MaximRecoil

That's the only way you can hold it if you want to be able to rock your thumb back and forth to press each button. And no, I don't hold it that way because I don't use the dogbone controller at all, because it has wrong-angled buttons. "Wiggle your thumb left and right"? Do you mean moving your thumb from button to button? If so, that sucks, because it's slow and it doesn't work at all for when you have to use both buttons simultaneously. If you mean, place your thumb between the two buttons (partially covering each one in the process) and rolling it side to side, that works, but I don't find that as comfortable/natural as rocking my thumb back and forth. Since there's nothing to indicate that I'm "confused," this is a non sequitur from you. There are three ways that people can use their thumb for the main two buttons: 1. Cover both of them and rock your thumb back and forth. 2. Place your thumb between the two buttons and roll side to side 3. Move your thumb from button to button. Horizontally-inline buttons (like on the original NES controller) and correct-angled buttons (like Y & B on the SNES controller) are well-suited to all three of those ways, while wrong-angled buttons (like the NES dogbone controller) are only well-suited to #2 and #3, therefore it's a worse design. I don't, and neither does anyone who plays e.g., Super Castlevania IV with the default button configuration. How about a game from Nintendo themselves? That's from the Super Punch-Out manual, and they assigned the two main buttons (left and right punch) to Y & B rather than to the wrong-angled B & A or Y & X pair. ETA: Even Super Mario World, which was the SNES pack-in game, uses Y & B as the main two buttons. When you play an SNES game that has the two main buttons set to the correct-angled Y & B buttons by default, do you change them to the wrong-angled B & A or Y & X buttons?

By some miracle I just got past 6-2, and then it only took a few continues to get past 6-3 (a lot easier than 6-2), which leads to the bosses. I beat the first boss and lost to the second, and of course it sent me back to 6-1. I did make some save states at the start of each boss, and after I lost to the second one I went back and beat him on the third try and beat the third/final boss on the fourth try, but that doesn't count for anything. The only way I can legitimately beat this game is to continue from 6-1, which means making it through the ridiculously difficult 6-2 again. To hell with that (for now).

Ninja Gaiden is the only NES game that I specifically remember buying new when I was a kid, and back then I never made it past the stage 3-3 boss. I recently got an Everdrive and I "beat" Ninja Gaiden by abusing save states. But now I want to beat it legitimately. I'm still using save states but only at the start of the game's actual continue points, so I'm not gaining any gameplay advantage from using them that way; it just lets me turn the console off and come back to it later (otherwise I'd have to leave the console on for as long as it takes me to beat it, or until I give up trying). I'm stuck on stage 6-2, which is a miserable stage. I haven't been able to get past the point in that stage where you're on a platform with two eagles attacking you and you have to jump to the next platform which has one of those hammer-throwing enemies on it. I know the key to beating that stage is to get and keep the jump/spin/slash powerup, though that's easier said than done. I'd need to memorize which of the items are "spiritual strength" and only get those, avoiding the ones that give me a different weapon that won't help. One of the problems is, it's hard to selectively avoid collecting items when using the spin slash jump. Here's the main thing that makes me doubtful that I'll ever beat it: That's absurd. Normally when you lose and continue in this game you get sent back to the beginning of the sub-stage that you died on. For example, I've died dozens of times on 6-2 now and continuing always starts me at the beginning of 6-2, but because of a glitch that they decided to keep, if you lose to any of the final three bosses, you get sent back to 6-1, and at that point I'd probably call it quits.

I don't know what you mean by "short circuit" in this context, but it's a bad design. When the two buttons are horizontally inline like with the original controller, or angled so that the A button is lower than the B button, your thumb can easily cover both buttons at once while holding the controller in the usual way. In order to do that with the design they went with your thumb has to be angled like this: Who wants to hold a controller like that? When your thumb is angled in the usual way, to use both buttons you'd lift your thumb off one and place it on the other, which isn't as fast or fluid as simply rocking your thumb back and forth while it's covering both buttons. And it especially sucks in games where you have to hold one button while intermittently pressing the other, such as Super Mario Bros. (hold B to run, press A to jump). If you like wrong-angled buttons, I'd think you'd want to reassign the whip and the jump buttons in Super Castlevania IV to B & A or Y & X. That would make it like a NES dogbone controller layout for the two main buttons in that game. Konami had better sense than Nintendo in this case, so they assigned the main two buttons to Y & B by default:

The rounded shape was comfortable like an SNES controller, and it would have been great if it had been made like this: Or like this: But instead they made it like this: Why? The angle of those buttons is the opposite of the natural angle of your thumb when holding the controller in the usual way. They put the B & A buttons at the same angle on the SNES controller, and the Y & X buttons too, but fortunately, many SNES games allow you to change the button configuration, so I set Y & B as my two main buttons when possible, which are at the same angle as in the second picture I posted. Some SNES games even have Y & B as the default main buttons in the first place, ignoring Nintendo's awkwardly angled button pairing scheme, such as Super Castlevania IV:

"Trivial nonsense"? You're the one who volunteered your anecdote about beating SMB 2 when you were ~12, and described it as "quite easy." How can you remember it being "quite easy" but not remember, even roughly, how long it took you to beat it? Difficulty and time to beat a game of this type go hand in hand. The more difficult it is, the more attempts are needed, and that adds up to more time. Can you beat SMB 2 without taking any hits? Not just without losing a life, but without taking any damage whatsoever? And if so, can you do it routinely? It's easy to do in SMB when using the shortest route. Probably 9 times out of 10 when playing SMB I don't get hit at all, and I'm not even in the same league as the best SMB players. My claim isn't that SMB 2 is incredibly difficult; games like Ninja Gaiden and its sequels are way more difficult for example. My claim is that it's more difficult than SMB. Anything that impedes progress adds to the difficulty. It doesn't matter if it's a wave of enemies coming at you from all directions or a cryptic puzzle because the result is the same, i.e., you're stuck until you can figure out how to get past it. Yes, some people are better at solving puzzles or reacting to enemies/hazards than others, but I'm talking about in general. Here we have a couple non sequiturs and an attempted crystal ball reading, all in one paragraph.

Am I reading that right? You were reading about the NES online when you were 10? The NES was released in the US when I was 10, but it didn't get a national release until I was 11 (1986). I first heard of it / saw it in the TV commercials that aired for it around the fall of 1986. Commercials for the Sega Master System started airing at around the same time, and I thought the games for both of them looked amazing (a big step up from Atari 2600, or even 5200 or ColecoVision), but I figured the Master System would be the one that everyone bought because it looked like a video game console, while I thought the NES looked like a humidifier or something. SMB was the first game I played on an NES at my cousin Mike's house shortly after those first TV commercials for it aired. I thought it was a really weird game, since I'd never seen anything like it. The closest thing I'd seen was Pitfall (A2600), but SMB was far more elaborate, and had catchy music too. I thought the controllers were really weird too, since I'd only ever used joysticks. So I didn't really like it at first, though I was impressed with the graphics; which reminded me of a cartoon you might see on TV. I mostly just watched Mike play it at first, but once I gave it a chance I started to like it. When I went home I fired up Pitfall hoping to find some "secrets" in it like SMB has, a warp zone or something, but it just seemed so disappointingly bland after playing SMB.

Did you beat it in one day? A "quite easy" game that only consists of about 20 levels should be beatable in one day. For example, I beat Super Castlevania IV in a day in 1992 (I rented it, so I only had it for a day), and it was the first Castlevania game I'd ever played. The SMB 2 gameplay video that someone posted earlier in this thread, all levels, only took about an hour. I'm guessing he's had a good deal of practice, but for someone playing this game for the first time, if it is a quite easy game, it should only take a couple/few hours at the most to beat it. The fastest/easiest route through SMB, which is easy to find without outside help, is only 8 short levels with no mini-bosses and only one boss which you can simply run under or even straight through if you're big Mario/Luigi (one of the easiest bosses in video game history). Of those 8 levels, only the last 4 (8-1 through 8-4) have any significant difficulty at all, and even that can be negated if you can keep your firepower, which makes it easy to kill the Hammer Bros. in 8-3. The fastest/easiest route through SMB 2, which pretty much no one will find without outside help, is 10 levels, with most of them being longer levels than in SMB. Worlds 1-1 through 1-3 are easy, but not as easy as SMB's 1-1 and 1-2, because there are some mini-bosses you have to defeat. Then you enter the warp zone in 1-3 that someone told you how to find and that's where the difficulty ramps up. World 4-1 is way harder than SMB's 4-1, which is a very easy level if you just stomp the cloud creature at the beginning and run through the practically hazard-free rest of it. For one thing, it's an ice level, which messes with your control over the character (SMB has nothing like that in any level; you always have normal control over Mario/Luigi). For another thing, when you get to 4-2, which is more ice, there are a bunch of enemies flying at you that you have to make quick decisions to variously jump over, duck under, or do nothing, plus some enemies on the ground too. Meanwhile, SMB's 4-2 is a very easy level, and you only have to go through ~half of it. There's certainly no barrage of enemies flying straight at you nor is there anything messing with your control over the character. Then you have 6-2 where you have to ride on flying birds through most of the level, jumping from one to another, and jumping over oncoming enemies and having to land back on the moving bird. SMB has nothing like that. 6-3 is a long and tedious level unless you use the shortcut that you won't know about unless someone told you, and has the multi-headed snake boss which is certainly more difficult than the non-existent bosses at the end of all but one level in SMB's shortest route, and more difficult than the only boss in SMB's shortest route too, for that matter. I've already discussed the 7-2 castle, which is obviously more difficult than SMB's 8-4 castle, which is one of the easiest castles in the game after you figure out which pipes you're supposed to go down. The idea that SMB 2 is easier than SMB is one of the most bizarre video game theories I've ever heard.

That's not even remotely a fact. SMB all levels, world record time = 18m 55s 929ms SMB 2 all levels, world record time = 20m 36s SMB Any%, world record time = 4m 54s 798ms SMB 2 Any%, world record time = 8m 11s 590ms No matter how you slice it, SMB 2 is a longer game. Also, pretty much no one is going to find a warp zone in SMB 2 without outside help, so they are going to have to play through all the levels, with only 2 continues. On the other hand, in SMB, right at the start of world 1-2 you can easily break blocks out of the ceiling, and it's natural to try to jump up there after you do that. Then you just keep going to the right (which is the only direction you can go) and you find a warp zone to 4-1. The next warp zone in 4-2 is just as easy to stumble across because a vine leads to it. SMB 2's final level (castle) alone is significantly harder than any level in SMB. You've got conveyor belt platforms with spikes beneath them, mini-bosses, those spark things buzzing around everywhere, dead ends, a key to get for a particular door, and a final boss that's way harder than the final boss in SMB. Hell, you don't even need to do anything at all but barrel straight ahead to defeat SMB's final boss if you're big Mario, i.e., you can just run straight into him and your temporary invincibility after taking a hit will get you through him safely. He's one of the easiest bosses in video game history, and he's also the only boss in the game if you use the easy-to-find warp zones. I would love for someone to put this to the test. Get a large group of people who know nothing about SMB or SMB 2 and have half of them play SMB and the other half play SMB 2, with no access to any outside help, and with all of them separated from each other (or split up into groups of two at the most). I would wager just about anything that more people would beat SMB in a given amount of time than SMB 2. I certainly would if I were put in the test when I was 11. It didn't take Mike and me very long to beat SMB, but we didn't make it very far with SMB 2 when he rented it. We never found a warp zone and we made it to world 2-dash-something. We had no outside help with either game.

No, I'm not. It's more than a reskin and it has a name: Super Mario Bros. 2. The time limit is hardly ever a factor in SMB. The levels are short. It's mainly a factor in the three maze levels (or one maze level if you use warp zones), until you figure out the maze, which would only take a few tries because there aren't many path combinations to try in the first place. As for the rest of the stuff you typed in that paragraph, all of that is more than countered by the fact that, in comparison to SMB, SMB 2's levels are typically longer, there are far more hazards, you can't get fireballs or any other on-demand weapon, and there are more bosses / mini-bosses, almost none of which you can simply run past, and none of which you can use your non-existent on-demand weapon against. On top of that, the chances of anyone finding the warp zones entirely on their own are slim to none, whereas in SMB they are easy to stumble upon. Because it very obviously is. If it were easier than SMB than my cousin Mike and I would have beaten it when we were kids, the same as we beat SMB. Once we discovered warp zones in SMB, we were at world 8 shortly thereafter, and then it was just a matter of learning 8-1 through 8-4. We never even found warp zones in SMB 2, and without warp zones, that's a lot of levels to learn before you can beat the game with only 2 continues. That's comically ironic, coming from the guy who thinks SMB is harder than SMB 2. SMB is only 8 short levels with warp zones (more like 7½, since you only have to go through about half of 4-2 to reach the warp zone to 8-1), and you have an on-demand weapon with unlimited ammo. You'll only face one boss and no mini-bosses, and you can just run under that one boss or kill him from a safe distance with 5 fireballs. Even playing casually it only takes about 8 or 9 minutes to beat it. The best players can beat it in just under 5 minutes. More comical irony. Also, "research"? I didn't need to do any research to beat SMB, not that there was any feasible way to research anyway, since it was 1986 and Mike was the only one I knew who even had a Nintendo. Also, it didn't take all that much practice either. I didn't even own an NES until about 1989 but I could beat SMB in 1986. The only times I got to play SMB back then were at Mike's house, and since he lived in a different town, that wasn't very often. There is no mess. That's irrelevant. The label is proof that it's called Super Mario Bros. 2, so if you're trying to "correct" people who are calling it Super Mario Bros. 2, you're the one who's wrong, obviously. Your concession that's it's more than just a reskin is noted. Again with the irony. I could say the same thing to you with regard to SMB, except no one needs to "research" or "study" it, and it doesn't take much practice to beat either.

No, I'm not. It's harder than SMB, not as hard as SMB 2J. A warpless run of SMB without losing any lives isn't particularly easy, and doing it in SMB 2 is harder than that, especially if only using the Mario character like he did. Take it up with Nintendo. You thinking it's "fucking ridiculous" is irrelevant to the fact that it's called Super Mario Bros. 2. Just look at the label on the cartridge. Furthermore, it's not just a reskin; there are differences between Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA) and Doki Doki Panic that go beyond mere reskinning. Why are you telling me that? Not only do I already know that (which is obvious, since I've been talking about the two completely different games called Super Mario Bros. 2 all along), but it's also been fairly common knowledge for many years now.

Warpless with no deaths? That's awesome. I doubt there are many people who can do that. I'm not sure what you're saying. Both versions of SMB 2 are hard; SMB 2 (Japan) is just a lot harder. I'd say that Doki Doki Panic is easier than SMB 2 (USA), since it's an FDS game and has saves, whereas SMB 2 (USA) has no saves and only two continues, though you do have to beat the game with all four characters instead of just one. SMB 2 (Japan) isn't the hardest NES game I've played though. I've "beaten" it in one sitting by abusing save states, but recently I tried Ninja Gaiden III (US version) and so far I can't beat that game no matter how many save states I use, because in the later levels I run out of time. My last save state is at stage 7-3B, not even at the boss yet, with 3 seconds left on the clock. I don't know how I could get through 7 much faster without a ton of practice. I barely even made it through 6 with enough time. The first time I had 10 seconds left when I reached the boss and the best I could do was hit him enough times that I only needed to hit him 3 more times before the time ran out. So I redid it and reached the boss with 20 seconds left on the clock, and I beat him just as the timer reached 00. I'll add that there is a way to use save states and still legitimately beat a game. If you're playing a game that has unlimited continues, as long as you only use save states to pick up at the exact same spot that a continue would start you at (i.e., continue, immediately make a save state, then shut the game off), then that's not going outside the intended parameters of the game. It just saves you from having to leave the game running constantly until you beat it. Of course, my save state abuse in SMB 2J and Ninja Gaiden III isn't in any way a legitimate way to beat a game though, plus it looks like it won't even help me "beat" the latter game anyway.

The Adventures of Bayou Billy is another one. It stands out in my mind because it was the first time I ever rented a video game (renting video games was a new thing in my area at the time), and it was a new release that was supposed to be good, being from Konami and all. It starts out as a brawler type game, but the fighting mechanics are terrible. In Double Dragon, Final Fight, and all other good brawler games, the enemy is stunned by a punch or kick allowing for rapid followup punches/kicks until they go down. That doesn't happen in The Adventures of Bayou Billy. You're lucky to even get two hits in a row on even the first enemies you encounter. Hit detection isn't great either. Also, a jump kick in a brawler game should knock low-level enemies down with one hit, but not in this game. It doesn't seem to do any more damage than a normal punch or kick. I already said that I was disappointed by the NES port of Double Dragon in comparison to the arcade version, but it's way better than The Adventures of Bayou Billy. At least it has halfway decent fighting mechanics.

I can't think of any particularly precise jumps that you need to make in SMB, and the only memorization needed is for the maze levels: 4-4, 7-4, and 8-4; or only 8-4 if you use warp zones. It's never been generous for me. I hardly ever get anything through the slot machine. Either way, if it weren't harder than SMB, I wouldn't need any extra lives, because I can consistently beat SMB in about 8 minutes without losing any lives, and I have beaten it without using warp zones without losing any lives at least once, though most of the time I lose a couple/few lives during a warpless run. However, there are easy and reliable ways of getting something like 15 extra lives along the way (rather than relying on a simulated gambling machine), so losing a few lives is no problem. The ice levels in SMB 2 alone are harder than any level in SMB, and the final levels, 7-1 and 7-2 are way harder than any level in SMB. The bosses are harder than any boss in SMB, since all the SMB bosses can be defeated with 4 or 5 fireballs from a safe distance, and if you don't have fireballs, you can just run underneath any of them (or jump over them, but that's hard to do consistently with the ones that throw hammers). I watched a video of "Kosmic" playing SMB 2. He's among the best in the world at various Mario games. For example, his speedrun time on SMB is 4m 55s 646ms, and on SMB 2 (Japan) it is 7m 55s 384ms, plus a warpless run (all levels) of SMB 2 (Japan) in 21m 23s 869ms. Those were world records at one point, and still in the top 10. Getting times like that require some frame-perfect maneuvers that most people can't do at all. In any case, he didn't exactly breeze through SMB 2 (USA). He lost several lives, enough so that he had to continue a couple times. This is what he said while playing it: "This game has SMB One Syndrome, but on steroids, where people are like, 'I beat this when I was five...' Also, anyone that remembers it being easy probably got to like world four as a kid and never actually beat it. They probably just warped to four and felt like they made lots of progress." You can watch his video here: https://youtu.be/qy9CzGZkq44 I wish I could see gameplay videos from everyone who says that SMB 2 is easy. That would be true if it had battery-backed saving functionality like Super Mario World (SNES), but it doesn't. So you have to keep practicing until you can beat a long game in one sitting, or be willing to leave your NES on for extended periods of time while you do other things like sleep, eat, work, etc. I've never had the patience to beat it. Once I lose the initial three lives and continuing kicks me back a couple/few levels I've always shut the game off out of irritation. I recently got an Everdrive though, so maybe I'll use save states to "beat" it at some point.

I just tried a warpless run of Vs. Super Mario Bros. (which is the arcade version of SMB) and 5-2 is a roadblock if you're small Mario, because I don't know of a reliable way to get past the Hammer Bro. on the steps, plus when you do get lucky there's a pit right after the steps that you have to avoid falling into, and the small ledge before the pit is still in the range of his hammers (which is relevant if you managed to just jump over him rather than stomp him). They removed the mushroom before the Hammer Bro. that's in the normal home version. There's no mushroom in 5-1 that I know of either, so continuing doesn't help you get big Mario. After a couple continues I made it past 5-2, but 6-3 is the next roadblock. It has a jump that you can't make unless you time it just right in order to bounce off a flying turtle to reach the next platform. I've done it before but it's a luck thing for me; I can't do it reliably. Completing 6-3 is a requirement even if you use warp zones, because the option in the normal home version to warp to 7-1 or 8-1 from the 4-2 vine warp zone is gone; 6-1 is your only option.

SMB is probably the easiest well-known side-scrolling platform NES game to legitimately beat, since there are only 8 levels to go through if you use warp zones (beating the game using warp zones is legitimate since they are an intended part of the game). Worlds 1-1 and 1-2 are obviously incredibly easy. 4-1 isn't hard if you kill the cloud creature right at the beginning and run through the rest (once you learn the layout it's easy to run through). You only have to go through a small portion of 4-2, which isn't hard. Then you have 8-1 through 8-4. They are moderately difficult, but it doesn't take long to learn how to get through them. The main thing is learning how to deal with the Hammer Bros. in 8-3. If you have firepower when you encounter them it's very easy. The final level, 8-4, is a maze, but isn't a hard level once you know which pipes you're supposed to go down, especially if you've retained your firepower (makes killing the Hammer Bro. and Bowser at the end particularly easy). Beating SMB "extra legitimately" (by not using warp zones / going though all 32 levels) is harder of course (I think world 7 is harder than 8, though 7-4 is easier than 8-4 once you learn the maze pattern), but you can get something like 15 extra lives along the way just by collecting most of the coins and getting all of the 1UP mushrooms. I think SMB 2 (USA) and SMB 3 are a lot harder than SMB, and SMB 2 (Japan) is just unreasonably hard.

The pins never need to be bent up in my experience. Some original connectors have a light grip on the cartridge when you insert it and some have no grip at all, i.e., when you insert the cartridge it feels like there's no connector in there at all. I remember my cousin Mike's shiny-top NES (which must have had a very low serial number considering how soon after the national launch that he bought it) having no grip whatsoever even when new. My friend Ryan's NES was also like that; his was a very early one too. He claimed he got his NES even before Mike did. Of the four that I cleaned in that video, three of them have a light grip (quasi ZIF) and one has no grip at all (true ZIF). I decided to put the no-grip one in my main NES and leave it there, because the original design goal was for it to be a true ZIF connector (the original connector I've had in my main NES for many years has a light grip, but I prefer no grip). I suspect they may have tweaked the design at some point to make the connectors have a light grip instead of no grip, to make them work better when not perfectly clean (though none of the original ones ever had a tight grip like most, if not all, of the aftermarket ones do), or maybe light grip vs. no grip is just due to manufacturing tolerances. Either way, a no-grip one is ideal, because it eliminates friction/wear on the connector pins and cartridge contacts when inserting and removing the cartridge. Here's a half-minute video demonstrating that it literally has no grip on the cartridge whatsoever (you can see that it falls out of the console due to gravity alone), yet it works like new.

I don't doubt it.

If boiling them gets the pins clean it will work, as will anything else that gets them clean. I doubt it cleans as thoroughly as an acid does though. BKF contains oxalic acid. Soaking them in vinegar is another acid-cleaning method that I've heard works, though I've never tried it. Acetic acid (vinegar) isn't as strong as oxalic acid though, so I assume it would take longer.

I got four original 72-pin connectors yesterday that someone had replaced with aftermarket ones because they no longer worked, so I decided to make a video about cleaning them. I've yet to see an original 72-pin connector that wouldn't work like new again by simply cleaning it, and these four were no exception. It's a myth that they wear out and that's why they don't grip cartridges tightly and therefore you need to bend their pins up. They aren't designed to grip cartridges tightly until you press the carriage down, i.e., they are designed to be a ZIF connector (Zero Insertion Force). It's the same idea as a ZIF DIP socket; the chip inserts into it with no resistance, and then pushing the lever down tightens the contacts together. It seems like it's standard practice these days to throw away the high-quality original 72-pin connector and replace it with an aftermarket one, or ruin (IMO) the original one by bending its pins up, which is such a waste.

Exactly one time, just a few minutes ago. The cartridge arrived in the mail today and after about 10 tries I beat "Game A." Well, I beat the final boss with two jump kicks, it showed me an ending scene, and then it sent me back to the beginning so I turned it off. Does the game just loop indefinitely? I loved this game when I was a kid in the '80s, though it seemed a lot harder back then. I never even made it past level 2 because all that crap falling from the ceiling always killed me. I never owned the cartridge so I didn't get a lot of practice on it. I only got to play it at Ryan's house, a kid I went to school with. He wasn't much better than me at it. The only other person I knew who had an NES was my cousin Mike (this was before the NES exploded in popularity in the US in 1988), but he didn't have Kung Fu. The only games he had that I liked were Super Mario Bros. and Excitebike. I'm a lot better at video games as an adult than when I was a kid, which is funny, because when I was a kid, I hardly ever saw adults playing video games (at least not seriously; sometimes they would play just to humor their kids), so everyone I knew who was good at video games was a kid. A few examples: My highest score on Super Punch-Out (arcade) in the '80s was about 375,000. As an adult it's about 3.3 million: https://youtu.be/SYbiqPDNBqU I owned Karateka (Atari 7800) as a kid but no matter how many times I tried (and I tried many, many times), I could never beat the guy in the green uniform (second-to-last opponent). My 7800 and cartridges that I had when I was a kid are long gone, but I got another one about 10 years ago and I not only beat the "green beret" as I used to call him, but the final boss too: https://youtu.be/ODktLc-rM04 I owned Space Attack (Atari 2600) as a kid, which is as easy to beat as falling off a log when the difficulty switches are in the easy position, but is very hard when they are in the hard position. I only beat it with just the left switch on the hard difficulty setting a few times when I was a kid, and always by the skin of my teeth. As an adult I've beaten it with both difficulty switches in the hard position without losing any lives: https://youtu.be/a9khm_sUVic My late best friend Corey's favorite video game when we were kids was Ikari Warriors (arcade). He was good but I was terrible at it. As an adult I can beat it without losing any lives: https://youtu.be/-lijJ5hKizo Corey still had a higher score than my highest score though, but he achieved that as an adult too. He never beat the game when he was a kid, though he could get close to the end back then.

That's interesting, thanks for the link. Like I said, it didn't seem like I got that many extra lives, but apparently I did. And I guess that was more extra lives than I've ever gotten before doing the same trick because it's never caused a game-over before. And the second one I did last night to see if it would game-over again was around 90 extra lives (I just counted them on the video I took of it).

Well, I managed to do it again after quite a few tries, exactly like last time (on my last life in world 3-1; kept stomping the turtle shell until time ran out), and video taped it, but it registered all the extra lives this time. So I have no idea what happened last time when it decided to simply ignore all those extra lives I got. I wonder if that's ever happened before to anyone else. I wish I would have been video taping when it happened.

I didn't have time to get that many extra lives. I got maybe 50 or so. Definitely less than 100. I'd like to try it again under the same circumstances (on last life in world 3-1, keep stomping turtle shell until time runs out) to see if the same thing happens again, but I'm not very good at it. Once I get it set up right I can keep it going pretty good, but I'm not good at getting the turtle shell in the right position to get it started in the first place.

I was practicing the turtle stomping trick in world 3-1 (original NES with an original SMB cartridge), and on my last life I got it to work good; was getting a bunch of 1UPs, and I kept it going until the time ran out. But then it said game over, as if I'd never gotten any of those 1UPs at all. Is there an explanation for that? I've done that trick quite a few times in the past and it has never not registered the extra lives before.