Super Mario Brothers 3 - Let's Play

iirc there's a good variety of levels in World 1, nice taste of what's possible in the game

i crouched on all those goddam blocks, couldn't quite find it
the attention to detail is just so high. on the airship when the screen moves you forward and the bullet bills' trajectory tacks up or down with the motion
died a lot there last night

one thing i still remember is how easy all the early world bosses are. even smb2 was more complicated.
world 1-1's boards are fairly simple and perfectly designed; each level is a short, thoughtful puzzle designed more or less as a tutorial. i didn't notice that as a kid but it's so effortlessly presented.
fuck that stupid "match the reels" minigame though, that sucks

if you get full sprint and then hit the reel perfectly on the corner it will give you a star everytime

You can grind up lots of lives off the infinitely spawning goombas in 1-2.

oh, no i mean the board where the reels match

oh yeah, that's garbage. the key there is to make the dumbest face you can

don't have an ideal setup for this at the moment but i think to get the world 1 warp whistle you use the feather to fly up past the top of the screen at the point in the miniboss castle where you're attacked by a skeletal koopa just before passing through a door. off the screen you will be able to get on the unseen top of the roof. run along the roof to the right until you stop--iirc, aligned perfectly with the door on the floor below you?--then press up to go through the door you can't see. whistle.

p much every time i play the game now i get all of the whistles and use none of them

1-3. duck on the white box, run behind the stage end
1-fortress, raccoon tail (don't pick up the flowers, they are traps!), get right near the last door, go as far left as possible w/o falling in the lava, jump no the drybones, go right, and then run left (the drybones will be gone so you have a good tarmac) and fly above the level
world 2 - get the hammer to break a stone, don't break the stone to let you into the one crappy mushroom house, instead break the one on the right edge of the screen and enjoy the many spoils you get over there incl. last whistle

weird how much this shit sticks in your mind, like i can close my eyes and "get" the whistles in my mind. how big is SMB3? like a megabyte? the rom is probably installed on my brain at this point

xpost haha

run along the roof to the right until you stop--iirc, aligned perfectly with the door on the floor below you?--then press up to go through the door you can't see.

btw this is so beautiful. you're overjoyed at discovering the hidden floor and you can't wait for what you're about to find, and then mario just stops moving. like he's run into a wall. but you can't see him. and on the screen there's nothing but a revived drybones dopily circling an empty room, with a door. and you think, maybe--

Noticing a lot of little graphical details that I forgot that made the game so appealing, things like Mario grabbing his hat when ducking

i like imagining he is mocking the koopa

ducking on any white block drops you down behind the scenery

re: the grabbing the hat, i jsut thought he was trying to use his arm strength to make himself even shorter

ducking on white platforms to disappear behind the stage works irl too btw

i love the way the "secrets" in SMB3 are executed. so many of them strike that perfect balance between being discoverable while still giving the player a feeling of accomplishment. like that whistle in the first fortress one - it's off the screen, so many players will miss it, but getting there isn't completely implausible, especially once you've played the game a few times and you're fucking around in each level, exploring. and then adding in the requirement to look for a door is just the cherry on top. all that stands in such contrast to most NES "secrets" which just involve stuff like using up your bombs on walls to see if there's something behind them.

what i actually lvoe about the secrets is that a lot of them weren't easily found, but were instead passed around virally by your friends, so you would go to one friend's house and learn a cool trick, and then you'd learn another cool trick at another friends house.

since i didn't have an NES i made a lot of my friends play smb3 with me so i was a definite secrets vector, passing that shit around all my console-having friends who didn't play smb3 with each other

It also has a ton of secrets! Much more generous ones than most games did. Particularly brilliant: the treasure ship, which if you don't know how to trigger it, really is effectively random, the kind of thing you'll encounter once and SWEAR to your friends was real and nobody believes you. I think even the strategy guide only hinted coyly at it, and maybe it wasn't until I was on Usenet that I found a guide that broke down exactly how to do it? But I might be misremembering here.

What's the best emulator for PC out there?

FYI I'm not saying this is the best emulator, but if you want to suddenly have a decent NES library this has about 600 games in it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YunzJ4tKih8

It looks sketchy at a glance but I haven't experienced any virus/etc. issues.

btw - i forgot that unlike Super Mario World and later Mario games, you can't replay any levels once you've beat them. so if you miss that secret it's gone

Does anyone remember that secret, I think in World 2 where you had to have a number of coins ending in 3 and also have the timer ending in some number when you the beat the stage? It was something completely insane.

How does everyone feel about playing this for about a week or so and then moving on to the next game on the console poll list? Is that enough time?

I say this as someone who loves sports games, but can we skip the sports games (except Mike Tyson I mean).

And dodgeball obv

we're not gonna CLOSE thread or anything but spending a month playing smb3 feels a little overkill

Poor useless boomerang bro in 1-4. So easily avoidable.

http://www.significant-bits.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Super_Mario_All_Stars_3_74.png

as long as we're discussing product, New Yorkers should check out this store in person. thousands of nes games for about ten bucks a pop.
https://www.videogamesnewyork.com/

Keep this in mind when you're smashing all them bricks

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CTBhJzsUcAACPBC.jpg:large

(maybe)

Mario was just getting in Lakitu's way.

https://archive.org/details/famicommanuals

Does anyone remember that secret, I think in World 2 where you had to have a number of coins ending in 3 and also have the timer ending in some number when you the beat the stage? It was something completely insane

I think in any of the worlds with wandering hammer bros you can morph them into the ghost treasure ship by perfectly aligning the number of coins, the timer and your score. i cant remember the exact formula but once you know it its pretty easy to do. i do remember that in order to get the ghost mushroom house to appear you have to just get lots of coins in certain levels - usually the ones where the screen autoscrolls.

re: the grabbing the hat, i jsut thought he was trying to use his arm strength to make himself even shorter

this is correct, of course.

oh yeah! i forgot about the white mushroom house challenge from maxing out coins in certain boards. that was a great way of baking in an extra challenge -- once you knew about it anyway --- where what was ordinarily a reasonably easy board now has something really tough for you to shoot for.

Cool thread, I've got this on original cartridge for the NES, and also for the DS.

The only Mario game I could get on board with, but still shit at it tbh.

only just see this thread but I'll start playing tomorrow

Nothing like stomping one of King Koopa's kids and then catching that wand on the fly. My only beef with that World 1 I just beat was that I ended up with a couple of mushrooms from Toad's Castle

hey stet, can you change the thread title to "ILX plays Super Mario Brothers 3"
I forgot there's a whole "Let's Play" culture and it's not what this is about.

i thought i was a legit genius as a kid when i discovered that you can use a second warp whistle while in the warp zone (where you select the next world) and get all the way from world 1 to world 8. one of the few NES-era secrets i found on my own and i had that sense of "does anyone else know about this??"

World 3's fortress is 1988

http://i.imgur.com/q2kjOxW.png

thwomp one of the very best new enemies in this game. could just be, yknow, a falling spike, but put a face and a name on it, and I'm sold.

memory after just beating world 1 of this game: me and my... friend? or one of my siblings? used to do our own voiceover for the toad dude at the end of each level when you save the king. he jumps up twice and then does a couple of bows. and every time we would sit there and say, for the entirety of the cutscene, "yay! yay! oh thank you oh thank you yay! yay! oh thank you oh thank you yay! yay!"... etc. it's now stuck in my head and i can hear it in my own little kid voice which is pretty insane.

try it at home! each jump = 1 yay. each bow animation = one oh thank you.

thwomp at their best in zelda: links awakening imo

i'm not sure why i thought that opinion was worth swearing

There is something incredibly satisfying about the physics of knocking out thwomp with an invincibility star.

you do those little somersaults when youre using an invincibility star hey?

if you're having a WILD friday night like me, you can watch me play SMB3 at http://www.twitch.tv/weinventyou at 7pm eastern

kinda tempted but i think i'm gonna try to beat world 2 instead

*high five*

there's a warp whistle in world two hey

Can some YSI me a rom? In the age of streaming music my torrenting skills have atrophied.

Oink invite?????!

can you torrent? it's pretty easy to find them if you can - just search for NES ROMS or something really simple like that. there are plenty of good collections

me neither. i just gave up. it looked like it was 15-20 minutes behind where i was.

a shame, it was really entertaining. You a natural at streaming dude

Thanks! I might do it again sometime soon if I can get a free evening, but I'll look up a few guides on reducing the lag first.

Thank goodness for save states. I know I could probably sit down and beat this game in a sitting, but so far I've been able to split it over three sessions and I'm about to get to world 7. I'm not using the save states in a cheat-y way though, only save when I turn off the emulator/restore when I turn it back on. Some stray observations...

- I never knew the green plants were shorter than the red plants. I thought the colors were just for some... err, color.
- I also never knew your powerup "wallet" was limited. I accidentally overwrote some of my items... thankfully I don't think I overwrote anything good.
After I beat the game straight I'm going to screw with some game genie stuff again, mostly to give myself a bunch of hammer bros suits because they're super cool and there aren't enough of them.
- I got killed so many times in world 5 or 6 by Buster Beetles (pic below). I just couldn't get my head to remember the speed they move and the angle that they throw blocks at.
- Also killing me several times: Spike (I always jump on him like one frame too late), Lakitu (there's a particular world 5 level where he is JUST out of reach to jump on him, but close enough that we can really fuck up your day), flame chomp (don't ever see them enough to get an idea of their "pattern").
- Looking up all of their names is fun.
- I somehow still remember where virtually every single Pile Driver Micro Goomba is. Not sure if this is because I'm some sort of SMB3 genius or if the game just does a clever job of maknig you think you "remember" when in reality they're placed in the most obvious spots.
- I have a tanooki suit that i'm scared to use because it's my favourite thing and I don't want to waste it.
- I beat one of the ships with the frog suit because I never use frog suits and it seemed hilarious.

Buster Beetle
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/mkfusion/images/c/cc/BusterBeetle.gif/revision/latest?cb=20090108112151

Spike
http://cdn.wikimg.net/strategywiki/images/a/ab/SMB3_enemy_Spike.png

Lakitu
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121124202339/nintendo/en/images/1/10/Lakitu_(Super_Mario_Bros_3).gif

Fire Chomp
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/nintendo/images/8/82/Fire_Chomper_(Super_Mario_Bros_3).gif/revision/latest?cb=20121124200244&path-prefix=en

Pile Driver Micro Goomba (wtf this name)
http://www.gamexplain.com/ckfinder/userfiles/images/PileDriverMicroGoomba.PNG

Tanooki Suit <3 <3 <3
http://images.nintendolife.com/news/2011/11/feature_how_japanese_folklore_inspired_mariors_tanooki_suit/attachment/1/medium.jpg

Frog Suit
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/fantendo/images/d/d3/FrogMarioSMB3.png/revision/latest?cb=20120314180415

Hammer Suit <3 <3
http://quickman.gameological.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/130529_otl_smb3_hammersuit.png

I should specify that I did not BEAT the boss with the frog suit, I took a hit somewhere on the way. I am now reading that if you beat the bosses with a frog, tanooki, or hammer suit, you get an alternate message from the king!! whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ooh, that rings a bell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY4eoHPelf4

No dice?!
What a drag.

those messages are all ridiculously charming. got a huge grin on my face from watching that.

This appears to have run its course, so:

ILX Plays: Castlevania (for the NES)

I got through worlds 1 and 2 over the weekend. I don't remember where any of the whistles/secrets are, but ignorance is bliss -- I don't really want to skip anything anyway.

Incredible game. A little easy by NES standards but still challenging. I love the puzzle aspect of how bricks are set up. Getting that 1up/powerup that seems right out in the open can be subtly tricky.

my boo and i have been taking advantage of the NES Mini's save-states to play this through in bite-size chunks. such a wonderful game. really really fun to replay with someone else who grew up with it because basically every new level it's like "what's this one gonna be..... oh fuck, THIS one, oh god, the big fish!!" etc. genuinely challenging but not frustratingly so, and just stuffed with riches.

Yep it’s a gorgeous game. Still love world 5 (the sky?) the best, but fuck world 7 forever.

5 is tower-to-the-sky, yup! We stopped after arriving there last night... about one world per sitting feels like the right amount although I suspect with 5 and 6 we might break 'em up. I can't remember how big 7 is - just all the pipes and floating arrow-platforms... never my favorite.

one thing that's kind of nice about social media is finding out there's a shared trauma among people my age relating to the sun level

imo the appropriate SMB3 playtime per sitting is 1 entire SMB3 game per sitting

xp the angry sun is how I perceive summer every year

lol, that's amazing

that rules

and yeah in principle i'm all in favor of the chill day wiled away playing straight through this game --- it resonates with me --- but right now our attention spans and especially endurance for looking at screens is completely shot, so taking this one in chunks is feeling surprisingly good. we did Yoshi's Island and SMW together this way a couple years ago, and maybe they're slightly more natural fits for that format (tho i'm with the "SMW is mostly a fancy re-do of SMB3" crowd) just because of the idea of replaying levels to find secrets and bonus areas.

i was only kidding about poopsocking it being the only appropriate way to play smb3. it definitely is appropriate, but it's also a lot of fun to just dive in, get the first couple warp whistles, and skip straight to your faves. there's no wrong way to smb3

Yeah you can probably 'finish' it in under 30 min with the warp whistles trick, but it would be fun to play it again with the idea of actually seeing all the levels.

yeah as a kid i think the desire to visit levels 4 5 and 6 again predominated. but sometimes warpin' makes you feel cool.

dr casino has inspired me to play SMB3!

I have a new twitch pseudonym: https://www.twitch.tv/zach_tbd

starting up my sesh now. I think I got my streaming settings fixed, for once, so the choppy/terrible experience of the last several years should hopefully be improved. i am so old and bad

i just did the angry sun level

it was fine

We started playing this today but it was abandoned when someone got frustrated with the controls, alas. Still great fun.

just hopped on to watch, this is great! but also so strange to see the All Star color scheme, it makes everything look like a fan level in Mario Maker.

watching this after playing some Castlevania III this morning reminds me of another badly needed design fix for both games: if you get a powerup the old one should pop out next to you so you can swap back if you mistakenly pick up some trash.

there are SMM levels designed entirely around avoiding the "bad powerup". It is part of the game imo.