It's always interesting to see just how some games would function if you just... do nothing. Indeed, one of the most famous examples is the Metal Man boss in Mega Man 2. If you simply leave the controller alone upon entering the boss room, your opponent will do nothing until you make the first move; step forward just an inch and Metal Man will instantly start flinging his blades toward you.
In a similar case, as pointed out by Twitter user Supper Mario Broth, the mine section within Super Mario RPG will actually play itself if you don't press any input upon commencing the sequence, completing the whole mini-game in a total of 3 minutes and 24 seconds. So that means you can pop the controller down, stick the kettle on, make yourself a nice cup of tea, and come back just in time for the mini-game to complete itself, no bother.
Of course, you'd have to question why someone would want to complete a particular section of a game without actually playing it, and indeed how such a feat was discovered in the first place. Heck, maybe someone did go off to pop the kettle on at just the right time!
Still, it's a neat discovery regardless, and we're inching to know whether there are any other examples of it, particularly within more modern games. Could it be possible to complete a mine cart section in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze without doing anything? Somehow, we doubt it.
What do you think of this little discovery in Super Mario RPG? Is this the first you've seen of it, or have you known for some time? Let us know!
[source twitter.com]
Comments 34
It has been soooo long since I have played Mario RPG, but wasn’t there some kind of reward for beating the mine kart game in a certain amount of time?
Edit: Typo
It's because the mine cart moves forward automatically, with the challenge coming from getting enough coins to make a profit (the mini game costs a certain amount of money to play) or going for good time records by using the speed boosts properly, not just in completing the section. Pretty much any game with auto-acceleration (like Kirby Air Ride) would apply as well.
I have played that game loads but I always get to the cloud world and can never beat the boss so give up for a few years, then cant remember how to play it so start from the start again.
I thought this was common knowledge, or at the very least easy to figure out given that there is no penalty for missing a jump or a turn?
Pretty sure there wasn't anything to it outside a fun sequence after a dungeon and boss fight.
@Browny people pretend they don’t know stuff so they can try to be amazed. I find it hard to believe people didn’t know this due to how the section plays.
@Ocaz @Browny I didn't know it. And I don't think it's "easy to figure out" because most people will actually, y'know, play the game. I guess you could figure it out if you can make a map of the track in your head but I don't think most people do that unless they play the game a heck ton.
Why is it that absolutely every RPG in the late 90's had some sort of mine cart scene???
This game needs to come to NSO ASAP! It’s such a wonderful classic. I really wish Square-Enix would just sell Geno and Mallow to Nintendo, they are doing absolutely nothing with those characters
I didn't know there was a mine cart mini game, because it's still not available on NSO.
In before someone claims this is “common knowledge and everyone knows”
EDIT - haha I knew someone wouldn’t let me down.
@kurtasbestos Minecraft is very inspirational.
I didn't know this. I loved this minigame as a kid and would replay it constantly. I'm fairly good at video games, but my timing in the mine cart game has NEVER improved even 25 years later haha
@kurtasbestos not just rpgs, almost every platformer and other action games too.
I think it's just an easy way to have an underground area for more environmental variety with the touch of human influence. easier to justify bringing characters underground if other people have been there first for some reason i suppose.
@Ocaz
People pretend they don’t know stuff so they can try to be amazed?
@Franklin yes, after all that’s why people go to schools, for the serotonin from fake learning.
I won’t be having tea at yours if you boil the kettle, brew the tea AND have it ready to drink on the sofa in under 3 minutes and 24 seconds! 😀
(an alternative to "itself" (in the article on this page): on its own)
@kurtasbestos I dunno man, there were A LOT of RPGs...did you play all of them to find out? I sure didn’t. Was too stuck on the good ones!
"you'd have to question why someone would want to complete a particular section of a game without actually playing it"
You'd be surprised. It's why so many people (especially here) complain about f2p games that allow sped up progression like in Pokemon Unite.
It does confuse me when day 1 of a new season starts in Fortnite and people are level 100+. Don't understand paying an extra $50 to unlock everything instantly instead of PLAYING to earn your stuff.
@kurtasbestos I feel like mine carts are over represented in video games across the board. 🙂
@demacho Mine carts: The roller coasters of video games
"you'd have to question why someone would want to complete a particular section of a game without actually playing it"
Pay to win mechanics say hello…. They make a few fair quid for devs too
Why would you want to walk away? The minecart minigame was fun and a good way to earn some extra coins.
Also this game definitely needs to be on NSO like yesterday
This is not a discovery, i figured that out as a kid. This is just something a lot of players didn't put two-on-two together, but it was always kinda obvious that that mini-game is impossible to loose nor does it have a victory, you just simply complete it.
Did You Know? You can actually do this exact same thing with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe by turning on auto accelerator and smart steering. If you set it to 50cc you have a chance at winning 1st place by doing absolutely nothing at all. This is actually more meaningful if you do it while playing as Luigi.
Is it possible to learn this power?
It would be funny if you could win the Culex fight by doing absolutely nothing.
@MeloMan On the bright side, if you do absolutely nothing, you won't lose.
I blame Temple of Doom for all the mine carts, honestly
Monster Party on the NES had something like this. One of the boss rooms had a pair of monsters who would say "Watch my dance." The only way to beat them would be to literally just watch them for a bit, after which they would just die on their own. Damaging them in any way would just cause them to fall apart, reanimate, and restart their dance. Took some time for young me to realize violence wasn't the answer (for that boss at least).
Time to replay this on my snes mini. And this time I'm not stopping after the third town! (like always) 😂😁
This can also be done in Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex. On the level where you just ride a minecart against Crunch, just don't do anything, and you will beat Crunch and win. 😆
Of course, you need to put effort in to smash all the boxes.
@Ocaz I'm... pretty sure Minecraft didn't exist in the 90's. But maybe sometime in the future it will have gotten so big that it opens a rift through time that makes it influence games that came decades before it. That seems plausible.
@BloodNinja I'll be honest, I'm super biased. I only played RPGs on the Saturn and Dreamcast back in those days, and since there weren't a ton to choose from on those systems I played the vast majority, which all seemed to have some sort of mine cart sequence. A lot of the times it made sense story-wise, but sometimes it felt completely arbitrary to the point that it became sort of an inside joke in my nerdy friend circle.
@kurtasbestos it did it was called stooplers big gig.
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