Just Did a Speed Run of the Original Super Mario Bros. for the Hell of It

And as much as I'm sick of Nintendo milking the plumber dry today, I will just never get tired of this game. No matter how many times I go back and play it, no matter how old I am, where I am, who I am, Super Mario Bros. for the NES will never, ever get old. Every time I pick up a controller and play it, something just clicks and I'm whisked away to gaming bliss. And nothing beats playing on the original NES with that wonderful square gamepad.

I didn't plan on playing the whole game. I was just testing out the cartridge to see if it worked fine because a recent DuckTales cart I picked up has been disappointingly glitching all over the place. I wanted to make sure my other games worked fine and that the problem was not the NES console itself. But before I knew it I was on world 3, finally getting that 1-up trick right! Then I was blazing through world 4,5, and 6. And after painfully losing my fire flower in that damnable underwater section of King Koopa's final castle, I managed to dash under an utterly evilly-placed Hammer Bro. and took the axe to Bowser's bridge to dunk the king in a hot lava bath. And so I'd done it again. I'd rescued the princess and was feeling that immense sense of satisfaction that only a true video game masterpiece can bring.

So for as much as I sometimes grumble at the big N today, nothing will ever change my gratitude for all the happiness Nintendo has brought me over the years.

Thanks for the memories, Miyamoto.