My friend lost his SMB virginity today!

[fcgamer | 5,017]

Stuck in a soft lockdown, I invited my friend over for lunch and a gaming session today. This guy's about five years younger than me, grew up on Sega MD, then went to N64, before going towards modern machines. English guy, northerner.

My friend's interested in gaming history though, and he had never played the original Super Mario Bros. before, though he was familiar with how it looked due to all of the iconic pictures posted, memes, etc.

So he has his chance to shine today, and...well, my friend literally did as well as my father did playing the game back in 1990 when we first got our Nintendo. My friend barely made it to 1-2, then died at the moving lifts towards the end.

He passed the controller to me, I advanced us much farther bin the game with a stockpile of lives, then when I passed the controller back, same situation. He drained the lives until death, got basically nowhere.

We then decided to call it quits and went for pizza; when we resumed gaming, we solely did Sega MD and SFC, and he did much much better there.

 

[RH | 5,230]

It amazes me how people feel this game is "soooo hard!"  Granted, I didn't even beat the game until about last year and I admit I used save states because I wanted to just get through the game.  Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.  I get it.  But I bring it up because even as bad as I suck at this game, without warps I can probably get to about stage 3-2 to 4-1, especially if I hunt down all of the extra lives.

Truth is, we were all just willing to struggle with games like this until the muscle memory was built into our brains and fingers to rush through these levels, but struggling with 1-2 just blows my mind for any seasoned gamer.  No shame on him, but it just surprises me.  That's all.

[Brickman | 4,215]

2 hours ago, fcgamer said:

we solely did Sega MD and SFC,

That must have been hard for you knowing how much you hate SNES/SFC  haha. 

Your story sounds similar to mine. I recently showed my 11 year old niece SMB and the exact same thing happened. She ended up getting frustrated and giving up. I told her if she kept practicing she’d get further but she just complained it was too hard. 

[phart010 | 1,791]

21 hours ago, Shmup said:

That must have been hard for you knowing how much you hate SNES/SFC  haha. 

Your story sounds similar to mine. I recently showed my 11 year old niece SMB and the exact same thing happened. She ended up getting frustrated and giving up. I told her if she kept practicing she’d get further but she just complained it was too hard. 

I let my daughter play SMB starting when she was 2 on and off. She had gotten pretty good by the time she was 4. By good I don’t mean great, but definitely better than a lot of adults.

I wonder if my skills are being passed down through bloodline

Edited July 16, 2021 by phart010

[Brickman | 4,215]

5 minutes ago, phart010 said:

I let my daughter play SMB starting when she was 2 on and off. She had gotten pretty good by the time she was 4. By good I don’t mean great, but definitely better than a lot of adults.

I wonder if my skills were be passed down through bloodline

I think so

[Strange | 1,731]

Did not see “SMB” in the title when I quickly read through this and was like “Oh okay are we doing these types of topics now?” Lmao

Fun story to hear about though. It’s SMB, what more can you say? My older brother made sure to raise me on the original NES trilogy before I was old enough to start having my own consoles and games. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone never having played it, but I did meet a teenager (who plays video games) the other day who legitimately did not know what an NES or SNES looked like so nothing shocks me anymore.

[Estil | 1,292]

Oooh, did their (or anyone else's) first go around at the original SMB go anything like this?  

EDIT: OMG!!  At 2:54 did they just throw doo doo on that poor kitty!? 

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by Estil

[Murray | 2,490]

Congrats! @OptOut Hopefully you didn’t get suckered into century egg pizza afterwards. 

[OptOut | 9,034]

2 minutes ago, Murray said:

Congrats! @OptOut Hopefully you didn’t get suckered into century egg pizza afterwards. 

I ain't a fuggin Northerner. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,965]

55 minutes ago, OptOut said:

I ain't a fuggin Northerner. 

 Congrats on sharing an intimate moment behind closed doors with fc. We don't judge.

[Gloves | 12,277]

3 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

 Congrats on sharing an intimate moment behind closed doors with fc. We don't judge.

Whe the heck is "we"? I judge, for sure. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,965]

Thanks @OptOut !

 

[Estil | 1,292]

4 hours ago, Gloves said:

Whe the heck is "we"? I judge, for sure. 

Maybe Reed has a mouse in his pocket?  

[Strange | 1,731]

So I was in a local game store today and had an interaction that reminded me of this thread. They have SMB hooked up to an NES and CRT free for anyone to play in the store. A little kid was playing it (obviously for the first time). I was trying to give him tips but he wasn’t really receptive so I just let him play. He fell through one of the holes in 1-1 and told me it was a glitch. I jokingly was like “You should write Nintendo about it so they know” and he said “No way, this is an old game. They’re not going to patch it. They probably already sold it to another studio or something.”

[Hammerfestus | 4,107]

2 hours ago, Estil said:

Maybe Reed has a mouse in his pocket?  

Maybe he’s just happy to see us?

[Reed Rothchild | 9,965]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

So I was in a local game store today and had an interaction that reminded me of this thread. They have SMB hooked up to an NES and CRT free for anyone to play in the store. A little kid was playing it (obviously for the first time). I was trying to give him tips but he wasn’t really receptive so I just let him play. He fell through one of the holes in 1-1 and told me it was a glitch. I jokingly was like “You should write Nintendo about it so they know” and he said “No way, this is an old game. They’re not going to patch it. They probably already sold it to another studio or something.”

I don't normally condone violence against minors...

[Estil | 1,292]

1 hour ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I don't normally condone violence against minors...

Well really we shouldn't be doing any kind of violence towards anyone unless you really have to.

[twiztor | 919]

a few years ago our local mall had an NES set up at one of those freestanding shops. no idea what they were selling, but these 3 teenagers stopped to play SMB1. the first 2 died on the first Goomba. the third made it maybe halfway through 1-1 before dying. i was appalled.

side note, i was at a friend's place last night and he was playing Zelda 1 via Switch Online. he said he'd never played it before and couldn't fing level 7. he said he already had to Google a few mysteries. with Zelda 1 being my GOAT it was hard to comprehend.

[Kguillemette | 1,630]

On 7/16/2021 at 7:15 PM, Strange said:

So I was in a local game store today and had an interaction that reminded me of this thread. They have SMB hooked up to an NES and CRT free for anyone to play in the store. A little kid was playing it (obviously for the first time). I was trying to give him tips but he wasn’t really receptive so I just let him play. He fell through one of the holes in 1-1 and told me it was a glitch. I jokingly was like “You should write Nintendo about it so they know” and he said “No way, this is an old game. They’re not going to patch it. They probably already sold it to another studio or something.”

Waht?! How old was this kid??

[Kguillemette | 1,630]

On 7/17/2021 at 7:40 PM, twiztor said:

 

side note, i was at a friend's place last night and he was playing Zelda 1 via Switch Online. he said he'd never played it before and couldn't fing level 7. he said he already had to Google a few mysteries. with Zelda 1 being my GOAT it was hard to comprehend.

I feel your friend's pain. It took me years to find level 7 as a kid.

[Estil | 1,292]

41 minutes ago, Kguillemette said:

I feel your friend's pain. It took me years to find level 7 as a kid.

He thinks that's hard...how about trying to find the 8th dungeon in the Second Quest (no cheating!!)...

You know how long it took for me back in the old b/w Indian head test pattern days of the early 90s (didn't have Nintendo Power) to figure out you're supposed to walk through some of the dungeon walls in the second quest?  Or that you're supposed to use the whistle to open some secret caves in the overworld in the second quest?

Edited July 20, 2021 by Estil

[Tanooki | 5,135]

The Zelda one is very forgivable even now, if you're set by some means of not having access to gamefaqs, old books/magazines, or any other crutch.  Zelda like it or not, it's brutal, perhaps more brutal than 2 in some respects because of how cryptic that open world is while Zelda 2 was kind of linear compared(just nastier with heart drops.)

Finding which bush to burn, what wall to bomb, what fake wall with ZERO tells at all you can either bomb or walk through as an illusion is nuts.  NP could crutch you through a good bit of it in places, but even they being sneaky, didn't put enough/all so you could buy the $15-20 Zelda Tips & Tricks (Which I've somehow never owned, same with the SMB1 guide of the era either...I should fix that for fun.)

Zelda took me months, not sure how long, not through one year into the next but it was a stretch.  So so many deaths, confusions, etc. The partial map Nintendo did was a savior on where it said to bomb or burn this and that.  I don't think that kid is out of line at all using some light online help since no one on the school yard will think he's sane doing that over being another fortnite douche.

SMB1 though?  That game was designed to start obscenely easy in the first world so people who never gamed before could understand the basics just seeing it.  Holes are death, fire is bad, enemies biting(touching) you is also bad.  Manual would cover the rest on going super(as if that first one wasn't obvious enough) or what the flower does either so easily had.  Anyone who fails at 1-1 because a hole is a glitch needs to either have their game taken away permanently, or like a cartoon toothpicks to hold the eyelids open while they're programmed on a 12 hour loop on what a real game is and how to play it.

[Murray | 2,490]

@OptOut watch out for that first Goomba Opty! She’s a doozy. 

[twiztor | 919]

12 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I don't think that kid is out of line at all using some light online help

oh, i totally agree. Zelda 1 is absolutely BRUTAL with hidden stuff. And the 2nd Quest definitely takes it up a notch. I don't fault him whatsoever for looking up hints. 

It's like watching somebody play Punch-Out for the first time. i know all of the opponent's mannerisms and patterns by heart, so watching a newbie randomly punch and get punched is just painful!

[Estil | 1,292]

7 minutes ago, twiztor said:

oh, i totally agree. Zelda 1 is absolutely BRUTAL with hidden stuff. And the 2nd Quest definitely takes it up a notch. I don't fault him whatsoever for looking up hints. 

It's like watching somebody play Punch-Out for the first time. i know all of the opponent's mannerisms and patterns by heart, so watching a newbie randomly punch and get punched is just painful!

Yeah I think didn't Tyson try the game himself on one of those late night talk shows?  They forgot to use proper CRT monitors and of course they're gonna have a super hard time with that input lag!!