I decided to close out my summer vacation by playing something really iconic. I had originally planned on playing through SMB 3, but that game takes way too long so I will save it for another day. Of course it doesn't get more iconic than the original Super Mario Bros. It's only grown in stature now that all of us that were kids when it came out are adults now. It's the game the most people play to get nostalgic, and it has been kept alive by countless dumb t-shirts and a few cool ones. It's just hard to top those good illustrations from back in the day, and it really doesn't help things when you add a dumb slogan or a joke. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.
I have a lot of memories about this game. When we got our first Nintendo back in 88 or 89 the multi cart with SMB and Duck Hunt was the only game we had. I don't think we got another game until the next Christmas, so for the first year it was all we had to play at our house. I think it took us about 4 months until my dad was able to get all the way to world 4-1. I remember that being a really exciting day at our house. That was also around the time the Mario tv show started. I used to watch that in the mornings during my kindergarten year. I also had a Mario lunchbox that I'm fairly sure still exists somewhere even though my brother hit it with a hammer. To this day I am not sure why he did that, but I don't think he meant any harm by it. So that first year of video games was pretty much dominated by Mario. Of course we only had one tv back then, so we weren't able to play that much and one game lasted a lot longer. However, when I look at my shelf with 250 Nintendo games and about 500 games for other systems it makes me chuckle a little bit when I think about only having one game.
Another significant memory I have of this game is during my freshman year of college. I used to have a friend that would play this game every single day. This went on for almost a whole semester, and possibly even longer than that. He played just about every inch of that game, and did just about every trick and glitch. I saw him go to the minus world about a dozen times. In all that he never got tired of this game. I guess it's how he would unwind after class. This was 2002 so he had plenty of other games to chose from. I guess I'm not the only one who takes comfort of the games from my youth.
I'm actually really glad that I went back through this game again. We got this game so early in my life that I couldn't remember if I had ever beat it legitimately or not. I know I had seen many of my friends and relatives do it, and I'm sure that I finished it sometime in there, but I don't remember for sure. I couldn't guarantee that I hadn't used a cheat code or warp zone back then. This time I decided to do it for real and end the debate once and for all.
What probably surprised me the most about playing through it again was how easy it was for me. I guess it's like riding a bicycle. I was really expecting this one to be hard as I hadn't played it in years and never found it to be all that easy to begin with. However, I never even died until world 7-4, and I don't think I ever had less than 10 lives. It also surprised that my girlfriend had it memorized even better than I did. It sounds like she spent an even longer amount of time with only one game. So I got to the end and defeated Bowser. Hopefully the next time around he doesn't leave that axe so close to the bridge.
Well there's not too much left for me to say about this one. I still don't understand the cover of this game. Why did they decide to have Mario jumping against a wall? And can you even shoot a fireball through the bricks? Anyway, I'm getting off topic again. It was nice celebrating the end of my summer vacation by playing our most iconic childhood game. I'll have to go back tomorrow and teach to kids who were born after the Nintendo 64 came out. If that wouldn't make a person feel old than I don't know what would.
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