sustaining items is... surreal? I'm not sure what, but it's kind of disheartening that they've become barely worth collecting these days; they're just there, almost to the point of being vestigal. It's amazing how small the game feels today, when way back when it felt like this huge, daunting world with no shortage of secrets (I distinctly recall believing that crown-like symbol glitch from the life counter was some sort of Important Artifact). 8-4 is still a remarkably ill-designed level--is it at all possible to beat if you've no fireballs? And I'm pretty sure I've have my jump trajectory fucked up by fallen lifts' phantom hitboxes.

I'm playing the GBA version that I bought during my regrettable Nintendo fanboy phase (I totally fell for hyperbolic hack journalism for a time) out of convenience. The emulation is pretty accurate depsite the GBA having a lower frame-rate than the NES, but the squashed graphics -- aside from making everything barfy looking -- screws with the jump trajectory, making me have to "relearn" them. I remember Deluxe had the diametric opposite problem by keeping the the sprites 1:1 but cropping the goddamn playfield, and I remember think that everyone was crazy for thinking the new bells and whistles redeemed it. Though I have to concede that it was the zenith of Mario's aesthetic. Though I'd take it over the All Stars edition with its buggered-up brick physics (which also inflict Lost Levels and 3) and its stretching Yoichi Kotabe's Mario over SMB's bulky hit box creating what has to be the dumpiest the plumber ever looked.

My god, sorry 'bout the wall of text for an old-as-sin game.

[Wombatwarlord777]

My experience in playing SMB1 actually comes from playing Super Mario Brothers Deluxe. I had actually completed it several times before discovering the Warp Zones, and at the time I was sort of amazed that a player could just skip over so many levels like that. But in the main game, I absolutely burned through lives and continues. It really did feel like an accomplishment when I finally beat 8-4 and then clawed my way through the Lost Levels.

It's really odd playing all the Sonic Genesis games first and then trying to apply what works there to SMB1. Like, I learned really fast that you couldn't avoid Paratroopas by escaping very far to the left, or that you really couldn't bounce very high off of enemies. And like I said, lives are so much more easy to burn in that game.

I don't remember if there were any truly blind jumps or not in Deluxe, but I'm pretty sure it came damn close more than once.

[Rob-Bert]

Actually 3 had its brick physics perfectly preserved in SMAS. And I like the new graphics they made for SMB. Nothing beats those Goomba statues in the background on the bridge level. It's kind of a shame that the 16-bit versions of SMB2 and SMB3 have been re-released in some form but so far SMB's public image has been cemented as purely 8-bit.

I usually just play SMAS + SMW on an emulator with a brick patch installed. That's probably my personal favorite Mario "game" in the series.

[G.Silver]

I am pretty sure I have beaten SMB without warping, but it's a fuzzy and probably not something I could do on a whim. At a friend's birthday party recently he'd busted out the NES and I dove in and took a kind of meandering warp path to the end (didn't go straight for World 8). I didn't beat 8-4 but I'm sure I've done it before without a fireflower, and as I lost life after I had another friend there swearing it could be done (didn't get me past that final Hammer Bro, though).

Something I had definitely not done is beat Super Mario 3 without warping, which I corrected just recently (no game saves either). I was never that big into Mario 3, I liked it, but I didn't think of it as "best in the series" or anything like that. Going back and playing through all of it was kind of an eye opener though, looking at it today I have a lot more respect for it, besides simple nostalgia.

[Sniffnoy]

What exactly is wrong with the brick physics in SMAS? I've mostly played SMB1 via SMAS, so I had no idea anything was different.

[G.Silver]

I had to look it up:

In the NES version, Mario bounces back very quickly after breaking a brick block. When Mario jumps and breaks a brick in All-Stars, he is pulled upward for a split second. Unfortunately, this small change wrecks the rhythm of the original game; in All-Stars, instead of rebounding off a brick block without losing speed, when Mario makes a running jump and breaks a brick that is connected to another block, he'll bump into the adjacent block and fall straight down, resulting in a total loss of momentum.

This change affects both Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, but Super Mario Bros. 3 was spared, thankfully.

http://themushroomkingdom.net/smb_nes2s ... ickphysics

[Tsuyoshi-kun]

Yeah, the brick physics are pretty lousy in the All-Stars games.

I don't think I've ever beaten the NES Super Mario Bros., warp or not. It just seemed a lot trickier than it did in All-Stars, where I've done it several times. I have beaten 2 U.S. and 3 on NES systems, though.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Right, I wasn't sure about 3's brick physics. I does kind of raise the suspicion that SMAS was made by two or more disparate teams. The fact that this wasn't corrected in the 25th anniversary edition was exceptionally chintzy of Nintendo.

And I like the new graphics they made for SMB. Nothing beats those Goomba statues in the background on the bridge level. It's kind of a shame that the 16-bit versions of SMB2 and SMB3 have been re-released in some form but so far SMB's public image has been cemented as purely 8-bit.

I'm referring to Mario & Luigi's sprites, of course. Everything else is a matter of taste, but the fact that 6-3 (my favorite level) was changed from a dreamlike greyscale to a banal nightscape is pretty egregious. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the original was the inspiration for Boggly Woods.

[Crazy Penguin]

I've only beaten SMB and "Lost Levels" in the Deluxe version, with plenty of continues. I've completed Super Mario Bros 3 without warps a few times, usually aided by a healthy inventory of P-Wings, Starmen and Hammer Suits for World 8. That only goes for the American/European version though, where raccoon/fire/suit Mario reverts to big Mario after taking a damage. I'll feel like a fraud until I get the chance to play and complete the Japanese version.

Super Mario Bros 2 (USA) is the one I struggled with the most - those Phantos are still the things of nightmares. I never made it past world 3.

[Neo]

One of the cool things about not owning any Nintendo consoles in the '90s is that I'm only just catching up on stuff everybody's played for years. A few weeks ago I held a blind race of Super Mario USA with a friend of mine who's in the same situation as me, and shit was so cash. We actually both made it to the final boss, with warps, of course, but eventually he was able to beat him first and I declared defeat after losing all my lives on the present continue.

But yeah, no, I've only ever beaten SMB1 once and it was using warps. The game is absolutely merciless with its hitbox detection.

[Malchik]

The fact that this wasn't corrected in the 25th anniversary edition was exceptionally chintzy of Nintendo.

Expecting Nintendo to have the resources to edit a twenty year old rom they may or may not have the source code for is a bit unrealistic. I don't even think they have the editing software they wrote to build it at hand.

The 25th anniversary re-release of SMAS was half-asses to begin with. They didn't even include the SNAS + SMW rom.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Well, I'm way out of my depth in terms source codes and writing software (any layman-friendly literature anyone could point me towards would be much 'preciated), but Nintendo managed to reincorporate the cement factory in NES Donkey Kong a while back. Even a fan made a competent NES conversion of Vs. Super Mario Bros. in his/her spare time, plus there's the aforementioned fan-made brick patch.

[Neo]

Yeah, this is probably a single byte change in the entire executable, you could easily crack open an hex editor and fix it like Sega apparently did with the spike "bug" in Mega Collection. Only reason it didn't happen is because they're Nintendo -- everyone's still going to blindly buy the same game they've bought five times already, so why bother.

[Crisis]

I think it might have more to do with how nobody would notice or care, aside from pedantic forum-goers.

[Rob-Bert]

As for the SMAS+SMW cart, that was a western-exclusive. And in the US you could only get it as a pack-on with the SNES. Nintendo seems pretty keen on only remembering things that were released in all regions these days (unless it's Picross game).

[Frieza2000]

So I broke out my old NES over the weekend (along with the CRT I grew up with!) and gave this a try. I've done it on the main quest plenty of times, but I think I'd only done it on the second quest once or twice, so I warped my way straight to that (forgetting that your lives reset after you beat the game, wasting time getting as many as I could on my way there). Now, I've been playing this game since I was 4 - it's my first game - but I hadn't held an NES controller in...maybe 8 or 9 years. Moreover, I did pretty bad playing multiplayer NSMB Wii, so I was expecting to struggle, but to my surprise I probably played one of my best games ever. I finished with one life more than I started with and only died twice in a single level, 7-2, because I kept cornering myself with bloopers while trying to get the coins. I think it took about 45 minutes. The momentum of Mario 1 is significantly different than the modern games, but I must know it so instinctively that I don't need time to readjust - I had no problem doing the jumps while constantly running. Bugman, what do you mean about 8-4 without fireballs? Was your problem getting past the hammer bros/Bowser? If you made it through 8-3 I'd think you would've figured out how to deal with hammers as small Mario - just stand next to them and let the hammers go over you, then run underneath them when they jump.

Here's another challenge idea: has anyone ever gone through and tried to kill all of the Bowsers with fireballs? I've done them all over the course of my life, but was never good enough to do it in one playthrough. It's too easy to mess up in some of those castles.

Next I went on to Mario 2 US. I'd only played it once before, and that was the GBA version. For some reason I was under the impression that it was really hard, but I found it easier than some parts of 3. Other than Wart's castle, the only part that might be tense was running the key to the door in 3-3 and then the climb after that. Jumping on the trouters to cross 5-1 was pretty standard platforming compared to some of the stuff you have to do in 3 to get to certain areas. The jumping and momentum are very different than either of the other NES Marios, which threw me at first, but I was able to adapt after a few levels. I finished with quite a few lives, though I was using a guide to tell me where to use the potions (I believe I got both mushrooms on every level). Overall it was a fun and charming game - would've been nice to grow up with - and the different characters add a lot of variety and replay value. I think this one clocked at 3.5 - 4 hours.

Then I pulled out Mario 3. This is a game I've cleared without warping MANY times, but I wanted to complete the set. I did a 2-player with my roommate, who'd also shared Mario 1 with me and eventually managed to make it through 1-4 after I'd beaten 8-4...yeah, he grew up with a Genesis. So for his sake I used a Game Genie code I'd never seen before: activate debug mode. In addition to allowing you to set your number of lives at the start, giving you unlimited time in levels, and starting you with two warp whistles, one of every other item, and enough P wings to fill the rest of the inventory, it allows you to cycle through Mario's forms by pressing select. You can even don Kuribo's Shoe by pressing select and A/B. I really wish I'd had it growing up. Anyway, I also threw in a code that allows you to replay levels after clearing them because I was going for another challenge: getting all 7 white mushroom houses (and a few treasure ships). And that was an exhausting 6.5 hour marathon, but it was great. Thanks to debug mode and the ability to replay levels I was able to get to some secret areas that I'd either rarely or never been to (I've always had the strategy guide with all the maps, so I knew they were there, but sometimes you just need to have the right powerup to make it, and if you screw up you don't always get a second try). Definitely my favorite 2d Mario. Good times.

I'm thinking about finishing it off with Mario World. That's another one I've only played once, on the GBA. I remember almost nothing about it. Are there any cool challenges for it besides finding all the secret exits? Will my roommate rage-quit if I bring him in for another 2-player?

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Bugman, what do you mean about 8-4 without fireballs? Was your problem getting past the hammer bros/Bowser? If you made it through 8-3 I'd think you would've figured out how to deal with hammers as small Mario - just stand next to them and let the hammers go over you, then run underneath them when they jump.

Hammer Bros. don't exactly telegraph when they're going to jump, and Mario/Luigi don't accelerate terribly fast. 8-3 is manageable because they hop onto brick platforms that give you ample time to scramble under or dispatch them, and those that don't are stationed behind Koopa Troopas. There's only one other Hammer Bro (5-2) that doesn't have either and it is mercifully stationed after a power up, so if I'm not Fiery Mario I can use the mushroom to take the hit.

By the way, this was Second Quest, but I didn't feel the need to mention it since I don't find it particularly more difficult.

[Frieza2000]

The last two in 8-3 are behind a pipe, so the koopa shell won't make it to them. They're shortly after a powerup though, so yeah, 8-4 could easily be the first time you're forced to deal with one head-on.

[G.Silver]

8-4 can also put a lot of psychological pressure on you. I knew I could get by the Hammer Bro last time I did it and was sure I'd done it before, but I just choked every time.

This is something I really felt Mario 3 does that new Mario games don't--I don't think it's necessarily the case that it's that much harder than all the new Mario titles, but that the older games have a much greater sense of pressure and intensity on the player. Maybe that's just me.

[Frieza2000]

I think it comes from the fact that you're meaningfully punished for failure. If you run out of lives in SMB1 you're back to the beginning, which makes those last few levels really tense. In new Mario games, and in most games now in general, the worst your failure will earn you is having to restart the level you're on. Most gamers these days (myself included!) would probably complain about having to "waste time" replaying a lot of the game every time they lost, but really, that fear of losing all that you've worked for creates an awesome rush that's hard to get any other way.

[cjmcray]

I've never beaten Super Mario Bros. 1

Even with the help of Warp Zones. :(

[G.Silver]

You realize that now you have to take up the challenge!

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Oh, and the Podoboo after the Hammer Bro! Can't believe I neglected to mention THAT. Waiting for you're window of opportunity with the clock breathing down your neck, well...

But yeah, there's a rush there when it's all or nothing. They may be more or less gone is most modern action games, but I think they're alive & well in the Rhythm genre.

As for Mario 2, yeah, the advance port is not definitive. It hands out so many hearts as to completely trivialize what challenge there was. All the other bells and whistles detract, rather than add, to the experience. It's an early gen game so the palette washed-out, which is criminal considering how lush the SNES version was.