Super Mario Bros 35 Tips and Tricks How To Play And Win The Game

[Makar | 2,013]

How do you play Super Mario Bros 35? How do you win?

This game is a battle royale of Super Mario Bros 1. Last one standing of the 35 playing wins.

 

The two types of battle:

35-Player Battle is the normal Super Mario Bros 35 game. 

Special Battle is the same game except you have a set order of courses and you start with 100 coins. Edit: there may be other special new rules for future special battles. They apparently update this battle with new rules frequently.

 

Home screen before you start the game:

When you select 35-Player Battle or Special Battle, there will be a screen where you can select a stage to start on. The game will randomly decide a stage to start on based on the input from all 35 players. If 34 players choose stage 1-1 and 1 player chooses stage 1-2, your odds of starting the game on stage 1-1 is 34/35.

There are also 3 items you can choose to start the game with. Mushroom, star, or fire flower. You can only choose one. They all have different costs. Always start with a mushroom or fire flower. If you start with a fire flower, you basically get a free 15 second time bonus on stage 1-1 right off the bat when you hit that 2nd coin block to get another one. You get a 15 second time bonus when you're fire Mario and get another fire flower. 

 

How you can die:

You can fall off a stage or into lava. 

You can get hit by an enemy when you're small Mario. 

If the timer hits 0 you die. 

 

Targeting opponents:

You can choose to target a random opponent, a person with the lowest amount of time left, whoever is attacking you, or whoever has the most coins. You can also manually tap on your screen to choose who to target. Always choose attackers since this is the only way you can send enemies to multiple opponents at the same time. 

 

Sending enemies to your opponents:

When you stomp on an enemy, it gets defeated and sent to whichever opponent you are targeting. You can also kill enemies with a star or with fireballs or the POW block. The enemy you kill will be sent to whoever you're targeting no matter how you kill the enemy. 

 

Time:

You can add time by stomping on enemies, hitting them with fireballs, hitting them with shells, or by running through them when you have a star. 

You gain +1 second when you hit an enemy with a fireball (unless it's a bigger enemy like Bowser. You gain 5 seconds with him this way, 10 if you hit the switch). 

You gain +2 seconds when you stomp on an enemy. 

When you run through enemies with a star, you gain +2 seconds, then +3, then +4 seconds for every enemy you run through after the first 2. +4 seconds is the most you can gain in this combo. 

You can build up combos. If you stomp on enemies in a row, you get an extra second for each additional enemy. So if you stomp 2 enemies, you get +2 and then +3 seconds, so you gain 5 seconds. 4 enemies in a row would be +2, +3, +4, +5 for a total gain of 14 seconds. 

If you use a POW block, it will defeat all enemies on the screen and give you a time bonus for each one as if you had stomped on each one. 

If you hit enemies with a shell, you also build up a combo for every enemy that is hit. +1 for the 1st, +2 for the 2nd, +3 for the 3rd, +4 for the 4th and so on. 

You can get +15 seconds if you get a fire flower when you're already fire Mario.

You get +10 seconds every time you beat a stage.

You get +10 seconds when you defeat Bowser by hitting the switch. +5 if you run through Bowser with a star or hit him with fireballs. 

You get a bonus when you jump on the flag pole. The higher you are, the more time you get. You get a max of +15 seconds if you jump on the very top of the pole or near the top.

You get all the time remaining that your opponent had if you KO them. 

The maximum time you can have in a game is 400 seconds.

If you stand still or take too long to defeat a level, your timer will drastically speed up. You'll lose lots of time very quickly. Start moving forward in the level when this starts happening. The timer speeds up dramatically when you're taking too long. It doesn't speed up based on how many people are targeting you or how many people are left in the game. Additionally, really late into the game, the timer will also speed up a bit (the numbers will turn red), but not quite as fast as when you're standing still or taking too long. 

 

Item usage/coins: 

You can use 20 coins in the game to get one of 4 items. The item you get is randomized each time. You can get a POW block, mushroom, fire flower or star. You can use as many coins as you can in a game. There is a small delay between when you spend you 20 coins and when your item is activated so only activate it in a safe are where you can't get hit by enemies. You can speed up this delay by hitting X again quickly after you hit X to activate the roulette wheel.

You collect coins throughout the levels.

You get +20 coins from a 1up.

You gain half of the coins from any opponent you KO.

 

Tips: 

I recommend always starting the game with a mushroom or fire flower. If you start on level 1-1, you'll grow to fire Mario or gain a bonus 15 seconds very quickly. 

Build up combos. Wait for a string of tons of goombas and just stomp away. You'll get 100+ seconds in no time. 

Imo, level 1-1 is your best friend. It's super easy to build combos on, you can get an easy 1up for 20 coins, there are lots of coins, and there's a star to run through tons of enemies. It's also very hard to die on this level. 

When you get to the end of level 1-2, ride the lever up and jump over the blocks. Go to the far right. There will be 3 pipes. Jump into 1-1 if that's an option, or 1-2 if 1-1 isn't an option. 1-1 and 1-2 are great levels with tons of stuff and are hard to die on. 

Only use your coins when you're mini mario. This is the only time you can die by getting hit by an enemy. Think of coins as your lifeline. 

Be patient. Do not rush forward in this game. Time all your jumps well. 

Be strategic about when you get time bonuses. For example, if you already have 400 seconds or close to it, and there's a string of enemies in front of you, don't defeat them until your timer is down to around 370 or so. Same thing goes for grabbing a fire flower if you're already fire Mario. Don't grab it unless you're at 385 seconds or less. 

Edited November 4, 2020 by Makar

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,065]

17 hours ago, Makar said:

 

 

Home screen before you start the game:

When you select 35-Player Battle or Special Battle, there will be a screen where you can select a stage to start on. The game will randomly decide a stage to start on based on the input from all 35 players. If 34 players choose stage 1-1 and 1 player chooses stage 1-1, your odds of starting the game on stage 1-1 is 34/35.

. 

You have a typo here. Your saying everyone picks 1-1

[ifightdragons | 234]

57 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

You have a typo here. Your saying everyone picks 1-1

Technically, it's "you're saying".

I just had to! 

[sceptios | 9]

Some corrections/omissions I found:

1. Power Star kills still follow the +2, +3, +4 time bonus progression (same as jumping on enemies). It's just that you'll usually be killing so many enemies that all but the first two will be +4. (I think shells work the same way.)
2. Killing larger enemies gets you a larger time bonus. For example, killing a Bowser gives +10 seconds.
3. Grabbing the flag poll at the end of a level gets you bonus time. Max of +15 for grabbing the very top.
4. I'm pretty sure the coin bonus for a KO is a flat +50 coins. (To be fair, I also used to think you got the coins of the KO'd player.) On that note, you might want to verify if you get the KO'd players time or a flat time bonus.
5. Special Battle rules change every few days, so it won't always be "start with 100 coins".

Edited October 11, 2020 by sceptios

[Code Monkey | 2,028]

I thought this was a great idea for a game until I watched it on Twitch last night. It seems players are doing the most boring shit just to win that they're not actually playing the levels. The player I watched would just pick a certain level to go down a pipe, collect coins, go to warp zone, pick same level and repeat. Going down the pipe, using the roulette item, losing the roulette item and coming out of the pipe would all stall their timer so they just kept repeating it to cause their timer to continually stall and try to stay alive longer than the other players.

It was incredibly boring to watch.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,065]

Does anyone know what it means at the beginning of the game when certain players have that little sparkle affect over the screen? It's only there for a brief second on certain players screens.

[Makar | 2,013]

3 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

I thought this was a great idea for a game until I watched it on Twitch last night. It seems players are doing the most boring shit just to win that they're not actually playing the levels. The player I watched would just pick a certain level to go down a pipe, collect coins, go to warp zone, pick same level and repeat. Going down the pipe, using the roulette item, losing the roulette item and coming out of the pipe would all stall their timer so they just kept repeating it to cause their timer to continually stall and try to stay alive longer than the other players.

It was incredibly boring to watch.

I actually use that strategy of repeating levels 1 and 2 over and over again. It's a boring tactic but a powerful one. The stalling time tricks only save a couple seconds and probably aren't strategically worth it as you're burning through coins or skipping over tons of enemies that could net you more time than you save by stalling. 

Oh and thanks @LeatherRebel5150 and @sceptios! I added and changed some stuff.

Edited October 11, 2020 by Makar

[Sumez | 3,033]

Great post. A few things in the original post I'd like to address:

  

On 10/10/2020 at 9:44 PM, Makar said:

there may be other special new rules for future special battles. They apparently update this battle with new rules frequently.

Special battles has a preset order of stages, instead of relying on the ones chosen by players. The one going on this week is really boring though, as it's mostly the stages you'd see in a regular match anyway. It does have 4-1 showing up a few times, so at one point I had like 20 lakitus on screen at once which was fun.

 

On 10/10/2020 at 9:44 PM, Makar said:

The game will randomly decide a stage to start on based on the input from all 35 players.

Every stage picked by players will be added into the game's sequence, and seemingly shuffled semi-randomly so the easier stages are more likely to appear earlier.

 

On 10/10/2020 at 9:44 PM, Makar said:

Always start with a mushroom or fire flower. If you start with a fire flower, you basically get a free 15 second time bonus on stage 1-1 right off the bat when you hit that 2nd coin block to get another one. You get a 15 second time bonus when you're fire Mario and get another fire flower. 

It's so easy to hit the maximum of 400 on the timer early in the game that I wouldn't really bother with this.
Like I said in the other thread, if you don't pick any starting power, your coin count will double after the match, so I think any extra resources (time/coins) you'll be able to gather up thanks to that is easily countered by the massive bonus you can get from starting as small Mario.
Of course if you don't care about the coin winnings, you might as well start with a fire flower, but again the advantage is close to negligible.

On 10/10/2020 at 9:44 PM, Makar said:

The timer only speeds up when you're taking too long. It doesn't speed up based on how many people are targeting you or how many people are left in the game. 

This is only regarding the conditional speed-up though.
In every round the timer will eventually turn red and start counting down faster after a certain amount of time. So far I've only manage to play one game that didn't last long enough for this to happen - usually the last 5 players end up surviving way longer.
After turning red, the timer will progressively count faster and faster until it becomes impossible to maintain and someone will inevitably time out. This is pretty much essential to winning Mario 35, as almost every round will have at least a couple of players that are perfectly capable of surviving that far with little trouble.

On 10/10/2020 at 9:44 PM, Makar said:

There is a small delay between when you spend you 20 coins and when your item is activated so only activate it in a safe are where you can't get hit by enemies. 

Another thing that it seems most people aren't aware of. You can actually speed up that delay by hitting the roulette button (X or L) again while it's running. This can be pretty useful in critical situations where you need to be fast, but also can't afford taking the risk proceeding as small Mario.

On 10/10/2020 at 9:44 PM, Makar said:

You also gain all the coins from any opponent you KO (actually not 100% sure of this.)

Not sure about this either, but I think you get 50% of the coins they had. You'll see that if you get knocked out yourself, you actually see your coin count drop to half, and an animation of those coins flying to the chest or the player that KO'ed you.

[Sumez | 3,033]

Finally a few tips of my own. Here's how I approach each game. It might not be the best strategy, but it works for me, and my win ratio has been around 50% over the past few sessions. It's a bit more disjointed, but I'll try to add headers to it as well.

The basics

Basically Super Mario 35 is a game of resources, and you have two resources in the game. Coins and time. Coins will help keeping you alive in tight situations, and time is essentially what causes you to win.
At the end of the day, most wins come from just not dying (and in my case that typically means not stupidly jumping into a pit on your own), but given two players end up with neither wanting to die on their own, the winner is going to be the one whose timer hits 0 the last. There's no way around it. In that situation time is the only resource that matters. But you want to rake up both as fast as possible.

Balancing resources

Usually during regular play, going for coins will mean taking detours that'll waste time and leave you with fewer options to attack enemies for extra time. For example, taking a coin heaven is a great way to gather tons of coins, but you won't see any enemies at all. Meanwhile picking up a fire flower while you already have one will often mean another small detour, time that could have been spent getting coins.

The strategy I use

Whenever I start a new game, I start out getting as many coins as I can, as fast as I can.
Assuming you start on 1-1 (which is nearly always the case) obviously get the first powerup, and take some coin blocks if you can get them without having to slow down. One coin more or less might not seem important, but in the early game it can make a big difference, and I'll go into why.
Always get the 1up (+20 coins), and the multi coin block (+13 coins) shortly before the star later on. It might also be a good idea to go down the pipe after getting the 1up if you can still get back into it, just to get to the next stage faster, since that's most likely going to be 1-2, and you can get coins fast on that one. I don't do it though.

Either way, getting many coins fast will usually get more people attacking you early on, and I typically have somewhere between 3 and 8 people on me at the same time. Setting the attack mode to "attackers" will cause every enemy sent back to duplicate, so you'll very quickly get tons of enemies on your screen to fill up the timer really fast without even trying for it. This allows me to continue focusing entirely on getting coins while the timer goes up to 400.
Also, being able to attack more people at once will also make you more likely to get KOs, which again brings your coin count even higher.
KOs in the game are mostly luck based, as they pretty much rely on the other player screwing up, and as such you are also much more likely to score them early in the game, which is why I try to play so aggressively early on.

Winning the game

After the first part of the game I try to continue going for coins, just taking the time bonuses that are given to me. Stars let you both progress through stages faster while also getting a lot of +time, while 1UPs give you 20 of both, so you should always get those of course (there's one on every X-1 stage, as well as one in 1-2 and 8-2 that I'm sure most people know about).

After a while, I'll focus more on time, and if I'm not at 380-400 time I try to chain stomp some goombas or shell kick a line of enemies to get it back up. Basically, I want to be over 380 once the timer turns red. This is where the real game begins.

At this point you don't want to take detours to coin heaven etc. since you'll probably never be able to recoup the lost time again. Instead, keep doing the tricks @Makar posted to keep the timer as high as possible all the time.
Also, this is where I'm kind of unsure what you can really do to ensure victory outside of just playing well of course. Some times I really think you just need to get lucky.
If no one is attacking you, you won't get enemies to kill, and your timer is going to go down before your opponents'. It might be worth manually changing your target a few times to see if anyone is set to attackers, ensuring you'll get enemies back. But then, they'll be killing the same ones, so you better be doing a better job at it (ie. shell kicks over fireballs, etc.)

Addendum: The item roulette

Oh man, I almost forgot!
The item roulette that you get to use for 20 coins can end up being what gives you a victory, which (other than scoring) is the biggest reason for racking up coins in the first place.
During the regular game you want to use it as little as possible. Keep those coins saved up for a tight spot!

You want to use the roulette at any time you are small Mario. If you get a POW, use it again immediately (and press twice to speed it up), if you get a star you want to either run to the next powerup if you can, or wait to use the roulette again shortly before it times out (in case you get another star).
And any time you are on an underwater stage late in a round and don't have a fire flower, you'll want to use it also, as those stages don't have powerups. You'll waste a lot of time trying to get through them without it.

More importantly though, the item roulette can be what gives you the victory near the tail end of a game. Once you are only two players left, and the red counter starts to get super fast, just spam the roulette even if you already have a fire flower!
If you get a star, that'll allow you to get time bonuses really fast, and if you get another fire flower, that's just an immediate +15 bonus. At this point any time bonus you can get without slowing down can be what makes the difference between winning or losing a game.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Sumez

[Sumez | 3,033]

Addendum 2: Warp zone

On this aspect I'll say that I don't agree completely with @Makar about always picking 1-1. First of all, there are other stages that are as good or better. For example 3-2 is a super straight forward stage, that will give you easy shell kicks even without any enemies sent at you. 2-1 and 3-1 both have 1ups, stars, coin heaven, and tons of coins in general. And of course 1-2 is an easy stage that'll guarantee you another warp zone.
Meanwhile, I'd avoid most X-3 stages, they tend to have a lot of pits and be very dangerous - especially the bridge stages with the jumping fish, and the water stages (2-2 and 7-2) can be really bad too if you get a lot of enemies and don't have a fire flower.
X-4 stages tend to be bad too. They are usually short and easy, but they barely have any resources on them - very few coins, and few good ways of getting time bonus out of enemies.

The important thing to know about warp zones is that the stages shown above each pipe actually represent the succession you'll be going through. If you go through the rightmost pipe, that stage will be followed by what you saw over the middle pipe and then the leftmost one. So if you see 1-1 on the rightmost pipe, but it's followed by a water stage or bowser stage, you might want to take the leftmost pipe instead, just to skip that one.
If you see another 1-2 you may often want to just pick that (even though it's booooring) since 1-2 is an easy stage with both a star, a 1up, and tons of coins, and at the end you get to pick your stage once again. Or if you see, say, a 2-1 that'll be followed by a 1-2, that might be a good one to go for also. Keep in mind though, that any stage you see following a 1-2 will also be skipped if you pick the warp zone again (finish the stage regularly to get to it).

Edited October 12, 2020 by Sumez

[Makar | 2,013]

Thanks @Sumez! I added some of your comments to the guide! Nice suggestions!

[Sumez | 3,033]

Just looked at some videos for reference, and it seems the timer usually turns red after 12-14 minutes, but it's not consistent so it might rely on other factors too.

[Alakhira | 4]

There is a way to play "offensively" or "aggressively," but it relies on the randomness of the level select. Use the warp zone to go to levels with annoying enemies (hammer bros, lakitus, spinies, flying cheep-cheeps, bowsers, and bloopers) and kill those bad guys like crazy to send them against opponents. Once they're introduced into the mix, players start dying off faster. Of course, all these enemies can come back to haunt you of course. Not an active form of offensive play, but it does make things harder for others.

[Makar | 2,013]

8 hours ago, Alakhira said:

There is a way to play "offensively" or "aggressively," but it relies on the randomness of the level select. Use the warp zone to go to levels with annoying enemies (hammer bros, lakitus, spinies, flying cheep-cheeps, bowsers, and bloopers) and kill those bad guys like crazy to send them against opponents. Once they're introduced into the mix, players start dying off faster. Of course, all these enemies can come back to haunt you of course. Not an active form of offensive play, but it does make things harder for others.

Idk about you guys but lakitu is definitely my most hated enemy. He's hard to hit from above, he moves around and follows you throughout the stage, and he drops spinies on you. Hammer bros are probably 2nd most hated, or blooper, then Bowser and flying cheep cheeps. 

[phart010 | 1,716]

On 10/10/2020 at 3:44 PM, Makar said:

How do you play Super Mario Bros 35? How do you win?

This game is a battle royale of Super Mario Bros 1. Last one standing of the 35 playing wins.

 

The two type of battle:

35-Player Battle is the normal Super Mario Bros 35 game. 

Special Battle is the same game except you have a set order of courses and you start with 100 coins. Edit: there may be other special new rules for future special battles. They apparently update this battle with new rules frequently.

 

Home screen before you start the game:

When you select 35-Player Battle or Special Battle, there will be a screen where you can select a stage to start on. The game will randomly decide a stage to start on based on the input from all 35 players. If 34 players choose stage 1-1 and 1 player chooses stage 1-2, your odds of starting the game on stage 1-1 is 34/35.

There are also 3 items you can choose to start the game with. Mushroom, star, or fire flower. You can only choose one. They all have different costs. Always start with a mushroom or fire flower. If you start with a fire flower, you basically get a free 15 second time bonus on stage 1-1 right off the bat when you hit that 2nd coin block to get another one. You get a 15 second time bonus when you're fire Mario and get another fire flower. 

 

How you can die:

You can fall off a stage or into lava. 

You can get hit by an enemy when you're small Mario. 

If the timer hits 0 you die. 

 

Targeting opponents:

You can choose to target a random opponent, a person with the lowest amount of time left, whoever is attacking you, or whoever has the most coins. You can also manually tap on your screen to choose who to target. Always choose attackers since this is the only way you can send enemies to multiple opponents at the same time. 

 

Sending enemies to your opponents:

When you stomp on an enemy, it gets defeated and sent to whichever opponent you are targeting. You can also kill enemies with a star or with fireballs or the POW block. The enemy you kill will be sent to whoever you're targeting no matter how you kill the enemy. 

 

Time:

You can add time by stomping on enemies, hitting them with fireballs, hitting them with shells, or by running through them when you have a star. 

You gain +1 second when you hit an enemy with a fireball (unless it's a bigger enemy like Bowser. You gain 5 seconds with him this way, 10 if you hit the switch). 

You gain +2 seconds when you stomp on an enemy. 

When you run through enemies with a star, you gain +2 seconds, then +3, then +4 seconds for every enemy you run through after the first 2. +4 seconds is the most you can gain in this combo. 

You can build up combos. If you stomp on enemies in a row, you get an extra second for each additional enemy. So if you stomp 2 enemies, you get +2 and then +3 seconds, so you gain 5 seconds. 4 enemies in a row would be +2, +3, +4, +5 for a total gain of 14 seconds. 

If you use a POW block, it will defeat all enemies on the screen and give you a time bonus for each one as if you had stomped on each one. 

If you hit enemies with a shell, you also build up a combo for every enemy that is hit. +1 for the 1st, +2 for the 2nd, +3 for the 3rd, +4 for the 4th and so on. 

You can get +15 seconds if you get a fire flower when you're already fire Mario.

You get +10 seconds every time you beat a stage.

You get +10 seconds when you defeat Bowser by hitting the switch. +5 if you run through Bowser with a star or hit him with fireballs. 

You get a bonus when you jump on the flag pole. The higher you are, the more time you get. You get a max of +15 seconds if you jump on the very top of the pole or near the top.

You get the time remaining that your opponent had if you KO them. 

The maximum time you can have in a game is 400 seconds.

If you stand still or take too long to defeat a level, your timer will drastically speed up. You'll lose lots of time very quickly. Start moving forward in the level when this starts happening. The timer speeds up dramatically when you're taking too long. It doesn't speed up based on how many people are targeting you or how many people are left in the game. Additionally, really late into the game, the timer will also speed up a bit (the numbers will turn red), but not quite as fast as when you're standing still or taking too long. 

 

Item usage/coins: 

You can use 20 coins in the game to get one of 4 items. The item you get is randomized each time. You can get a POW block, mushroom, fire flower or star. You can use as many coins as you can in a game. There is a small delay between when you spend you 20 coins and when your item is activated so only activate it in a safe are where you can't get hit by enemies. You can speed up this delay by hitting X again quickly after you hit X to activate the roulette wheel.

You collect coins throughout the levels.

You get +20 coins from a 1up.

You also gain all the coins from any opponent you KO (actually not 100% sure of this.) I did gain at least 100 coins from the 2nd opponent I KOd in a match though so it could be that you get +50 coins from the first KO, 100 from the 2nd, 150 from the 3rd and so on. 

 

Tips: 

I recommend always starting the game with a mushroom or fire flower. If you start on level 1-1, you'll grow to fire Mario or gain a bonus 15 seconds very quickly. 

Build up combos. Wait for a string of tons of goombas and just stomp away. You'll get 100+ seconds in no time. 

Imo, level 1-1 is your best friend. It's super easy to build combos on, you can get an easy 1up for 20 coins, there are lots of coins, and there's a star to run through tons of enemies. It's also very hard to die on this level. 

When you get to the end of level 1-2, ride the lever up and jump over the blocks. Go to the far right. There will be 3 pipes. Jump into 1-1 if that's an option, or 1-2 if 1-1 isn't an option. 1-1 and 1-2 are great levels with tons of stuff and are hard to die on. 

Only use your coins when you're mini mario. This is the only time you can die by getting hit by an enemy. Think of coins as your lifeline. 

Be patient. Do not rush forward in this game. Time all your jumps well. 

Be strategic about when you get time bonuses. For example, if you already have 400 seconds or close to it, and there's a string of enemies in front of you, don't defeat them until your timer is down to around 370 or so. Same thing goes for grabbing a fire flower if you're already fire Mario. Don't grab it unless you're at 385 seconds or less. 

Now just add some pictures and do two paragraphs per page and you just made the game manual. Let’s print some off on glossy paper

[Sumez | 3,033]

15 hours ago, Alakhira said:

There is a way to play "offensively" or "aggressively," but it relies on the randomness of the level select. Use the warp zone to go to levels with annoying enemies (hammer bros, lakitus, spinies, flying cheep-cheeps, bowsers, and bloopers) and kill those bad guys like crazy to send them against opponents. Once they're introduced into the mix, players start dying off faster. Of course, all these enemies can come back to haunt you of course. Not an active form of offensive play, but it does make things harder for others.

I'm not sure I buy this approach.
Those enemies are going to be added into the mix naturally once the stage sequence progress to that point either way, and you'll be able to kill them on any stage. It doesn't make a difference if you're going to stages to "pick up" those enemies or someone else does.
If they're being sent to you, killing them will still send them back to other players, so you might as well stick to the stages with more coins or options for time bonuses rather than taking a huge detour through a barren 1-4 just to get a single Bowser.

A single Lakitu won't make much of a difference anyway. It's when they're being sent around the game and duplicated and you suddenly have like 20 of them on screen, you're gonna be pressured. And to add to the argument above - if you're in a castle stage when that happens, they'll definitely give you a lot more trouble than they would on a grass stage with a lot of wide open surfaces.

7 hours ago, Makar said:

or blooper, then Bowser and flying cheep cheeps. 

Is it me, or are these two enemies wildly different than in the original games? Bloopers feel way more aggressive to me, and are much harder to deal with (which is good IMO), while jumping cheep cheeps will have no reservation flying right into you from below with nothing you can really do about it (which is unfair IMO). I've never had that happen in SMB1 or SMB2j, and I've played countless hours of those games.

[Makar | 2,013]

7 hours ago, phart010 said:

Now just add some pictures and do two paragraphs per page and you just made the game manual. Let’s print some off on glossy paper

Lol thank you! I actually do have some screenshots I was thinking of adding sometime. Quick someone call Nintendo! Let's get this into a physical game with a manual pronto! 

 

1 hour ago, Sumez said:

I'm not sure I buy this approach.
Those enemies are going to be added into the mix naturally once the stage sequence progress to that point either way, and you'll be able to kill them on any stage. It doesn't make a difference if you're going to stages to "pick up" those enemies or someone else does.
If they're being sent to you, killing them will still send them back to other players, so you might as well stick to the stages with more coins or options for time bonuses rather than taking a huge detour through a barren 1-4 just to get a single Bowser.

A single Lakitu won't make much of a difference anyway. It's when they're being sent around the game and duplicated and you suddenly have like 20 of them on screen, you're gonna be pressured. And to add to the argument above - if you're in a castle stage when that happens, they'll definitely give you a lot more trouble than they would on a grass stage with a lot of wide open surfaces.

Is it me, or are these two enemies wildly different than in the original games? Bloopers feel way more aggressive to me, and are much harder to deal with (which is good IMO), while jumping cheep cheeps will have no reservation flying right into you from below with nothing you can really do about it (which is unfair IMO). I've never had that happen in SMB1 or SMB2j, and I've played countless hours of those games.

Bloopers do seem a bit different. I agree that they seem to seek you out more and are a bit tougher to deal with. As for cheep cheeps I usually just take my time moving forward when they're around. As long as you move forward a bit when they start flying, then wait to let them come down, you're usually good. 

[Makar | 2,013]

Small update - I have confirmed you do get however many coins your opponent has when you KO them. 

[Makar | 2,013]

Looks like Nintendo finally came out with their own tips about super Mario Bros 35. While they didn't answer all our questions, they did answer a lot. Most of what we suspected is true. However, here's something we now know for sure:

"Defeating other players will reward you with their time and half of their coins."