Hello and welcome to my last post before I go on an indefinite hiatus. Since I knew for a while this would be the final post I would be making for a while, I decided to go all out for the finale. For the finale I decided to do the hardest video game challenge that I know of. Super Mario Galaxy 2’s The Perfect Run. First things first though, just to unlock this challenge you need to collect all 120 Power Stars in the main campaign, 120 total Green Stars from every level, and you need to have beaten ‘The Ultimate Test’ which is a level that tests everything you’ve learned from playing the game. The Perfect Run is the same layout as ‘The Ultimate Test’ but you only have one point of health and no checkpoints. You’ll have to be perfectly prepared for this behemoth of a finale. Now if you’re watching someone play through this level you might think it’s easy, but that’s just what the game wants you to think. You have to do the entire gauntlet with one health so of course it looks easy. Actually beating the level is another matter entirely. In both Super Mario Galaxy games one of my biggest problems is I over or underestimating my longer jumps, so this gauntlet is a nightmare. The final part of this challenge involves a gauntlet of Hammer Bros which lead to the final three Boomerang Bros you need to defeat to end the level once and for all. If you don’t deal with the Hammer Bros on the way to the Boomerang Bros the Hammer Bros will still be attacking you while you’re trying to deal with the Boomerang Bros and that is a lot to deal with all at once. I would only recommend this challenge if you have obtained all 242 previous stars and studied your route multiple times using the easier version of the level.

Hello and thanks for taking the time to answer my poll last week, after collecting the feedback I have an idea of how I want to move forward with this blog. Now for this week’s round of suffering, Super Mario Brothers 2. Now at first glance you might be thinking, “Oh the game where you can play as Toad and Princess Peach while throwing turnips? That’s not a challenge at all, what are you trying to pull here?”. Well stop those thoughts right now because it’s time for a Nintendo history lesson. You see, there are actually two versions of Super Mario Brothers 2. One is the turnip throwing version which is globally known as ‘Super Mario Bros 2 USA’. The version that I’ll be playing today is now referred to as ‘Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels’. Originally, the Lost Levels was supposed to be the true sequel to the original Super Mario Bros, designed for players who had mastered the mechanics of the original game. However, Nintendo of America deemed it too hard for American players, so we got the version of Super Mario Bros 2 that most are familiar with today. If you want to play the Lost Levels today, it is available on the 3DS and Wii U Virtual Consoles, along with Nintendo Switch Online’s NES game library. While I do consider myself at least decent at 2D Mario games, I will admit this one intimidates me a bit because of its legacy. I personally stopped somewhere in world two out of the game’s eight worlds. If you really want to try it out I would highly recommend using the Nintendo Switch version so you have access to the rewind feature.

After taking a nice long break I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. However, I realized I didn’t want to completely torment myself this time around so I decided to do a more light hearted challenge. This time I’m going to be doing a speedrun of my favorite 2D Mario game, Super Mario World. To be more specific, I’m going to be doing an 11 exit glitchless run, which means I’ll be beating the game by clearing the game by doing the absolute minimum number of levels. Luckily I’ve been playing this game since I was in elementary school, so I have more than a few years under my belt. I know speedrunning is on a whole other level when compared to casually knowing the game like the back of your hand, so I know I shouldn’t set my expectations too high. Personally I have always wanted to give a real speedrun a try, but I’ve always been intimidated by the low times and how many of my favorite games are either mastered to the point of near perfection or they are games that are simply too long for me to want to sit down and run. The only exception that really comes to mind is Cadence of Hyrule, but that’s because every run is always a bit different so it’s fun. Overall I would say that Super Mario World is a game that is both fun from a casual perspective and a speedrunning perspective and I would recommend playing this classic if you haven’t played it.

Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the first ridiculous endeavor I’ve decided to try out! Super Mario Sunshine without jumping. I figured what better place to start this series off with than one of my favorite games of all time combined with a ridiculous challenge attached to it. Super Mario Sunshine was one the early titles for the Nintendo Gamecube and sadly hasn’t been remastered since. In the game Mario is falsely accused of covering Isle Delfino with a mysterious goop and has to clean all of it up. To help him clean the island, Mario meets FLUDD, a hi-tech water gun that even has a hover function. As I’m sure you can already guess, FLUDD’s Hover Nozzle is going to be the primary way of rising up in a world where Mario’s most iconic trait is not allowed. Now, those of you familiar with the game are likely aware of the obvious roadblock of the secret levels which restrict FLUDD from being used. My answer to that is to clear the stage normally once when FLUDD is banned, and immediately redo the stage once FLUDD is unbanned. It’s not a perfect solution but it stops the game from being unfinishable. So this run is also considered a minimum jump run. For the sake of not subjecting anyone to pointless cutscenes, I edited out the very long cutscene at the start of the game. Personally I think this was a great way to learn the game even more in depth than I already had from my years of experience. I already knew what my limitations were but the real challenge and satisfaction for me was trying to use everything within my reach as I tend to pick the speediest ways nine times out of ten. It felt great finding that one platform I needed to make everything work together well. I think my favorite missions were Ricco Harbor One and Three because of how much I needed to use the map layout to my advantage to finally reach that Shine Sprite. In the end, I only managed to get 9 Shine Sprites truly with no jumping required. Someday I would not mind giving this run another shot now that’s I’ve figured out some of the optimal routes for the early game.