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The four Mario games (including 2 US and 2 JP) all include warp zones that are not apparent to someone not new or skilled in those games. Anyone who knows about them can use them, of course, but they're going to be wrecked if they aren't already skilled enough at their respective games.
Was there ever an explanation for why the warps were included? Were they for debugging purposes, for revisiting stages quickly in the absence of save files and passwords, or as a precursor to speed running?
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So . . . a guy hits his head on a levitating box of bricks. A flower pops out, which the guy then consumes, and it grants him the ability to spit fireballs at mushroom monsters that possess legs, arms, mouths, and eyebrows. This requires no explanation.
Same guy goes down a pipe and reemerges somewhere else . . . and this is the part that has to be explained? They were easter eggs. They were fun little challenges for gamers to find that were not necessary for completing the game, but offered fantastic rewards (instant travel to another level) for those clever/lucky/curious enough to find them. They allowed beginning gamers a sneak peak at levels they may not otherwise have been able to reach. |
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For SMB1, I akways thought it was a precursor to a stage select feature. Especially given that the two in the game are so close to each other (world 1 reaches all the way to world 4... which is conveniently where the 2nd set of warpswere located).
In subsequent games I feel they were more Easter Egg extras. SMB2 practically has a warp in every world, SMB2LL even tracks your warp usage, and SMB3 posits two whistles at the start of the game to bypass everything. SMW's Star Road was a hidden hub with its own secrets.
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Besides just being a cool secret for people to learn I felt it went a long way to making the series accessible to the world. Given how long the original SMB is, I am glad they included warp zones, as playing thru all 32 lvls takes quite a bit of time. Now needing play for hours just get back to the part you horribly died at the last time(some of the later worlds had some tricky parts that were really easily to screw up. ), and I imagine the % of people who have beaten this game would be much lower than it is. I mean how many people have gone from start to finish on this game in one sitting? I've personally only done it may 2 or 3 times, and I am usually all for taking the long haul in games as I have beaten SMB 3 from start to end dozens of times of the years. Being able to take a tour of different parts of the game was always made them manageable and added to the games replay value.
This was especially true of SMB 3, as my brother and I would warp to different worlds and explore them fully and learn be all the stages, then call it a day when we first got the game. Eventually we'd master the entire game and be able to clear it from start to finish. I like basically having the ability to focus on whatever part of the game I needed to till I could get what I struggled at down instead of having run the whole gauntlet over and over to get back to that one part I had issues with again. (Plenty of old school games worked that way. I can't say made them more fun just grueling typically.) With no password or save feature this was another way of giving players options of progressing thru the game on their own terms. I view having warp zones same way having a movie with scene selection. Sometimes you might feel like watching the entire thing, sometimes you only feel like reexperiencing a part of it or only have time to play for. There's nothing wrong with either choice. I don't feel like people who grinded thru every inch of a game are only ones worthy of completing it or advancing beyond the opening stages. Given how many people probably never saw beyond the 3rd lvl of battletoads and missed out of alot of cool stuff to an awesome game. I basically did same I did to Mario 3, and kept using game genie warp around the game to I learned my way thru it all.
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It could be a cool way for the devs to debug and test, but they probably had another way to go about doing that.
And if so, where does world -1 (minus 1) come in?
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To skip levels.
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Lastjustice posted...
Besides just being a cool secret for people to learn I felt it went a long way to making the series accessible to the world. Given how long the original SMB is, I am glad they included warp zones, as playing thru all 32 lvls takes quite a bit of time. define long because even if i dont use warps and just use the 1 up trick in 3-1, i can speed run it in about 35 minutes. would be quicker but 8-3 always did give me attitude even as a kid but less now. yet it still does
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wilysaur posted...
A flower pops out, which the guy then consumes Does Mario eat the Fire Flowers? In most other games he simply holds it(SSB, et al) but in the main series it's ambiguous as to what he actually does with it
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When I first found a warp zone, I had no idea what it was. In fact, at that time, I hadn't played enough SMB to know you could duck down into pipes. I just stood there until the timer ran out! Of course, I figured out the "secret pipes" soon thereafter and began to figure out the warp system.
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ZoqFotPik posted...
For SMB1, I akways thought it was a precursor to a stage select feature. Especially given that the two in the game are so close to each other (world 1 reaches all the way to world 4... which is conveniently where the 2nd set of warpswere located). I would disagree with that because actually does have a stage select. |
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wilysaur posted...
So . . . a guy hits his head on a levitating box of bricks. A flower pops out, which the guy then consumes, and it grants him the ability to spit fireballs at mushroom monsters that possess legs, arms, mouths, and eyebrows. This requires no explanation. This made me laugh. :-D
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looked posted...
ZoqFotPik posted...For SMB1, I akways thought it was a precursor to a stage select feature. Especially given that the two in the game are so close to each other (world 1 reaches all the way to world 4... which is conveniently where the 2nd set of warpswere located). SMB1 does, but it's hidden behind a code (even if it's few in inputs) that's not disclosed to the player in-game. It's no more obvious than the secret warp zones that are the subject here. Probably less obvious.
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MannyCav posted...
looked posted...ZoqFotPik posted...For SMB1, I akways thought it was a precursor to a stage select feature. Especially given that the two in the game are so close to each other (world 1 reaches all the way to world 4... which is conveniently where the 2nd set of warpswere located). Wait. Really? I didn't know of this! I only know of the continue code and the 2nd quest level select... but that requires beating the game 1st and you can only select the 2nd quest stages (where goombas are replaced with beetles, etc.)
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ZoqFotPik posted...
MannyCav posted...looked posted...ZoqFotPik posted...For SMB1, I akways thought it was a precursor to a stage select feature. Especially given that the two in the game are so close to each other (world 1 reaches all the way to world 4... which is conveniently where the 2nd set of warpswere located). ...I'm starting to think we're chasing the same rabbit and calling it different things (hair and of lagomorph), to apply an analogy. I'm afraid I don't have any hidden SMB lore to impart (though I'd like to hear about some if someone else has it!).
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Black_Crusher posted...
It could be a cool way for the devs to debug and test, but they probably had another way to go about doing that. The minus world is a glitch. If you look at all three warpzones, you see that all requires you to move all to the right of the screen before you can enter the pipes, so the data where those pipes goes loads when you have passed a specific distance from them. To enter the minus world, you never pass that specific distance, so the correct data is never loaded, so the pointer points to the wrong data which generates the levels incorrectly.
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The Japanese version also got more Minus Worlds that you can play.
And Famicom users can manipulate the data even more. If you play SMB for a while and swapped out the cartridge to Tennis and played for a while, you would manipulate some data in the VRAM, and then swapped back to the SMB cartridge ,then it would read the VRAM changes and suddenly you got more Minus Worlds. You could also write a program in Famicom Basic that would change some random data which were still in the VRAM when you swapped cartridge, for even more Minus Worlds. Basically you point the loader to the wrong data, so it is like trying to load a BMP file as a Wave file. You can get it to work, but it will sound terrible.
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MannyCav posted...
...I'm starting to think we're chasing the same rabbit and calling it different things (hair and of lagomorph), to apply an analogy. I'm afraid I don't have any hidden SMB lore to impart (though I'd like to hear about some if someone else has it!). Aw. Having a level-select code at the start of the game would make me question why in-game warps would be a thing. (Compare to save Adventure Island II's having 1-world warps used to skip over the rest of the world as you're collecting items versus a stage-select code to start in your preferred island and amass your arsenal from there.)
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Foppe posted...
Black_Crusher posted...It could be a cool way for the devs to debug and test, but they probably had another way to go about doing that. Awesome, this makes perfect sense thanks!
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Foppe posted...
The Japanese version also got more Minus Worlds that you can play. I'm certainly no expert, but doesn't VRAM wipe whe you power off the machine? Unless you mean they were swapping carts while keeping it on.
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You swap them with the power still on.
Kinda like Rares Stop n Swop in Banjo Kazooie.
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Black_Crusher posted...
I'm certainly no expert, but doesn't VRAM wipe whe you power off the machine? Unless you mean they were swapping carts while keeping it on. They might mean the latter, but VRAM doesn't immediately wipe; older devices were made with extra capacitors (tiny internal batteries) which store enough energy as you power-off the machine to retain VRAM data for a few extra seconds. The various GameBoy models are a good example of this. When the devices shrunk, Nintendo made the internal designs more efficient. Powering off the Pocket GB immediately wipes the RAM -- most turn-based JRPG's have a set encounter table after initial power-on; a quick on-off on the Pocket GB will reset it, but a quick on-off with the Classic GB will not.
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Regarding SM3's warp whistles, I thought it was interesting how 2 of the 3 were could probably be easily found on accident just by poking around a little. The first one, however (1-3 I think??) requires a very obtuse move to fall behind the screen that wouldn't normally be discovered by simple exploring.
It would be like in Zelda if one of the hidden heart containers suddenly appeared after walking around a certain tree 3 times, then throwing a boomerang at it, and then dropping a bomb to blow the tree up. |
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kelemvor posted...
The first one, however (1-3 I think??) requires a very obtuse move to fall behind the screen that wouldn't normally be discovered by simple exploring. THAT one is indeed a head-scratcher. Nothing in-game (correct me if I'm wrong), even though the intro hints at being able to drop into the background, tells you that kneeling on a white-block platform is what does that.
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ZoqFotPik posted...
kelemvor posted...The first one, however (1-3 I think??) requires a very obtuse move to fall behind the screen that wouldn't normally be discovered by simple exploring. That sounds like a way to sell more Nintendo Power subscriptions to me!
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SS4kronos33 posted...
define long because even if i dont use warps and just use the 1 up trick in 3-1, i can speed run it in about 35 minutes. would be quicker but 8-3 always did give me attitude even as a kid but less now. yet it still does I don't speed run games. It seemed like it took alot longer than 35 mins to go from beginning to end. Granted I played with my siblings alot of the time and so if one of us died then we'd be waiting for a bit to switch playing. (I prefer the method of play in Super Mario All Stars switching every time between stages instead of wishing for the other player to die so you can play.) I never got an exact time line to how long the game really took due to that. Sometimes I would be completely lost and forget what i was actually doing as it might be a bit before my brother died as you loss momentum and having reestablish yourself from a cold start. Playing thru the fewest stages I used to be able clear it probably the 15 ish min range. I played those stages enough times I generally could beat those without too much grief, including 8-3. Again I am not speed running, so taking my time and steadily murdering the hammer brothers to make sure I don't lose my fireflower probably makes a difference. The stages of worlds like 6 and 7 I rarely went thru so I likely would die a far amount if I tried replaying the game after all these years. I tend to have very good muscle memory of games I played alot, but areas I skipped often (like the fire zone in battletoads.) I tend to struggle on. I am sure if I devoted time to replaying it I probably could do the entire thing with few deaths, but I don't like SMB 1 remotely as much as say SMB 3.
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Because there were no saves.
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Black_Crusher posted...
ZoqFotPik posted...kelemvor posted...The first one, however (1-3 I think??) requires a very obtuse move to fall behind the screen that wouldn't normally be discovered by simple exploring. ^^That^^ And It was a double-dipping incentive by Nintendo and Universal Studios to promote Super Mario Bros. 3 in the 1989 cult classic The Wizard, where a brother saves his NES-prodigy younger brother from a mental ward to compete in a mega tournament in California... The movie was fair, nothing real special, BUT it did show those who attended the screening, the way to get the secret whistle in 1-5. It brought in Box Office revenue for those itching to see previews of the much anticipated game (think YouTube, IGN, etc. before Internet was a thing...) AND garnered a lot of sales from the hype given from the movie. Too bad the movie itself didn't have much of a story to make it stellar, because it could have gone down in history as one of the most successful video-game marketing through the silver screen experiences. Instead, it's a neat little movie NES enthusiasts should watch, even if for kicks... As an aside, I did have the Nintendo Power issue of Super Mario Bros. 3 for the sole purpose of seeing all the game had to offer... Then later got my hands on the Prima Guide to Super Mario Bros 3. The guide was great because it provided great details and background of SMB3, while (especially at the end) provided just enough info to get you where you need to go without revealing every map and room, and kept the surprises in tact.
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What was the reasoning behind anything in that game? XD
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Mover_of_Zigs posted...
What was the reasoning behind anything in that game? XD He is 8-bit Stalin that takes the power from the Mushroom Kingdom family by taking over their castles, replacing their flags with communistic stars and killing the royal bodyguards. ...the Princess thanks him? Rewritten history propaganda to make him look like the good guy.
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Mario was the Princess all along...
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