Topic: New Super Mario Brothers DS Community Project??? (1-27-23)

Hi all! I was wondering if everyone would be interested in replaying a classic game from our childhooods in a whole new way?

I always thought 2D Mario Platformers were too easy and there are not many of them, so to make each game longer, I tried to speedrun Super Mario Brothers 2 (Game Boy Advance version) and I was shocked that I was able to slice 1 hour off my original try of getting through all 20 levels without dying once.

My first try was 97 minutes and my best time was 35:57.

But what I find frustrating is how people who compete online either use suspend states to smooth out every little jump, which feels like cheating, action replay devices to unlock things that are not in the main game, but they pass off without mentioning that, or find glitches in the code like jumping into a bottomless pit that somehow deposits you at the end of the level to cut 15 seconds off a level, whereas when I try the same trick, I die every time.

So I feel it would be much more enjoyable and informative to figure out what the best time is for each level in New Super Mario Brothers DS without any suspension points, action replay devices, or glitches.

The reason I picked New Super Mario Brothers DS is because the SNES/GBA 2D Mario Platformers have a stiff running style, which does not make it ideal for pixel-perfect precision. The New Super Mario Brothers Franchise has a much smoother pace and smaller steps are much easier to take without running off the cliff.

In my quest to 100% complete every available gameplay option, I also added extra challenges based on what levels present. For example, in Level 1-1, instead of having just 1 pure time trial for the main level, I have 5 time trials, 3 time trials for the 3 Star Coins, 2 time trials to collect every single coin, 3 time trials to defeat every single enemy, 2 time trials to do a perfect tile walk of the entire level, and 2 time trials to do a perfect tile walk of the entire level, collect all 3 Star Coins, collect every single regular coin, and defeat every single enemy in a single run.

In addition to the 17 challenges for each level, I build out a large sample size around every single power: Small Mario, Large Mario, Fire Mario, Shell Mario, Mini Mario, Mega Mario, and Star Mario. So each level has 119 unique challenges!!!

A few interesting conclusions so far:

A) Large Mario is just as slow as Small Mario, but because Large Mario takes up so much more space on screen, some of the more cramped jumps have WAY lower margins of error, so the degree of difficulty for the 5/7 powers that are not Small Mario or Star Mario is so much higher!

B) Despite Mario's size filling up half the screen as Mega Mario, it takes the Small Mario to Mega Mario combo 12 seconds longer to finish the level with how slow Mega Mario's running speed is.

C) If you whack the Mega Mushroom out of the ? block, but let it roll all the way to the edge of the platform, you can knock the entire flagpole over, but hilariously get punished for knocking the flagpole over by the remaining seconds timer not converting to points like they usually do.

D) If you happen to knock over all the staircase blocks but 1 column as Mega Mario, Nintendo was smart to include 3 invisible blocks to give you the necessary height to clear the staircase to finish the level. If Nintendo had not thought to include that, it would create an automatic death scenario.

What are everyone's thoughts on my project/challenge series?

I will do a separate ultra thorough article on all 80 levels in the game!!!