Early Memories of Gaming pt. 2

The very first console game I played growing up was Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES. My parents (especially my dad) were really into technology and were interested in the early forms of the internet and gaming consoles. They managed to buy a NES for themselves and fell in LOVE with it. I remember them telling me how they would fight over who's turn it would be and what game they played. Eventually I got old enough to sort of understand the game and the controller, so I started playing (when my parents gave me a turn that is).

(The Title Screen of my favorite game)

If you've ever played any of the Mario games, you'll know that they all have secrets in them. Sometimes hidden 1-UPs, sometimes hidden levels or other items. Super Mario Bros. 3 was no exception. I was mystified by how many secrets my parents knew about the game and I felt so cool knowing them. It turns out that my parents would actually discuss Mario secrets with some of their adult friends and some of the neighbors. The biggest secret of them all, of course, was the Flute. These flutes could let you warp ahead to the other zones...and if you got 2 flutes, you could go straight to World 8!

(The Warp Zone after using a flute)

(The start of World 8)

I would always get through World 1 while gathering the two flutes and then warp straight to World 8 and feel like a total baller even though I could never get past the World 8 levels. Nowadays, I have Super Mario Bros. 3 on my Wii Virtual Console and occasionally speed-run through it in about half an hour. Super Mario Bros. 3 was my first and still my favorite video game of all time.