sequencialis's review of Super Mario Bros..

This game contains multitudes. It’s boundlessly impressive just how completely world 1-1 holds up 40 years later. The best comparison is watching a 1950’s Hitchcock film. It doesn’t feel too remarkable in the moment, but that’s only because the following decades of filmmaking draw so heavily from his work. Likewise Super Mario Bros. has such a solid design ethos that even 40 years later it just feels like an entry in the Super Mario franchise, rather than that antiquated entry point that’s worth studying as a relic and nothing more. However that’s just flipped on its head with world 7-4 and on. It’ just unthinkable that something so time-wastey could come from anything but the 80’s. I beat the preceding levels with only occasional use of save states and on balance enjoyed my time. World 7-4 took me the better part of an hour and uncounted save reloads. I later looked up the level on mariowiki.com where it is described as a series of puzzles. But that’s much too generous. It’s just a passcode entry screen in the clothes of a video game level. Just massively deflating when I actually finished it and realized I wasted that much of my mortal time on what’s essentially a Chinese finger trap. Likewise worlds 8-2 and 8-3 felt just vindictively difficult. But I suppose that was rightly seen as a bonus in an age when people didn’t have a backlog of hundreds of games purchased in steam sales. Though there is even today something in the human psychology that actively seeks out time wasters. There are people out there that brag about spending hours grinding away at an MMO. Couldn’t be me, though. On balance I’m very glad I got to finish this. This makes the very first NES game that i stuck with through to the end and I’m glad for it. It did feel wrong not having this on my beaten list even as I approach an elderly age. On to The Legend of Zelda next. ⌘ Played on an R36S handheld with moderate use of save states. Without a guide.