Same. Level 3 of any game shouldn't be that fucking hard. I watched a speed run later in life just to get closure on the rest of that game, and it's all just as sadistic. I can't believe anyone ever finished it.
For me the trick with the water level was to take advantage of being able to swap turtles on the fly. I always made sure to save one turtle that was at full health thatās only purpose was to use on that part that was full of the electric seaweed. Iād swap, go through as fast as possible not really caring if I took hits, and then swap to another after that part.
That said, I think equating this and what the kids are doing now is very different. Not trying to make video games some deep thing, but I do think there is a difference between working 3 days to solve a problem, like how to make a jump is inherently better and more mentally stimulating than just scrolling endless bits of content that changes up every 30 seconds.
Not to mention, those games didn't have an auto save. So you still had to do tasks repeatedly to even get to that jump.
While video games were designed to be dopamine inducing as well, them at dopamine came at the cost of real effort. I think that's the biggest difference.
I think that on a more fundamental level, the motivation for the dopamine infusions is important. For the older games, they were designed for you to want to play them, so youād be happy you bought the game and buy more games. Now, everything-everything- is designed to keep your eyes on the screen so they can sell your eyes to advertisers.
ā¦.And to find all the secrets, you had to hope one of your friends knew or you bought a magazine. It was like treasure hunting. All of these things are rewards that require a lot of effort.
I remember begging my parents to get me a subscription to Nintendo Power. I also remember bringing the map that came with Zelda to school and having my friends mark it up with stuff at lunch. āYou can burn this bush with a candle and then the guy will give you some rupees.ā
I bought the Zelda game (tears of the kingdom) for switch, and the book about the game. Really took me back figuring things out with a book!! I bookmarked certain pages and would leave it open for days on end so I wouldnāt forget what I was trying to do in-game lol.
Hahaha these days I stop and "save state" on the emulator so I can do it over and over again. I think I earned it for having done it the hard way all those years!
I was playing DK Country 2 recently and I can't understand how anyone beat that game without the modern convenience of Save States. It's still genuinely hard. I literally paused the game and saved state each time I passed the maddenly difficult parts of the levels and I still got just as frustrated with it lol
Most of the time when I beat a hard level I would use Funkyās flights to fly back to a save Point. Still one of the hardest games Iāve beaten. Not sure I could do it again.
Iād add that having a TV in the house (and maybe one in your room) is different than having a phone in your hand 16 hours a day.
How common is it to see a bunch of people at a restaurant or something all on their phones. At least in our day when you were at Applebees you were at Applebees. That was it.
Yep. When the show that was on TV was one we didn't like or the video game got boring/frustrating, we turned the screen off and went somewhere else (most likely outside) where there were no screens at all.
When my youngest was a toddler, this was his act of passive aggression, when his older bothers pissed him off. Heād just go to the xbox while they were playing and turn it off. š¤£ the look on his face was epic.
Humorous hyperbole accepted, no bugger spent 3 days on one tricky 8-bit jump, like as games encourage 'grinding' now. Best case scenario; you ran out of lives, chucked the controller at the three inch thick glass screen and went out on your bike.
I go through this with my kid now. I think video games can be a good thing, but not something you just do all day endlessly. It is way better than mindlessly watching youtube or eventually the social media apps.
Watching my kid figure out how to use a controller, learn keyboard commands, open doors and navigate a world and use his imagination while doing it has been one of my favorite memories as a parent. But I also see when it gets to be "too much" and he needs a break.
When we rented games on weekends, I remember waking up super early the day it had to go back so I could play one last time Monday morning before school.
I got the first Dragon Warrior free with a Nintendo Power subscription. It was one of the few events in my life that dramatically shifted my timeline in tangible ways. What a great series.
I honestly think it was removed from the newer mini-NES they released with like 30 games. I was all excited to show my kids and bam... unable to do it after 30+ tries. No point in going to 3-1 nowadays.
Play the japanese version, it's a lot easier. They screwed us outside Japan because of the rental market. Made it way more difficult and did zero playtesting.
I would consider that the choke point of world 8. I don't think it is possible to make that jump without using the run button. Not many other places in the game require the player to run.
It is possible to beat the game without the "B" button. There is a speedrunning category called "Walkathon any%". There is a section in 8-2 where you have to slow down slightly to allow a bullet bill to fire and follow you and then bounce off it to clear a gap. Current record is 6 minutes 54 seconds
Albeit this conversation is about what Super Mario Bros. requires of its players. I doubt 8-1's creators made it with the intention / expectation that players would complete it by wall jumping to avoid running.
I would be interested to see what Nintendo Power had to say about the wall jump because as I recall they did not like to acknowledge "bugs" in their games such as the "minus world".
Although by the time the Super Mario Bros. 3 Official Strategy Guide released, Nintendo Power would apparently be comfortable making a (qualified) reference to the wall jump deep in world six:
I don't think I played Mario without the jump button pressed. I think the trick for that one was to just jump as soon as you hit it. Sucked when you made it there, lost your last guy, then had to start at 1-1 again.
I just hold the button that triggers running and never let it go. I got to the point in the 90s I could be the game in 15-20 mins top without my contacts in.
I don't think I realized there was a quick dodge until I picked it back up in my 30's, along with tactics of how to beat him on the internet. Even then, I think the best I have done is a TKO. How I beat anything when all I had was my friend's old Nintendo Power books is beyond me. Like, we had to watch The Wizard to know where a warp whistle is in Mario 3 was.
It was literally unbeatable in 2 player mode. Level, I think 11, which introduced snakes you had to hop on dropped controller 2 support via a bug. Since it was at the beginning of the level and no enemies spawned you couldn't let one of you die to advance.
Fun fact - Iām not a native English speaker and the first words I ever tried to translate are ā thank you Mario but the princess is in another castleĀ ā
I couldn't beat that alien boss at the end. Remember all of the complicated passwords for games? Ones for phone apps are less complicated, and you can save them to your phone.
Yeah, I mean I spent 6-8 hours a day on screens between video games and tv from ages 12 to 18. When I had a kid I sort of ended up being permissive because āI mean I tuned out mostly okayā
But I think I screwed up there. My kid is a young teen and I can see where itās caused issues. And to someone elseās point I do think I failed to recognize some fundamental differences. Tv or games did get old and boring whereas the modern Internet is constantly throwing something new at you. And those games, to may comments, often required perseverance and problem solving in a way that most games, having been made easier for broader consumption, do not.
Id say one big difference tho is the fact that we all weren't bringing Nintendo literally everywhere we went using it at restaurants, school, fam outings etc
wtf why would it take 3 days to clear this jump?? you just run straight off the pipe, you'll clear the small gaps and then just run-jump over the large gap. shouldnt take more than 2 seconds
Because we were dumb, anxious kids playing our first video game, or at least the first one that wasn't tied to a single screen. That's in 8-2, you can't waste your one remaining life on a risky attempt, you have to go with what you perceive to be the safest jump. lol
It's amazing how much better you could get by just watching a friend play, reading a Nintendo Power, or for the richest among us, calling the Nintendo Power Line. And all of that was replaced by just pulling up YouTube on your phone.
Every week that I was expecting my Nintendo Power, I would RUN from the bus to the mailbox hoping so hard that when I opened the lid I would see all the colors on the cover waiting for me.
Just have to shout out the 'U Can Beat Video Games' YouTube channel here. Absolute godsend for clocking some of the worst retro games, that I never would have beaten back then without booting the console out the nearest window like a wayward Russian oligarch.
Eventually I would get tired of trying to make that jump and do something else. If I was a kid now Iād just move on to another game. There is a wealth of choice in electronic entertainment now
I remember going over my cousins house one day in the early 90s and he had spent all day trying to destroy a structure that would crush you in the sandcrawler level of Star Wars on NES. It couldn't be destroyed...but he was sure it just needed a few more hits
And I could still make it to this day. All the way to the left until his left foot is hanging off the ledge then forward depressing B until thou get right to the end of the second tower (he goes over the first two gaps in speed mode) and onto the save the princess. But don't forget the second jump up the flag pole for more more points. Mario never settles for the bottom.
But here's the difference. When we beat a level, there would be another level to beat. Eventually you could beat the game or, like in the case with E.T., its just stupidly impossible. Either way there was a natural end point. Now its all DLC and constant updates. The games are never ending.
This jump is easy. Start running, jump on the pipe, keep running over the gaps (if youāre running you wonāt fall in) then jump when you get to the big hole.
I think you could get to speed just standing on the pipe. The problem starts if part of the pipe is offscreen. Then youāre screwed. Of course, I havenāt played SMB 1 in forever, so who knows if my memory is accurate.
The struggle is real. This and the TMNT water / electrocution board taught us everything we needed to know about life.
I never got past the hoverbike level in Battletoads.
Once I got the game genie, I could skip it and play the further levels.
That game was just insanely hard.
Same. Level 3 of any game shouldn't be that fucking hard. I watched a speed run later in life just to get closure on the rest of that game, and it's all just as sadistic. I can't believe anyone ever finished it.
Never got past the concrete jump in Bart Vs the Space Mutants š
u/jza_1 TBH from 1983 to 2002 I wish I spent my time playing tennis with the neighborhood kids after school 4 hours daily.
That game was hard man...
For me the trick with the water level was to take advantage of being able to swap turtles on the fly. I always made sure to save one turtle that was at full health thatās only purpose was to use on that part that was full of the electric seaweed. Iād swap, go through as fast as possible not really caring if I took hits, and then swap to another after that part.
And that TMNT roof jump
And this damn pizza
https://preview.redd.it/wlptw5a4eu6g1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=f6b93c2afc22c14ae7aab0cc1384c73a9b93a25f
So many childhood traumas in the replies D:
Agreed. On the core memory unlocked thing.
That said, I think equating this and what the kids are doing now is very different. Not trying to make video games some deep thing, but I do think there is a difference between working 3 days to solve a problem, like how to make a jump is inherently better and more mentally stimulating than just scrolling endless bits of content that changes up every 30 seconds.
Not to mention, those games didn't have an auto save. So you still had to do tasks repeatedly to even get to that jump.
While video games were designed to be dopamine inducing as well, them at dopamine came at the cost of real effort. I think that's the biggest difference.
I think that on a more fundamental level, the motivation for the dopamine infusions is important. For the older games, they were designed for you to want to play them, so youād be happy you bought the game and buy more games. Now, everything-everything- is designed to keep your eyes on the screen so they can sell your eyes to advertisers.
ā¦.And to find all the secrets, you had to hope one of your friends knew or you bought a magazine. It was like treasure hunting. All of these things are rewards that require a lot of effort.
I remember begging my parents to get me a subscription to Nintendo Power. I also remember bringing the map that came with Zelda to school and having my friends mark it up with stuff at lunch. āYou can burn this bush with a candle and then the guy will give you some rupees.ā
There were real social elements to it that required you to ātouch grassā.
If by ātouch grassā you mean interact with other people in person and maybe trade them parts of my lunch, yes.
GameFaqs was a lifesaver.
I bought the Zelda game (tears of the kingdom) for switch, and the book about the game. Really took me back figuring things out with a book!! I bookmarked certain pages and would leave it open for days on end so I wouldnāt forget what I was trying to do in-game lol.
Yes, just ask speed runners. lol BBG + FPG saves 21 frames.
https://i.redd.it/bh77fahpcu6g1.gif
Hahaha these days I stop and "save state" on the emulator so I can do it over and over again. I think I earned it for having done it the hard way all those years!
Oh yeah. On my Switch, when I play NES games, I save it as well as I go. I don't have unlimted free time to get through stuff.
I was playing DK Country 2 recently and I can't understand how anyone beat that game without the modern convenience of Save States. It's still genuinely hard. I literally paused the game and saved state each time I passed the maddenly difficult parts of the levels and I still got just as frustrated with it lol
Most of the time when I beat a hard level I would use Funkyās flights to fly back to a save Point. Still one of the hardest games Iāve beaten. Not sure I could do it again.
I may have more patience has an adult but i don't have the patience for THAT anymore!
I have to give DKC2 a proper playthrough. It is actually a better game than the original.
I just played it last week. It is a better game but MAN is it really hard. Way WAY harder than DK1.
Actually TAS'ers are the real unsung hero's of the video game world. They essentially figure out the best route by trial and error, frame by frame.
Iād add that having a TV in the house (and maybe one in your room) is different than having a phone in your hand 16 hours a day.
How common is it to see a bunch of people at a restaurant or something all on their phones. At least in our day when you were at Applebees you were at Applebees. That was it.
Yep. When the show that was on TV was one we didn't like or the video game got boring/frustrating, we turned the screen off and went somewhere else (most likely outside) where there were no screens at all.
What do you mean no auto save? You just didnāt pause the game and turn the tv off and pray no one touches it?
Lol. I had 2 little brothers. One was 3 years younger and one was 8 years younger. Trying that would've been futile
When my youngest was a toddler, this was his act of passive aggression, when his older bothers pissed him off. Heād just go to the xbox while they were playing and turn it off. š¤£ the look on his face was epic.
Disagreed, I feel attacked, I definitely wasted my time way better than kids these days! (/s?)
Humorous hyperbole accepted, no bugger spent 3 days on one tricky 8-bit jump, like as games encourage 'grinding' now. Best case scenario; you ran out of lives, chucked the controller at the three inch thick glass screen and went out on your bike.
I go through this with my kid now. I think video games can be a good thing, but not something you just do all day endlessly. It is way better than mindlessly watching youtube or eventually the social media apps.
Watching my kid figure out how to use a controller, learn keyboard commands, open doors and navigate a world and use his imagination while doing it has been one of my favorite memories as a parent. But I also see when it gets to be "too much" and he needs a break.
When we rented games on weekends, I remember waking up super early the day it had to go back so I could play one last time Monday morning before school.
[deleted]
I got the first Dragon Warrior free with a Nintendo Power subscription. It was one of the few events in my life that dramatically shifted my timeline in tangible ways. What a great series.
I still canāt do that infinite 1-UP hack with the shell on the stairs. š
I honestly think it was removed from the newer mini-NES they released with like 30 games. I was all excited to show my kids and bam... unable to do it after 30+ tries. No point in going to 3-1 nowadays.
It works on the NES-mini, however it is a bit harder because there is some input lag depending on your display.
Did anyone ever actually beat Bayou Billy?
Holy shit bayou billy. I havenāt thought about that game in 30 yrs!!!
I bought a Game Genie specifically for that purpose
Same! I finally beat it with the game genie. It was a fun game.
Play the japanese version, it's a lot easier. They screwed us outside Japan because of the rental market. Made it way more difficult and did zero playtesting.
There was a jump worse than this IMO. It was with a wide gap with just a tiny island in the middle and another wide gap behind it. Nightmare stuff.
Yeah this jump I easy. The one you mentioned was my bane.
The day I finally beat that jump was the day I finally beat SMB.
One of those jumps I got on the first try then died on my subsequent tries.
At least it was in 8-1 rather than showing up later in the last world..
https://i.imgur.com/1XTT7Bu.png
I would consider that the choke point of world 8. I don't think it is possible to make that jump without using the run button. Not many other places in the game require the player to run.
It is possible to beat the game without the "B" button. There is a speedrunning category called "Walkathon any%". There is a section in 8-2 where you have to slow down slightly to allow a bullet bill to fire and follow you and then bounce off it to clear a gap. Current record is 6 minutes 54 seconds
https://old.reddit.com/r/Mario/comments/f50vow/can_you_beat_super_mario_bros_without_pressing_b/
I can only find tool-assisted runs that manage it.
Here is the current world record RTA run https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMjMQ8N2rEs&t
There is a wider gap before that one, in 8-1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMjMQ8N2rEs&t=220s
It is technically possible to clear that gap without running but doing so relies on a glitch.
https://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Super_Mario_Bros._glitches#Wall_jump_glitch
Yes, but as I remember the wall jump was pretty well known even back then. I think it was even in Nintendo Power.
Albeit this conversation is about what Super Mario Bros. requires of its players. I doubt 8-1's creators made it with the intention / expectation that players would complete it by wall jumping to avoid running.
I would be interested to see what Nintendo Power had to say about the wall jump because as I recall they did not like to acknowledge "bugs" in their games such as the "minus world".
Although by the time the Super Mario Bros. 3 Official Strategy Guide released, Nintendo Power would apparently be comfortable making a (qualified) reference to the wall jump deep in world six:
NIntendo Power:
*does not elaborate further*I don't think I played Mario without the jump button pressed. I think the trick for that one was to just jump as soon as you hit it. Sucked when you made it there, lost your last guy, then had to start at 1-1 again.
I just hold the button that triggers running and never let it go. I got to the point in the 90s I could be the game in 15-20 mins top without my contacts in.
It took me 20 years to beat Mike Tyson's Punch Out
I'm still not there. I can get to Mike Tyson without too much trouble (and without codes), but I've never beaten him. Gotten to round 2, at least.
I don't think I realized there was a quick dodge until I picked it back up in my 30's, along with tactics of how to beat him on the internet. Even then, I think the best I have done is a TKO. How I beat anything when all I had was my friend's old Nintendo Power books is beyond me. Like, we had to watch The Wizard to know where a warp whistle is in Mario 3 was.
OG gamers
Battle Toads was a months long endeavor.
It was literally unbeatable in 2 player mode. Level, I think 11, which introduced snakes you had to hop on dropped controller 2 support via a bug. Since it was at the beginning of the level and no enemies spawned you couldn't let one of you die to advance.
Hello ! Itās me.
Fun fact - Iām not a native English speaker and the first words I ever tried to translate are ā thank you Mario but the princess is in another castleĀ ā
Ecco the Dolphin turned me off any game where water is the main setting for a game.
I actually beat it back in the day. The last level that moved around can go straight to hell.
I couldn't beat that alien boss at the end. Remember all of the complicated passwords for games? Ones for phone apps are less complicated, and you can save them to your phone.
Meanwhile it turned me on to them. I played a PSX4/5 game called Maneater about being a kilker shark a few years back, couldnāt get enough of it!Ā
More marine life games please.Ā
Yeah, I mean I spent 6-8 hours a day on screens between video games and tv from ages 12 to 18. When I had a kid I sort of ended up being permissive because āI mean I tuned out mostly okayā
But I think I screwed up there. My kid is a young teen and I can see where itās caused issues. And to someone elseās point I do think I failed to recognize some fundamental differences. Tv or games did get old and boring whereas the modern Internet is constantly throwing something new at you. And those games, to may comments, often required perseverance and problem solving in a way that most games, having been made easier for broader consumption, do not.
Id say one big difference tho is the fact that we all weren't bringing Nintendo literally everywhere we went using it at restaurants, school, fam outings etc
Uh...but then in 1989...
https://preview.redd.it/isqrvia7pu6g1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0de754aa3bad9d9b5687c6777655c2368aa7e14a
you can jump from the pipe..
wtf why would it take 3 days to clear this jump?? you just run straight off the pipe, you'll clear the small gaps and then just run-jump over the large gap. shouldnt take more than 2 seconds
Because we were dumb, anxious kids playing our first video game, or at least the first one that wasn't tied to a single screen. That's in 8-2, you can't waste your one remaining life on a risky attempt, you have to go with what you perceive to be the safest jump. lol
It's amazing how much better you could get by just watching a friend play, reading a Nintendo Power, or for the richest among us, calling the Nintendo Power Line. And all of that was replaced by just pulling up YouTube on your phone.
Watching others play were the original playthroughs/speedruns.
Substitute nintendo power mag with youtube how to videos
Every week that I was expecting my Nintendo Power, I would RUN from the bus to the mailbox hoping so hard that when I opened the lid I would see all the colors on the cover waiting for me.
Just have to shout out the 'U Can Beat Video Games' YouTube channel here. Absolute godsend for clocking some of the worst retro games, that I never would have beaten back then without booting the console out the nearest window like a wayward Russian oligarch.
Ahh yes, the old run off the pipe and jump right on the edge of the last brick spot.
Kids are smart today, they just use autoclick to level up.
Turtle Tippn"
I remember many a visitation weekend getting f'd by that stage and waiting another two weeks to get another shot at it.
Eventually I would get tired of trying to make that jump and do something else. If I was a kid now Iād just move on to another game. There is a wealth of choice in electronic entertainment now
I only learned this way later by watching a youtube, you can run across that gap, and only have to do the last jump.
I remember going over my cousins house one day in the early 90s and he had spent all day trying to destroy a structure that would crush you in the sandcrawler level of Star Wars on NES. It couldn't be destroyed...but he was sure it just needed a few more hits
8-3 correct?
Anyone else know how get infinite lives by jumping on the turtle?
Ugh, screw that jump!!!!
And I could still make it to this day. All the way to the left until his left foot is hanging off the ledge then forward depressing B until thou get right to the end of the second tower (he goes over the first two gaps in speed mode) and onto the save the princess. But don't forget the second jump up the flag pole for more more points. Mario never settles for the bottom.
Woah, you had a chair? All I have to show for my gaming is crippling neck pain.
But here's the difference. When we beat a level, there would be another level to beat. Eventually you could beat the game or, like in the case with E.T., its just stupidly impossible. Either way there was a natural end point. Now its all DLC and constant updates. The games are never ending.
My arcade had the 6 player xmen machine. Be jealous!
Learning hand eye coordination and persistence not doom scrolling into depression
Difference is, you spent 3 days focused on a single specific task.
Now, kids will 'absorb' 764,003 different things in 3 days, and retain exactly 0.001% of it afterwards.
This jump is easy. Start running, jump on the pipe, keep running over the gaps (if youāre running you wonāt fall in) then jump when you get to the big hole.
Problem is, where the screen is at now, you couldn't get up to speed to make the jump. Remember, you couldn't go backwards in SMB.
I think you could get to speed just standing on the pipe. The problem starts if part of the pipe is offscreen. Then youāre screwed. Of course, I havenāt played SMB 1 in forever, so who knows if my memory is accurate.
Just start where Mario is in the picture, hold B to run and just run over that first gap and jump off the second pillar.
āHaha yeah that was me but itās differentā¦ā
Stop with these comments. You sound like boomers. Newsflashā¦this happens with EVERY generation. Your parents were told they watched too much tv