Super Mario Bros (1985)

[futurefields]

Forget your Dark Souls and BloodBorn etc... THIS is the game to play if you want a frustrating challange

 

[Lil Frier]

Classic.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Nah... SMB 1985 is actually pretty easy. Only reason it might be hard is because you are playing on a TV/monitor that is adding 50-80ms in delay (or more). If you want a real challenge, you need the Japanese SMB 2, which was eventually released in the US on the SNES as "SMB:The Lost Levels" in "SMB:All Stars".

 

[Nhirlathothep]

hated the level where u run untill time ends, u had to try different combination of platforms, but i felt joked and left forever the nes world

 

[cmdrdredd]

99 lives turtle shell trick made that game a joke.

 

[futurefields]

i'm on world 4 keep losign all my lives by the time i get to bowser

trying to beat it without using save states

 

[Exophase]

You know the trick to continue on the world you died at right?

 

[futurefields]

I die on world 4-4 and press continue and go back to 4-1 I think

 

[futurefields]

Gonna play some more today. I only played one sitting so far, for about 30 minutes.

 

[Rakehellion]

That game is pretty easy.

 

[mmntech]

If you want a real challenge, you need the Japanese SMB 2, which was eventually released in the US on the SNES as "SMB:The Lost Levels" in "SMB:All Stars".

SMB2 is at least in the top five most difficult NES games. Somewhere behind Silver Surfer and Battle Toads. I believe it's one of the few games Howard Phillips actually told Nintendo of America to send back. He said it was unfairly difficult and just not fun. NOA also felt it was too similar to the first game. It probably would have sunk the Mario brand in the west had it gotten released here.

The problem with the game is not just that it's hard but because it has a lot of cheap deaths. The poison mushrooms are the most infamous. However, there's also the wind levels that require a lot of leaps of faith to get through. You can't see where you're jumping to.

 

[stockwiz]

You can max out your lives in the lost levels at the very start of level 1-1 which makes things easier but the lost levels are still much harder than the vanilla was.

Acquire the super nintendo version "Super Mario All Stars and World" give the lost levels a whirl.

 

[purbeast0]

about 2 months ago my buddy had a retro game day and we played SM1 in teams of 2 people. we played 2 player and each person on each team would have to alternate after each level or each death. and you had to go from world 1 to world 8 without warping.

it was actually a really good time and damn it did have some tough levels. we were playing on NES as well with NES controllers. but we were also playing on an old ass DLP so that input lag didn't help.

 

[poofyhairguy]

SMB2 is at least in the top five most difficult NES games. Somewhere behind Silver Surfer and Battle Toads. I believe it's one of the few games Howard Phillips actually told Nintendo of America to send back. He said it was unfairly difficult and just not fun. NOA also felt it was too similar to the first game. It probably would have sunk the Mario brand in the west had it gotten released here .

I actually really really like SMB2. I know it wasn't a real mario game but it is a lot of fun and its villains are now a part of video game lore.

Plus SMB2 was the answer to that gamergate mess back in the 80s! I mean, I would purposefully chose to play with a female character even though there were boy characters and she wore pink! That princess float ability was the bomb.

 

[Exophase]

SMB2 is at least in the top five most difficult NES games. Somewhere behind Silver Surfer and Battle Toads. I believe it's one of the few games Howard Phillips actually told Nintendo of America to send back. He said it was unfairly difficult and just not fun. NOA also felt it was too similar to the first game. It probably would have sunk the Mario brand in the west had it gotten released here.

The problem with the game is not just that it's hard but because it has a lot of cheap deaths. The poison mushrooms are the most infamous. However, there's also the wind levels that require a lot of leaps of faith to get through. You can't see where you're jumping to.

I liked the All Stars version of SMB2 (Lost Levels). The ability to continue at every level made the game a lot more manageable, and I think they tightened up the controls a bit.

While the poison mushrooms and reverse warp zones are lame they're not much of a problem once you learn to avoid them. I wouldn't call the wind levels leaps of faith; even though you can't see the player you can still get a feel for the timing to get an idea of when and where you'll drop. I remember being able to get through them pretty much intuitively.

I do agree that the original version would have been too much for US gamers at the time.

I actually really really like SMB2. I know it wasn't a real mario game but it is a lot of fun and its villains are now a part of video game lore.

He was talking about the real SMB2, not the reskinned Doki Doki Panic or SMB2 USA or whatever you want to call it.

I couldn't really get into that game either. Just felt tedious to me. One of the things that really hurt it for me was the lack of variety in music. There was basically one good fleshed out track. The other two pieces for "underground" and "boss" areas were very short and the other parts (title screen, player select, bonus round) didn't really play during the game proper. Even SMB1 had more variety in its main game music and it was a shorter and simpler game.

 

[Bird222]

I actually really really like SMB2. I know it wasn't a real mario game but it is a lot of fun and its villains are now a part of video game lore.

Plus SMB2 was the answer to that gamergate mess back in the 80s! I mean, I would purposefully chose to play with a female character even though there were boy characters and she wore pink! That princess float ability was the bomb.

I think he means the Lost Levels not the actual SMB2.

 

[gothamhunter]

SMB is actually pretty easy :\

 

[Majcric]

99 lives turtle shell trick made that game a joke.

True, but if you got too many it was instant game over.

 

[Majcric]

Anybody remember little fiery Mario, shooting fire while being little. and then there's the unbeatable -1 level at the end of 2-1.

 

[TallBill]

99 lives turtle shell trick made that game a joke.

Heh only managed that once, broke the game. Was a good way to practice the later levels though.

 

[Protoman25]

SMB is actually pretty easy :\

I wholeheartedly agree with you but I've noticed that it's a generational thing. If you grew up with it and played it to death like we did it's easy. You put a kid born in the 00s on there and chances are good they'll die over and over and get frustrated.

That's just what I've seen anyway.

 

[gothamhunter]

I wholeheartedly agree with you but I've noticed that it's a generational thing. If you grew up with it and played it to death like we did it's easy. You put a kid born in the 00s on there and chances are good they'll die over and over and get frustrated.

That's just what I've seen anyway.

Anyone starting out will die over and over again. Once you learn the mechanics and how levels can work (the first time you encounter a puzzle castle) it's pretty easy for anyone I think.

 

[purbeast0]

I wholeheartedly agree with you but I've noticed that it's a generational thing. If you grew up with it and played it to death like we did it's easy. You put a kid born in the 00s on there and chances are good they'll die over and over and get frustrated.

That's just what I've seen anyway.

its cause kids now a days are used to being handheld as they play games and having infinite health/lives. they are used to easy games and not actually being challenged.

 

[cmdrdredd]

On top of that you have the mentality that every kid deserves a trophy and everyone is a winner. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way but kids are taught that it should. So I think sometimes that rubs off on gaming. Very few games these days have an actual game over screen.

 

[DrPizza]

It's kind of bizarre - I've played games like this against my kids when they were younger, and I crushed them. I played Atari Tanks (Combat) against them, and they had their butts handed to them. But, if I played more modern games against them, where special moves required some memorized sequence of 5 or 6 button and joystick inputs - I didn't have a prayer.