I was in my mid 30s when I found out that you could hold some button when continuing after game over in Super Mario Bros to continue in the world you died.
We just got gud and abused the turtle shell stair 1up.
You could do what now?
I am legitimately angry to only be learning this now
Look at it this way. Didn’t you have more fun losing over and over, never completing the game and being stained permanently with that empty feeling of defeat?
It was in the manual
Which button?! Tell me!
Edit: ah, nevermind, someone just did. Sorry for the reaction.
“Dont worry guys I found the solution” aah comment
Whelp I was today years old when I found out about this…
I watched a video recently about tool assisted Speedruns which actually educated me on why this worked. An issue with the sound card and the way user input was handled allowed certain button combinations to cause Random Code Execution. It’s actually possible to beat one of the Mario games (can’t remember the name right this second) on the first frame using this method, but it requires a ridiculous amount of inputs
Whelp… that was wild!
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Wait, what? Which button?
Edit: apparently hitting start + a on the menu screen after you lost your last life.
Hold A while you press Start instead of just pressing Start. This is one of those old games that actually required pressing Start to begin lol.
I don’t understand why they did that. Does anyone know why?
After completing the game, when you’re sent back to the title screen, you can also press B to select which world to start on. The World 1-1 in the HUD changes, then you have to do the continue trick - hold A and press Start.
I can finish the game on one life without warps, but I’ve never once been able to get the 1ups from a Koopa shell.
Edit: Another fun one is to play a bit of Tennis, eject the cart and insert SMB without powering off the system, then reset and do the continue trick. Tennis changes the memory value that SMB uses to tell which world you are continuing on, so you can play “weird worlds” like 63-1 that are generated from non-level data. Reset doesn’t clear all RAM. 😅
I was one of those kids. I now play roguelites and roguelikes instead
I was one and went the complete opposite direction. I don’t like most rogue-likes or games that are difficult just to be difficult. I don’t get that “wow, I bashed my head against it 70 times and this feels rewarding!” feeling. I just get annoyance and a feeling of wasted time.
I don’t really like rogues (because you pretty much have to redo everything again), but I do usually play games with the difficulty settings all the way up (not on “ironman” though). Being able to retry from a recent save isn’t too frustrating, and you can finish many games without even learning or using various mechanics if you don’t use the highest difficulty.
Same. If I spend that much time on a game, I want to be holding Thunderfuck McStabn’slash, the legendary sword that explodes enemies I look at, rather than “oh cool I can now bash my head against a wall with a slightly different character.”
Like one of my first risk of rain runs went 2 hours and I’m like oh man I’m gonna unlock so much shit. I did not.
Those old NES games broke my fear of failure, so roguelikes, soulslikes, and similar games where you have a real chance of losing are my jam.
This also applies to games with permanent roster losses like XCOM or Darkest Dungeon. I can’t get enough.
You might like Last Train Home. Every soldier loss is permanent and there’s only so many you can find/rescue.
Based on true events, which is the most insane part. It’s kinda like frostpunk and an RTS game mixed together, which is very satisfying. Souls-like difficulty.
This looks right up my alley. Thanks for the rec!
No problem! :)
Funnily enough, I couldn’t get into the souls likes until now. The need to memorize boss patterns doesn’t appeal to me me
have you considered playing with the approach that soulslikes are really rhythm games and boss battles are dance offs (to death)?
this perspective allowed me to enjoy soulslikes more
The problem is that this doesn’t take a away the memorization requirement and I just don’t have the time for that. Also having to walk to the boss and grind through all the minions in-between was also very annoying.
that’s fair, i think i enjoyed Elden Ring the most of all soulslikes because if you can’t be asked to memorise a specific boss you can just go somewhere and come back strong enough to two hit the one that gave you trouble
Xcom Ironman is the true achievement 😅
I’ve had a successful Ironman run on Commander difficulty in XCOM 2 (WOTC), but Legendary Ironman continues to elude me. I usually get back into it once or twice each year and try again. Maybe one of these days!
I never bothered with legendary Ironman either. It just feels it would be too frustrating unless I’m willing to dedicate my life into it.
Shit, is this why I like rogue likes?
Beating Rayman 1 on the PS1 be like
That’s not even that hard and it does have saves
I dunno, getting every cage is pretty gruelling, and you can’t beat the game unless you do EVERYTHING.
That being said, if you genuinely don’t think it’s “even that hard”, then you’re definitely on another level, and I salute you
Once Inwas bored and started playing Contra, without the Konami Code. On a NES.
Its one of those games that just loops when you finish it.
I finally stopped a few hours later after like the 4th or 5th loop.
Another fun one was finishing GTA3 100% on PS2, without saving or dying or getting arrested
And your little brother got peanut butter on the manual so your mom threw it away.
The tough ones, especially. OG NES TMNT conqueror here (as you can tell it’s still in my list of life achievements).
Battletoads was the badge of honor
You’re totally right and its one that I never beat. I haven’t gone through it with an emulator either. There are some games I have since gone through with an emulator using save states that I didn’t beat legitimately back in the day, like Castlevania, that I recognize would have been HAF to beat without assists. I still may try Battletoads the old fashioned way because I have a lot of respect for that game. I’m pretty sure if I or one of my friends had owned the game we would have beaten it, but we never managed to over the course of several rentals.
I still have Turbo Tunnel PTSD
That game is hard to beat even with a fucking game genie, it’s insane.
I got past the water level once…
And here’s me replaying some of those and using save states like a mad man
It’s impressive because after dropping all those coins into arcade machine he could still afford some smokes.
You just steal those from your mom.
Coins or smokes?
Yes
They were less than a dollar a pack back then.
In the UK some shops would sell you a single cigarette for less the ten of our new pennies. Around '86 I think.
The big kid who had a little bit of moustache would buy a pack of 20 for about 2 quid from the corner shop next to the school and would sell them for 20p each to the other kids.
Damn those rich American kids.
Well, that is Richie Rich we’re looking at.
Totally not this 80s kid.
This was me after finishing Majora’s Mask 100%.
plays Tetris so hard it breaks
3 lives left.
Treasure Island Dizzy only had a single life. One of my earliest memories is of my sister losing her shit as she accidentally dropped the snorkel while she was cycling through her inventory underwater.
Holy crap I totally forgot that game existed. Me and my best friend were obsessed with it, drawn 3 tomes (yes, tomes) of comics about its characters.
Super Mario Bros in the NES for me, the excitement if you reach a later level for the first time, only to die and have to try it al over again.
