For New Year’s Eve 2020, Ting, Lucy, Belle and I decided to attempt a Super Mario Bros. marathon.
That’s right. The very first Mario game. The one that my wife and I get nostalgic over.
Our mission? Complete the whole game before midnight.
To be honest, this has to be one of the funnest games to play. Even now, after 36 years of it’s release.
During her childhood, Ting played this game so much that she still knows where every trick and secret can be found.
Apparently, Chinese kids don’t just study, study, study 😉
Now. Before I tell you how we got on, I wanted to share how we set it up in the first place.
How to play Super Mario Bros.
#1 Firstly, get yourself a NES emulator for your phone.
That’s short for Nintendo Entertainment System for you young’uns. The best one I found for Android is the John Ness app. If you have an iPhone, shame on you 😂
#2 Secondly, if you don’t want square eyes, I suggest you play it on the TV and not the phone. Trust me, I’ve tried. It’s not a great visual experience.
To get it on your TV, you need a way to cast to it. Personally, I use a Google Chromecast. Your phone should have the ability to cast.
3# Thirdly, get a controller. Raspberry Pi have a good wireless controller. You will also need a USB to a something adaptor. In my case, it’s a USB to USB type C.
Playing Super Mario Bros.
As you would expect, Mario was great fun to play.
I must have screamed and winced more during game play than I had ever done before. There’s something quite addictive about jumping over things and avoiding gaping holes at speed. Don’t ask me what it is because I still can’t figure it out.
After 33 years, 9 months, 13 days and about 2 hours, I finally realised how to make Mario run super fast. To those of you who don’t know, hold down B.
With this new found information, we were finally able to jump to the top of the flag poles too.
Needless to say that Ting withheld this vital information from me. Either that or I was doing the usual husband thing and being selective in my hearing. I still didn’t hear a word she said!
Another point worth mentioning is the save and load facility via the John Ness app. We certainly utilised it a lot 😉
Back in my day, that was called cheating.
How anyone could complete Mario on the original NES is beyond me. Whoever you are. You truly are legends!
Ting claims she’s done so. Having watched her performance in the flesh, I’m a little sceptical.
For some reason, unbeknown to me, there are 8 worlds to go through. I was under the impression there were only 7. Imagine my shock when I defeated Bowser for the 7th time, only to find another Toadstool 😭
During the final showdown with Bowser, we had 15 minutes until midnight. Due to excelling at the previous 7 castles, I was very confident that we could complete the game in the timeframe.
Unfortunately, I was not expecting a 3 tiered maze leading up to reaching him.
In the end
In conclusion, did we succeed? Nope. We missed out by about 6 whole minutes. But we came close 💪😘
