Topic: Things you didn't know about certain video games for years

I won't say I didn't know it, but I didn't realize I'd come short of it. And that is the 96 level completion of Super Mario World to get a star by your file. I'm making 2012 a kind of Super Nintendo year to celebrate my 20th anniversary of owning it, and going back to play my first games. So, I've been playing Super Mario World from scratch and using a guide to make sure I've done everything. Discovered that you don't have 100% unless you have the *96 on your file. Somehow, my original save(s) got wiped out by accident, but I know I never had a * by it. So, the other morning, after owning it for 20 years, 2 months, I finally finished SMW 100%!

In light of this, I'm going back to investigate online lot of my old games that I finished pre-Internet, to see if there was stuff I missed the first go around. I'd highly recommend that everyone else do this with their old games too. Might wind up putting a new shine on some of your old classics, to go back and do things you didn't on your original playthrough!

Wait a minute, they weren't pies!?

Wow, I'd never heard of those Zelda secrets before, and Kamek being replaced by Donkey Kong in Mario Kart 64 is news to me. I remember hearing that Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn't a "real" Mario game back in 2002 or 2003, 14 or 15 years after I'd gotten it as a kid. Heard it from G4 back when they were still "the video game channel."

I've started playing through TLoZ: A Link to the Past again, and it reminded me of a case a few years ago where I made a discovery.

Of course, in 1992 and several years after, there was no Internet, and thus no game walkthroughs/guides. Finished LttP a few weeks after getting it in April of '92. Fast forward to December 2002. I got the GBA LttP port, and used a gamefaqs.com walkthrough. I was absolutely STUNNED to learn at the end of it that there was a level 4 sword that could be gotten at the end of the game by throwing your level 3 sword in the fountain and the fat fairy upgrading it!

So, for over 10 years I had no idea there was the level 4 gold sword, which makes the last fight so much easier! Embarrassing, but true! It must not have been a widely known thing, as I never heard of it in a game magazine or anything. Of course, I'd have found out if I threw different things in and experimented, but I didn't.

@FluttershyGuy pfffft! That's not embarrassing. You should have seen how long it took me to get the silver arrows. I fought Ganon so many times without em.

Both times I've beaten ALttP, I forgot to get the Silver Arrows.

Mario Bros. 3 World 8 there's a level where you can swim in lava. Normally you would die in lava just by touching it but if you look at the map, it's a lake shaped like a Koopa Skull. It's actually a blood pond.

This ties in with Japanese mythology about a blood pond in hell. I guess Bowser's Title in Japan, Daimao Koopa (Demon King Bowser) makes sense here.

I just realized yesterday that Bill in the Pokemon games is named after Bill Gates.

Only on the US version, the PAL version turns the number blue... and the Japanese version gives no indication.

That Wario Woods is the only NES game to receive a rating from the ESRB.

That the game Donkey Kong was originally going to be about Popeye.

I didn't know about going behind the scenery in SMB3 for years. I had no internets!

Me either! Well I had the internet, but I was too young to bother to look things up about my GBA.

@Retro & @RevolverLink
I just learned something too, as I didn't know Ganon could be beaten WITHOUT the Silver Arrows! So, all three of us did it the hard way originally. Me without level 4 sword, you two without silver arrows!

@Miss_Birdo
A blood pond? Boy, that's pretty hardcore for a Mario game! I'd never thought of that!

@CowLaunch
That's me too. Found out about dropping behind the white platforms in Nintendo Power or something. But, there's many years of games I realize I may not know everything about, because they were pre-Internetz.

Something I found out shortly after joining the Internet crowd in 1999 was that there's a sound test in Castlevania III! I liked that, because CV III's is music to my earholes.

Oh no, I mis-worded that. You can't actually beat Ganon without the Silver Arrows. I just meant that both times I beat ALttP, I forgot to get the Silver Arrows at first. After about 5-10 deaths, I had to actually to look up what the heck I was doing wrong.

Ah, I gotcha. I was thinking, fat fairy didn't know what she was talking about that those were the arrows needed to give Ganon his last breaths!

I didn't know about that until I played it on the 3DS (at first I thought it was new, until I looked it up on the intarwebs).

I also didn't know there was a blue rupee around the corner in the shop at the beginning of Ocarina of Time until I watched my GF play the game a few months ago.

Super Mario Bros. shares the same initials (SMB) with a lot more games than I thought. Even including the "Super" in the name. Super Monkey Ball and Super Meat Boy are two examples.

During my "SNES Replay" tour, I just made another discovery, this time about Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest (courtesy of GameFAQs). Benjamin can cast Cure on the final boss and take over 10,000 hit points off (rarely, 3,000 is the most you'll ever take off with an attack, with a weakness & critical hit). Yet your partner (who I'll avoid naming, as it's endgame) CURES the final boss by casting cure. PeCURElier, if you ask me!

Someone asking about the Blood Pond, it's pretty common in Japanese mythology and culture. There's also an actual pond in Japan. The Chinoike Jigoku (Bloody Pond Hell) in Beppu City. All the fire levels in Mario are named after Hell in the Japanese versions.