You can’t keep a good plumber down, and Super Mario Bros. is still going strong decades after it first launched. Veteran players will no doubt already know the locations of every hidden block, the route to every warp zone, and how to score easy extra lives by bouncing Koopa Trooper shells off staircases, but this last trick for unlimited 1-Ups isn’t so easy. Yup, it turns out that sometimes if you want infinite lives you actually have to work for them.
Playing the game through on hard mode, in which Goombas are replaced with fireproof Buzzy Beetles (or Metto in Japanese, from the English word helmet) that are just great for kicking, it’s possible to volley the bugs against blocks and bounce on them repeatedly, each time racking up points that eventually become extra lives.
Okay, so far, so World 3 Level 1.
But it’s the effort involved in getting to this particular 1-Up-spewing Beetle that’s the hard part, and not to be attempted by anyone who has not cleared the game at least a few dozen times before. Check this out.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this trick performed, but it is without a doubt the one that the fewest Mario players know about, not to mention the trickiest to pull off, so we felt the need to share. If you happen to have a copy of the game for your old NES (or Wii, or Wii U, or SNES, or Gameboy Advance, or Gameboy Color or…) then by all means try this one out and let us know if you can pull it off.
▼ You’ll need to stomp that Buzzy before it can drop down.
▼ Then kick and chase it before it gets away.
▼ Bouncing off it to stop it in its tracks.
▼ Wait for Buzzy to wake up and walk off the upper block.
▼ Then set to stomping. You know the drill from here.
Aaah, it’s like reading those old players guides all over again!
There are of course a myriad other ways to get those extra lives, so follow this comprehensive video tutorial for the full list. Have fun and keep rocking the 8-bit, kids!
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