30 things that come to mind replaying the original Super Mario Bros.

Seriously, Hammer Bros., we hate you so, so much,

It’s amazing that the original Super Mario Bros. is not only worth playing, but still completely enjoyable more than 30 years after its release. Very few video games can boast such unfading entertainment value, and when you consider that Super Mario Bros. isn’t a puzzle title or single-screen score attack concept, but a fully realized game with a beginning, middle, and end, Nintendo’s biggest success is all the more impressive.

To this day, the game still attracts all manner of fans, from casual players out for a bit (or eight) of straightforward fun to hard-core speedrunners pushing themselves to beast each others’ times. Recently, we blew into our old Famicom (NES) cartridge and fired up our copy of Super Mario Bros. for yet another play-through, during which the following 30 things occurred to us.

1. Super Mario Bros. is super old, but still super fun.
2. At this point in the series, Princess Peach getting kidnapped is still a shocking event.
3. Sorry, Mario, we just can’t stop ourselves from accidentally running straight into bottomless pits.
4. Jumping onto a pipe immediately triggers muscle memory as we press down on the D-pad to see if it takes us anywhere.
5. The instant we find ourselves thinking “We’ve got this,” we get killed by a Goomba.
6. The Hammer Bros. are the worst. Just, like, totally the worst.

▼ Please resist the urge to punch your monitor until you’ve finished reading our other new articles for today.

7. We’re always willing to play the zero-sum game of getting ourselves killed if it means we can grab a 1-up mushroom first.
8. For any Koopa Troopa shell we kick, the thing it’s most likely to end up hitting is Mario.
9. Nothing in life compares to the sense of security we feel when we grab a Fire Flower.
10. Did we say Fire Flower? We meant Starman

▼ We feel better already.

11. Just like those 1-ups, we’ll repeatedly get ourselves trying to grab Starman.
12. But we still find ourselves hoping against hope that, next time, that invincibility will keep us safe from bottomless pits (preview: it won’t).
13. Somehow, the enemies seem to know the exact timing to hit us as Mario’s invincibility runs out.
14. When we take a shortcut along the top of the screen, we childishly position Mario’s crotch over the coin counter icon, to give him some kintama, literally “golden balls,” but also the Japanese word for “testicles.”
15. If there’s a hidden block over a pit, you can bet we’re going to hit it and send Mario falling to his death.
16. Perfectionists that we are, we always want to reach the top of the flagpole at the end of the level…
17. …so it feels like a personal failure when we miss the whole thing and have to jump from ground level…
18. …but we console ourselves by timing our meager hop so that the fireworks go off.
19. No matter how much time or backtracking it takes, we’re getting every single coin in the level…
20. …even if that blinding obsession kills us, which it often does when we focus only on the coins and ignore the enemies.
21. We start to get philosophical, reflecting on how every time we let our desires guide our actions, we die.
22. Either as a result of this revelation, or maybe just because we really want to beat the game, we eventually become extremely stoic while playing it.
23. Because even while it’s fun, Super Mario Bros. is still an old-school platformer that allows little margin for error.
24. We struggle to reconcile how Mario and Luigi can run and jump several times their own heights for hours on end with no signs of fatigue, yet still have such rotund physiques.

▼ Physical prowess of a champion athlete on the field, appearance of the fan in the stands who drinks a six-pack and eats three chili dogs while watching the game.

25. Even as one of the most polished titles of its times, there are still plenty of bugs to be found in the game…or are those secrets?
26. If you’re playing two players and want to be Luigi, you’d better be sure your friend isn’t awesome at the game, or you’re never getting a chance to play.
27. If you’re playing the game on an original Famicom/NES cartridge, the scrolling is actually sort of choppy by today’s standards.
28. When we need Mario to make a difficult jump, we pull up on the controller itself, because just maybe Nintendo snuck some pre-Wii motion controls in there, right?
29. Since we’ve memorized where the Warp Zones are, we start to forget there are levels other than 1, 4, and 8.
30. We have trouble thinking of any other game that’s more fitting of being called a masterpiece.

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