[Great verification on the Switch! The Legendary Backstage Challenge! Vol.1] Now that we're in 2021, we're going to try again! Super Mario Bros." 1-1, miraculously over the pole!

Nintendo Switch Online, a paid service for Nintendo Switch, is currently offering "Family Computer Nintendo Switch Online," where you can enjoy nostalgic Famicom titles to your heart's content!

Now, we are starting a new project in which we will try our best to challenge the "secret tricks" that once attracted a lot of attention during the Famicom boom!

Ura-teki" - a technique that played a role in driving the NES boom. According to a former Hudson employee, Takahashi Meijin, the term "Ura-Gi" was first coined in the elementary school boys' bible magazine "Coro Coro Comic" (Shogakukan). At the time, a "bug" was discovered in Hudson's NES version of "Road Runner," in which the player became invincible if he remained motionless with his hands raised while climbing a ladder. However, acknowledging this as a "bug" and recalling and replacing it would cost a huge amount of money. ...... So Hudson and the CoroCoro editorial department said, "Yes, that's right! This is not a bug, but an underhanded technique! Let's call it an underhanded technique!" (There are various theories as to the origin of the word "裏技").

The "invention" of the concept of "裏技" (裏技) ushered in the "裏技" boom in the game world! After that, game magazines began to publish pages asking for backstage tricks discovered by their readers and frequently ran special features on backstage tricks. In the end, "Family Computer Magazine" (Tokuma Shoten), which called backstage tricks "Ultra Techniques" (commonly known as "Ur-techniques"), held a "Super Ultra Techniques" (later renamed "Uso-techniques") contest in which the editorial staff planted false backstage tricks and had readers guess which one was a "false Ur-technique" (commonly known as "Uso-technique"). (The name was later changed to "Uso-Techniques"). (Some children may or may not have believed it. ......).

Anyway, among children, the search for subterfuge became established as "another way to play" on the NES.

Definition of Uchiwaza

As the search for subterfuge became more and more popular, some of the subterfuges were more extreme, such as shifting the cassette or short-circuiting the peripheral terminals with metal. However, for the time being, we will treat "the ones that can be triggered by simply inserting a cassette, starting the game normally, and operating the controller.

However, the level of perfection of recent games has reached such a high level that it is difficult to find such "tricks" anymore, and it has become commonplace to play games normally. Of course, that is a wonderful thing, but in this series of articles, I would like to "dare" to introduce some nostalgic backstage tricks of the Famicom (NES) in this age of 2025.

The first title of this series of articles introducing shocking and nostalgic backstage tricks is a classic that needs no further explanation: "Super Mario Bros. The popularity of this game has not yet faded away, with time attack competitions still being hotly contested mainly overseas and tricky games being invented, but there is a surprisingly unknown secret technique. ......

How to perform the miraculous jump over the pole in 1-1

The "pole" exists at the end of each stage, and many of you have probably wished you could jump over it.　In fact, you can easily jump over the pole by using a certain method!

Let me explain how to do it.

For your information, this verification will be done with the version currently available on Nintendo Switch Online, Nintendo's paid service for the Nintendo Switch (of course, the NES cassette version is also possible).

First of all, we proceeded to the end of 1-1 normally and jumped to the maximum! ...... But of course, getting 5000 points will clear the game normally. Normally, no matter how close you get to the end B-dash shump, you will not be able to jump over it. But ...... is a good place to start.

This position at 1-1. When you get to this position just after the pit, make a gap in the left corner just enough for Mario to "fall through" and then wait for the sawtooth to walk over.

If Mario avoids it, the mushroom will fall into the pit, so Mario jumps so that he too will fall in time with the mushroom!　Mario will return to the ground by the reaction of stepping on the mushroom (keep the right key pressed).

The timing is quite critical, but since the Switch allows "save anywhere", you can try again and again as long as you save at the position shown in the photo above. And if you succeed, ......, you get the idea (ghost video style). What a surprise, you step on the saw just before it falls, and it stays there.

Then the saw starts to move, but to my surprise, it starts walking on the ground. ...... But in rare cases, it will walk to the left (and immediately disappear from the screen), in which case you have to start over. If it walks to the right, you succeeded!

What does this have to do with pole climbing?　Actually, this technique is necessary to go over the pole.

Now, let's not let the sawfly disappear from the screen, but let's walk with it as if it were a pet until the latter half of the stage. It's not easy to avoid the other enemies so as not to disappear from the screen, but this is also the way to get over the pole of your dreams.

Save "anywhere" at this point. Now you are all set to go over the pole. You are very nervous, aren't you?

Wait at the top of the stairs and do the usual B-dash jump when the sawtooths in the ground come to about this position! The trick is the best timing is when the sawtooth is about to reach the mountain in the background.

Then ......?

Somehow Mario in the air steps on the mushrooms in the ground and jumps up even higher.

And Mario comes down on the right side of the pole. Yes, that is the 1-1 miracle way to cross the pole!

By the way, there is one invisible block in front of the castle, and if you go over it, you will see ......

The road is flat all the way. There are no enemies or blocks at all. ...... In other words, just wait for the time to run out.

What do you think?　Please try it yourself!　It's quite a shock.

Games can be played in so many different ways just by changing the angle a little bit, can't they? Next time, we will continue to introduce some shocking and nostalgic tricks. Please look forward to it!

I bid you adieu with the promised tricks!


(Text by sukesan)