For misconception number 6, the problem starts even before world 4. There's another spade game near the start of the map on world 3 that requires a hammer.
That same guide also said hitting the card block at a 45 degree angle is what gives you the star at the end. I mean, I guess they weren't wrong, technically, but now we know it's a loading issue with running full speed :D
Regarding No. 6, it IS possible to play through the game by clearing all Spade Panels and Toad Houses in the SNES version of the game. It would just require the player to visit Worlds 2 and 3 quickly first to get a couple extra hammers, before then returning back to World 1 on the file select to play through the game proper, since Super Mario All-Stars lets you keep all your inventory items, and lets you re-visit worlds you've already passed on a save file. I remember doing that to play through SMB3 with the Hammer, Tanooki, and Frog Suits through the entire game.
Hammer Brothers also respawn after you run out of lives, so if you continue a world after death, you can get another hammer. So it would require intentionally dying at key times to farm hammers.
@@IMarvinTPA I don't think Hammer Bros. on the map actually respawn if you Game Over and continue. The only things that reset are your score and the normal levels of that world that you've cleared. But, special levels that activate automatically when you touch them (such as Hammer Bros., the Piranha Plant levels in world 7, and Bowser's tank, battleship, and airship levels in world 8) will remain beaten.
I’ve had so many of these questions, but never asked because you’re literally _the_ SMB3 professional, you must know what you’re doing. Only watched the first part and the wand so far. I’m excited to watch the rest of it. Thanks, Mitch
My favorite SMB3 misconception comes from the bowser fight - the 'Pause Forever' glitch. Some resources, back in the day, claimed that, if you didn't enter the door in time after finishing off Bowser, that his 'final trap' would spring, and pause your game with the Start button disabled so you could not unpause, thus preventing you from rescuing the Princess and forcing you to start all over by hitting reset. Many years later, doing some research on the topic revealed that this is Not A Thing... unless you happen to be using a Game Genie with one of a certain set of commonly used codes! Any official source reporting this glitch/feature was, in essence, outing themselves as having used Game Genie to beat the game for their article/review!
I actually learned about this very recently from another of Mitch's videos and it blew my mind. I've always been told and read that the "pause forever" thing was a myth but I also have a very clear memory of it actually happening to me and a friend when we played. For literally decades I figured it must be a fake memory until I learned about the game genie thing because I also remember that I loved playing with the "start and stay as hammer bros" cheat and suddenly it all makes sense.
That particular side effect of the Game Genie code was even mentioned in at least later versions of the code manual. (It may not have been in the very first one, but it was in the one my family had.) I believe it was the infinite lives code and it very explicitly stated that you had to stand on the door and hold up or you would be "trapped in Bowser's time warp forever" and have to restart the game with the reset button.
@@jondorthebrinkinator It was not the infinite lives code, and instead it was indeed for the codes that have you start and stay as a particular power up state.
@@SomeGuy712x Ya, i remember it happening to me, being super confused, and then reading about it in the book that it happens when you use the 'start and stay as' codes. Which then lead to all of us holding up at that door.
@@SomeGuy712x Pretty sure it was start and stay as Hammer Mario. I used that code back in the day, and was crestfallen when I couldn't use it to beat the game (I sucked at Mario 3 as a kid, and the hammer suit isn't exactly the easiest power up to keep). I also found a code that was permanent small Mario, but effectively always in tanooki statue mode which was also unwinnable, although that was because the game always considered down being held and wouldn't let you use doors.
Yeah, I like doing worlds 5 and 6 out of order this way. But, you can't backwards warp to world 4. I think you can game over on world 2 or 3 and respawn the Hammer Bros. there, getting an extra hammer?
I knew about #8 because the Game Genie codebook noted it as a requirement to not softlock with "start and stay as" cheats enabled, known as "Bowser's Time Trap"
One I've wondered, is that first mushroom block in 1-1, what would it be if you were already tall mario? Turns out I tested, it's a leaf. You're welcome :)
One exception to #8 is that you can hold up to go through any temporary door that appears by jumping on a p-switch. It's easy to accidentally do this on the wrong door towards the end of 8-F
Another misconception would be that some people believe that the N card game is random when in reality it picks 1 out of 8 predifined configurations Great video mitch :)
The mushroom going opposite of the side you hit the block is something I've known since the early days. It was probably in a Nintendo Power or something.
i think the reason you cant hold up to enter doors is because you'd keep reentering and be stuck in a loop. a lot of doors have another on the other end.
You can do this in the All-Stars version via New Game+ so you can get all the mushroom houses. But not in the NES version due to a lack of a save feature.
Playing Yoshis Island actually made the mushroom block movement direction very intuitive to me. Like yer knocking it out from the corners. It made more sense with the visual feedback from the egg blocks in Island.
Regarding #10 Double Noteblock jump, the difference is from where you launch. The height you get is constant and the same if you jump on 1 or both noteblocks. Jumping on 1 block, presses the noteblock about half a block (the exact height Mario is lacking). If you jump on 2, 1 of the noteblocks will be pressed later than the other. So when the first jump is triggered, Mario is at a higher Y position (which is the exact height required). This is how it works in many 2D Mario games.
~3:07 I don't know if I'd call it strange. I've always figured it was to give the player more control over where a power-up goes - you don't want it to go straight into danger, or worse, a pit. That said... I honestly thought this was true of all Mario games? I wonder which ones it's different in...!
I already knew about the whole thing with the last door just being something you can hold up on. You see, if you used certain Game Genie codes, you *had* to hold *up* at the door before it opened to see the ending. Otherwise, it gets stuck in a pause screen that you can't get out of.
For whatever reason, the cartridge I played was permanently stuck in some sort of debug mode that allowed me to pick whatever item I want in the item menu whenever I was on the map. So yes, I did get all mushroom houses back then =V
The note blocks don't both bounce at exactly the same time! So by the time the second one boosts your vertical speed your feet are higher than the bottom of the first note's travel - by quick visual inspection that's the same vertical gap that you'd miss the jump by when only hitting one block.
I wonder if you would fail the jump if you let go of A before the second bounce finishes. Wouldn't you get the full bounce from the first block, but not from the second, and it would gimp your jump? Would be a pretty strict window, though. We're talking a few frames.
@@AutisticGameGuy You don't get the second noteblock jump, just the fist one. When the first noteblock's jump triggers, Mario is at higher Y position because he's at the second noteblock's height. The second noteblock jump doesn't actually trigger.
I actually knew the hold Up to enter the door after Bowser was a thing because of using a Game Genie when it first released. The GG manual when using an infinite powerup code (any of the Start and Keep X powerup codes) said to do it to avoid a pause glitch. If you entered the door by going up to it and tapping up instead of standing on it holding up, the game would pause and you could not unpause, forcing a reset. Very interesting that the Game Genie developers knew about this door that early.
That last tip about the music notes (stage 6-3) makes me wonder: do music notes actually lead to more missed inputs when trying to jump on them? I felt like they were more likely to lead to inputs getting dropped and producing weak jumps, but I don't know if that's actually an illusion.
I think it's so weird that people don't know the direction the mushroom goes in is based on which side you bop the block from. Also, yeah, the strat guides from back in the day had the coin counts necessary to get the White Mushroom House. I guess everything sort of becomes lost knowledge in time.
As Mitch said a lot of the Mario games have different rules on which direction the mushroom will go. So for someone who doesn't play a lot of SMB3 you might be looking for so many different consistencies for the mushroom that you miss this one.
@@airjodran im a lil thrown off by mitch’s comment bc mushroom behavior in every mario game works the same except for Mario 3 (and i guess Mario 2 USA if you wanna count that).
I wish you mentioned that coinship about how certain people do get confused with, I also wish you explained why there will be never any spade card game appearing in dark land because of the some how different rules aplied to it.
Well, the Power up going away from the corner it was hit makes sense, and it should have been kept for all new Mario Games. Two note blocks bouncing you higher also makes sense, it's not random, and by the height of that wall, probably intended.
It made sense to me too at first, but I'm not sure it actually does the more I think about it? Like, if you jumped onto two identical trampolines, one for each leg, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't bounce higher than if you only jumped onto one of them with both legs?
@@Idran Well, in a that sense, since your weight is distributed on both, then the force which each trampoline exerts on would be the same as if you had stepped on one, in the case of noteblocks, they each get depressed the same amount when you land on them, so even though they might seem like springs, it is a different mechanism that is actually pushing Mario up, so in that case both noteblocks would exert each a force upon trying to return to their original state. A bit convoluted but I think that's how it would work. Still It's not as simple as I'd originally imagined.
About #10, wow, when I was a kid playing the 30 years ago, I noticed sometime I could get over that wall and sometimes I couldn't, but I had no idea it was based on bouncing off either one or two notes blocks.
If I remember correctly, the "holding up at the last door" thing was from the Game Genie code book, which had a warning that you need to do that to avoid a freeze when using some of the codes.
Amazing. Over 25 years I've been playing this game I'm still learning new things... thanks Mitch. My love for smb3 specifically had always held its core value. And just to know I still don't know everything about it just goes to show that this game was really more than just a "game". This is my childhood and no matter how old we get, this game will always make me remember those days.
In Super Mario Advance 3, the GameBoy edition of this game, you can go back to all the worlds and get the spade cards and mushroom houses that you weren't able to get, since the hammer bros reappear once you beat every level. But yeah, in a regular playthrough, you cannot get all of them.
If blocks in SMB3 turned out to secretly always have a perfectly even number of sub-pixels, how would one successfully hit the block "straight in the middle"?
I seem to really enjoy that you can hear his controller usage through the mic. He really did these recordings as in-the-moment as he frames them to be.
Re: #7: I bet that ONE hammer bro tile in the sky section of World 5 is one of the best kept secrets in the entire game. It’s just so difficult to get the hammer bro to land up there…you either have to die a lot, or get a game over after the sky fort is cleared, or use a creative combination of clouds and the music box, all while hoping the bro wanders all the way up there. I’ve actually gotten it once, but it was in two player mode with a friend who died a lot in those Sky world levels. It’s one of very few areas in the game that has multiple powerup blocks on the same screen, and unfortunately, trying to hit a second powerup block will despawn the first one if it’s still on the screen.
Regarding the direction of the mushrooms - I remember reading in an original guide or nintendo power article about this. I think the title of the blurb was "The Physics of Falling Mushrooms" and it described the behavior. I got the game and the magazine near the time when the game first came out in North America. 33 years ago... I am old.
Oh #4 is so funny cause even as a kid, that's always how I understood it to work: It starts flipping, so if you GET THERE with P-Speed you always land on the Star. Never realized people thought "Running gives you a star" like that xD.
Speaking as a software developer, I would guess that for number three, the mushroom always moves away from the center of Mario at the instant the block is hit. Mechanically, this would be the same as what you said, and would probably be simpler to write.
Actually, a funny thing about the wand: it may normally be slower to catch the wand higher up on the screen... unless you catch it at the *very* top. If you have a p-wing, and catch the wand while only Mario's lower body is on the screen, the falling animation is shortened considerably! I don't know whether using a p-wing on an airship is ever practical, but it is the fastest way to go!
Another way you can do this is by walljumping on the right side of the wall, get up on top and then jump to grab the wand. This "Offscreen Wand Grab" is a strategy that Mitch always try to do when speedrunning. It's however quite difficult to do, one reason being that the walljump itself is frame perfect if you hit the right pixel alignments, but in some worlds you can't reach high enough up the wall without using the Koopakid to bounce off of. P-Wing is not worth using for it, as it's both better used elsewhere and you are unable to firekill the Koopakid. One strategy is to grab the leaf in 6-Airship and then fly up to the wand. As, depending on the speedrun route you are using, you won't have Fire Mario here anyway. Though that will make the wallclip in 7-1 harder when you have the leaf. Anyway, long answer :D
My misconception (which I recently put to rest once and for all, after playing the game for 30+ years) was that at the start of the airship levels, you have to jump and catch the anchor to get onto the airships. Spent thirty years always making sure to time my "jump" so Mario would catch the anchor. I swear I remember playing this as a kid and Mario just ran along below the airship if I didn't jump or mistimed my jump. Probably while getting 100% of mushroom houses...
I could be way off, but #8 might have something to do with Game Genie and the manual. I'm looking at one IRL and if you select one of the codes from the "permanent super ability" section, you are advised to hold "UP" at the door or get "caught in Bowzer's Time Trap". I just wonder if this is relevant?
Im sure loads of people already mentioned this, but #8 has a very specific reason people believe it. With game genie, using any "start and stay" codes (hammer suit, frog suit etc) requires you to be holding up at Bowser door, otherwise you will not be able to enter and soft lock.
Music Blocks ADD to the Height Variable as their animation proceeds. They don't just GIVE you a standard height variable. That is why. That's why and how you can have limp jumps.
And interestingly for me, I HAD to hold up on that door or the game would completely hardlock me by freezing. Multiple times I made it to the end, only for the game to completely freeze. But if I immediately jumped up to the door after bowser died and held up, it worked fine.
@jake3988 The game freezing almost immediately after the door appears is something that happens if you're using a Game Genie. Specifically, any of the Game Genie codes that force Mario to constantly have a certain power-up will make that glitch happen.
@@CosmicPlatonix I did somewhat regularly use game genie, but only because it for whatever reason made it easier for the game to boot up consistently. I never actually used any codes (at least for this game anyway)
It's because the Bowser door is a sprite. So the code triggers the ending on a condition of "touching the door sprite AND up is pressed". Whereas for normal doors, the code is something like "when an up keypress is read, check to see if Mario is in front of door tiles and if so, move him to the door's exit".
@bitwize Hey it seems super likely there are sprite doors in 8-fortress? Revealed by p-switch. I noticed they that can flicker out. Oh also world 4 fortress 2 has a p-switch door too.
Hammer Mario, how to equipped it Mario three step one get a hammer Paula what is that true power up now when the statue power comes out with a handle on it, we with Stone Hammer Mario
I think the end card one, #4 is easier to explain as "this thing consistently goes at the same speed AND starts on the same card" - therefore if your timing is also consistent, the outcome is always the same. It's a pedantic distinction, but it's not about speed at all: just "time between loading and hitting", technically modulo the time it takes to cycle through everything. Speed is just one convenient way to be consistent.
I think the reason people thought you had to hold up was because of an old Game Genie code, I think it was always stay as (insert power up here.) I remember in the Game Genie booklet it said hold up at the doorway after defeating Bowser or the game will be stuck paused.
When you get the mini castle whistle in world 1 can you not hold up and as you slide to the door? That would take you in automatically like the final door in bowser
Fun fact about the Bowser door: if you're using certain gamegenie codes, you need to hold up as he dies or the door breaks, according to the manual. I suspect this is the source of the continued belief in needing to hold up at the door at his defeat.
I wonder how many levels there are where the overworld level tile isn't a standard numbered tile, or castle. Like the sun level in World 2, the pyramid in World 2, the tower in World 5, The Piranha Plant level in World 7, and the levels in world 8 where the hand randomly pulls you in. I feel like there are more I'm forgetting.
...And here I've spent my whole life thinking the direction the mushroom moved was chosen at random. Mind = Blown. Though at least I never had to wonder about #5, since the GBA version's New Game+ adds a counter to each of those levels specifying how many coins you needed to grab to spawn the white Toad house.
I already knew that there was one extra coin in 1-4. Though I think all the others had only the set number of coins that you need, particularly level 6-6, or whichever one it was.
There are actually multiple extra coins in 1-4. It depends on how well you do with the two multi-coin blocks in the level. The first one is easy to get the maximum of 11 from, but the second one is so high up from where you're jumping from that you'll typically get only 7-9 coins from it. If you've gotten all other coins in the level and maxed out the first multi-coin block, you need to get at least 7 from the second multi-coin block to hit the 44-coin quota for the white mushroom house.
Regarding hold "up" at Bowser's door, if you were using a Game Genie and had used one of the codes that had the effect "Start and stay [Powered-Up State]" the game would freeze at this point if you did *not* do this, the Game Genie manual cautioned against this fate by advising you to do this, and I suspect many of us first were able to get to Bowser by using a Game Genie with one of these codes enabled and so incorporated this movement into the course of our normal play, where it remained after we learned to reach Bowser without such powerful assistance.
For misconception 1, if you can jump high enough to catch the flute off-screen, there's never a falling Mario sprite, but I don't know if that makes it any faster or not
1. 0:27 Wand grab 2. 1:11 Early hammer 3. 2:19 Mushroom's direction 4. 3:08 End level Star card 5. 4:23 White mushroom house 6. 5:52 100% mushroom houses 7. 7:08 Random hammer brother power ups 8. 8:54 Bowser's door 9. 9:58 Hammer brother chest timer 10. 11:14 Music notes high jump
#8, I always hold Up at the last door because the Game Genie code for Start And Stay As Fire Mario required it, according to the Game Genie manual. At least here for the UK PAL version.
When you die on the final airship on a stage does it matter where it goes to? Are there any techniques to having it in a specific spot? Obviously not for speed runs but just curious if anyone had tested all the locations if there is anything secret
In #10, I would want to look at the stored jump value the game sets when you use a music note block. It could be that the jump value is not capped meaning a higher jump value if you use both music note blocks together.
My theory is that since the blocks don't trigger at the same time, the slight delay with the second block is effectively like hitting a slightly higher Note Block. Jumping on a Note Block probably sets Mario's vertical momentum to a specific value, and it would be set to that value again while Mario is in the air.
#4 Just confirmed what I always thought was the case when it came to grabbing cards. I have a hard time believing that people would think they’d automatically get a star card *just because* they were running full speed. Seems more like misunderstanding what they were trying to say or splitting hairs if anything.
the 10 misconceptions in a nutshell: 1. is it faster to catch the wand at the top? *no* 2. is it faster to kill the world 2 hammer bros early? *no* 3. how do mushrooms move out of blocks? *away from the side where you hit the block* 4. p-speed means you always get a star from the roulette. *correlation, not causation* 5. do you need all the coins in a stage for the white mushroom house? *no, but you can go over the quota* 6. can you play every stage in the game? *this one felt like the swatbot hammering in a no fun sign* 7. when do hammer bros drop items? *if they're on the right map tile* 8. do you need to press up to enter peach's chamber? *holding up is enough* 9. why get a flower from the w-1 hammer bros? *the powerup sequence doesn't interrupt the battle's tail end* 10. how do you bounce quickly off note blocks? *hit two at once*
You should've mentioned in super mario advance 4 smb3 they have a special block that shows the specific number of coins needed to spawn the white mushroom house
i knew about holding up for the doorway after bowser but only cuz of game genie codes LOL one of them said to hold up on the door to not crash or something like that
if you use a P-wing and catch the wand with Mario's head off-screen (wand not visible) the time it takes for Mario to fall back to the castle is much shorter
The thing in which you hit the block in one side for the mushroom to go the other way is also how it works in other Mario games? How simple. I'm really dumb and spent my entire life thinking it was a RNG or something. Lol.
so, ive gotta know. and its been a question that maybe you can answer? if you grab (for example a mushroom) alternating running and walking at the end of level pickup card starting at the black border, you will get the same card? love the smb3 videos! big fan of not only your speed runs, but your awesome content!
Before now I was positive that the power-ups in the Hammer Bro fights had something to do with whether you killed the Hammer Bro or not, I don't know where that idea came from. Also, I think the fact about the Bowser door could be related to a common SMB3 Game Genie code, I forget which one, but it says to hold up on that Bowser door or the game will crash.
I only find people citing this rule (about which side you hit the block on) in Super Mario Bros 3. I don't see any talk about Super Mario World or later games, other than a dubious claim that the red mushroom always moves towards you--but which obviously isn't true in SMB3.
I remember, for #4, in the official Nintendo Power mag that was a complete guide to SMB3, it specifically said that if you hit the block at a 45 degree angle, it will always give you a star. It's interesting now because that's obviously not what gives you the star :D
the guide said "running full speed" and they used the 45 degree angle to make you jump early rather than late, which can trigger a different item. As long as you hit the block early enough at full speed (from before the line) you get the star.
@@Pianist203 For what I'm asking, that would depend on whether Mario's sprite is considered to have an even width or an odd width. If his width is even, it could completely align with an even-width block.
@@ZipplyZane You're right, but actually I think sprite size isn't determining, but its hitbox size is. Maybe there's some determining rule even if hitboxes align perfectly, but I don't know.
@@Pianist203 Maybe it's just a matter of how it's checked. Maybe if the left is checked first it will always go right when hit in the middle. I'm thinking this because I can't imagine that Mario's hitbox is 1 pixel wide at any point, let alone at the top. Someone would've noticed that 1 pixel that was higher than all the other pixels in the hitbox :p So, multiple points of the hitbox must be hitting the block at the same time, so it must be possible to hit both sides at the same time and I kind of doubt that the pixels are counted or that there's a left/right sensor about half a mario width from the center. So it's probably something super simple like how the game checks for collisions and that it's not done or maybe not even physically possible to do it everywhere at the same time. If I'm right, you could have one pixel of Mario's hitbox on the left half and all the rest on the right and the mushroom would still go to the right because that one pixel is checked before the other ones. Edit: And if I'm wrong that might still happen for other reasons, but if it doesn't happen I'm definitely wrong and it's just not that.
For misconception number 6, the problem starts even before world 4. There's another spade game near the start of the map on world 3 that requires a hammer.
I think he forgot he was talking about Mushroom Houses _and_ Spade Tiles.
#5 is kinda funny as an older guy because the old SMB3 guide straight up told you how many you needed in each White Mushroom stage
I already knew that as well. Also the card matching mini game has 8 preset patterns.
@@doopness785 yep, those were in there too haha all you had to do was start at the corners and look for stars
Bottom right corner is always a star
That same guide also said hitting the card block at a 45 degree angle is what gives you the star at the end. I mean, I guess they weren't wrong, technically, but now we know it's a loading issue with running full speed :D
The ancient lore!
Missed opportunity to call them Mitch-conceptions
Regarding No. 6, it IS possible to play through the game by clearing all Spade Panels and Toad Houses in the SNES version of the game. It would just require the player to visit Worlds 2 and 3 quickly first to get a couple extra hammers, before then returning back to World 1 on the file select to play through the game proper, since Super Mario All-Stars lets you keep all your inventory items, and lets you re-visit worlds you've already passed on a save file. I remember doing that to play through SMB3 with the Hammer, Tanooki, and Frog Suits through the entire game.
Hammer Brothers also respawn after you run out of lives, so if you continue a world after death, you can get another hammer. So it would require intentionally dying at key times to farm hammers.
@@IMarvinTPA nes or snes?
@@TurretBot NES, But it is an old memory, so I could be remembering incorrectly.
@@IMarvinTPA
I don't think Hammer Bros. on the map actually respawn if you Game Over and continue. The only things that reset are your score and the normal levels of that world that you've cleared. But, special levels that activate automatically when you touch them (such as Hammer Bros., the Piranha Plant levels in world 7, and Bowser's tank, battleship, and airship levels in world 8) will remain beaten.
I’ve had so many of these questions, but never asked because you’re literally _the_ SMB3 professional, you must know what you’re doing. Only watched the first part and the wand so far. I’m excited to watch the rest of it. Thanks, Mitch
My favorite SMB3 misconception comes from the bowser fight - the 'Pause Forever' glitch. Some resources, back in the day, claimed that, if you didn't enter the door in time after finishing off Bowser, that his 'final trap' would spring, and pause your game with the Start button disabled so you could not unpause, thus preventing you from rescuing the Princess and forcing you to start all over by hitting reset.
Many years later, doing some research on the topic revealed that this is Not A Thing... unless you happen to be using a Game Genie with one of a certain set of commonly used codes! Any official source reporting this glitch/feature was, in essence, outing themselves as having used Game Genie to beat the game for their article/review!
I actually learned about this very recently from another of Mitch's videos and it blew my mind. I've always been told and read that the "pause forever" thing was a myth but I also have a very clear memory of it actually happening to me and a friend when we played. For literally decades I figured it must be a fake memory until I learned about the game genie thing because I also remember that I loved playing with the "start and stay as hammer bros" cheat and suddenly it all makes sense.
That particular side effect of the Game Genie code was even mentioned in at least later versions of the code manual. (It may not have been in the very first one, but it was in the one my family had.)
I believe it was the infinite lives code and it very explicitly stated that you had to stand on the door and hold up or you would be "trapped in Bowser's time warp forever" and have to restart the game with the reset button.
@@jondorthebrinkinator
It was not the infinite lives code, and instead it was indeed for the codes that have you start and stay as a particular power up state.
@@SomeGuy712x Ya, i remember it happening to me, being super confused, and then reading about it in the book that it happens when you use the 'start and stay as' codes. Which then lead to all of us holding up at that door.
@@SomeGuy712x Pretty sure it was start and stay as Hammer Mario. I used that code back in the day, and was crestfallen when I couldn't use it to beat the game (I sucked at Mario 3 as a kid, and the hammer suit isn't exactly the easiest power up to keep). I also found a code that was permanent small Mario, but effectively always in tanooki statue mode which was also unwinnable, although that was because the game always considered down being held and wouldn't let you use doors.
Misconception #11 (6:57): "There's no way to backwards warp". Actually there is - using a whistle on world 6 gives you the option of going to world 5.
Yeah, I like doing worlds 5 and 6 out of order this way. But, you can't backwards warp to world 4.
I think you can game over on world 2 or 3 and respawn the Hammer Bros. there, getting an extra hammer?
@@hitstun Even if you game over, the Hammer Bros do not respawn.
I knew about #8 because the Game Genie codebook noted it as a requirement to not softlock with "start and stay as" cheats enabled, known as "Bowser's Time Trap"
2:20, omg thank you. It always irked and confused me as to why the mushrooms went to the left sometimes, and up until now, I never knew.
One I've wondered, is that first mushroom block in 1-1, what would it be if you were already tall mario? Turns out I tested, it's a leaf. You're welcome :)
Yeah fire flowers don't show up till the first fortress
Tall mario = super mario
@@tntgaming828nah
One exception to #8 is that you can hold up to go through any temporary door that appears by jumping on a p-switch. It's easy to accidentally do this on the wrong door towards the end of 8-F
I've never watched you and have very little knowledge of even just the base game of mario 3. FANTASTIC VIDEO.
Also the spade card at the first of level 3.. alot of people always forget about leaving that behind for 100% too
Another misconception would be that some people believe that the N card game is random when in reality it picks 1 out of 8 predifined configurations
Great video mitch :)
The mushroom going opposite of the side you hit the block is something I've known since the early days. It was probably in a Nintendo Power or something.
i think the reason you cant hold up to enter doors is because you'd keep reentering and be stuck in a loop.
a lot of doors have another on the other end.
8:05 Hammer Bros refusing to cooperate even when Mitch is not speedrunning.
I always wondered why I couldn't always get the items in the Hammer Bro battles... thanks for clarifying that!
You can do this in the All-Stars version via New Game+ so you can get all the mushroom houses. But not in the NES version due to a lack of a save feature.
Playing Yoshis Island actually made the mushroom block movement direction very intuitive to me. Like yer knocking it out from the corners. It made more sense with the visual feedback from the egg blocks in Island.
Yooo I love Yoshi's island. I'm on World 5 right now and I've been going for 100%.
@@CesarTorres61296 On which World are you now?
@@dolahn I completed the GBA version 100%.
Regarding #10 Double Noteblock jump, the difference is from where you launch. The height you get is constant and the same if you jump on 1 or both noteblocks. Jumping on 1 block, presses the noteblock about half a block (the exact height Mario is lacking). If you jump on 2, 1 of the noteblocks will be pressed later than the other. So when the first jump is triggered, Mario is at a higher Y position (which is the exact height required).
This is how it works in many 2D Mario games.
I think I enjoy learning about speedruns almost as much as I enjoy watching speedruns
~3:07 I don't know if I'd call it strange. I've always figured it was to give the player more control over where a power-up goes - you don't want it to go straight into danger, or worse, a pit. That said... I honestly thought this was true of all Mario games? I wonder which ones it's different in...!
I already knew #3 #5 & #8
I also had the Nintendo Power guide as a kid.
People believed they got all the mushroom houses because they didn't know about W2 secret
I already knew about the whole thing with the last door just being something you can hold up on.
You see, if you used certain Game Genie codes, you *had* to hold *up* at the door before it opened to see the ending. Otherwise, it gets stuck in a pause screen that you can't get out of.
Having to jump on two music notes to get a higher bounce actually makes perfect sense to me
More upward force, more bounce. No?
For whatever reason, the cartridge I played was permanently stuck in some sort of debug mode that allowed me to pick whatever item I want in the item menu whenever I was on the map.
So yes, I did get all mushroom houses back then =V
The note blocks don't both bounce at exactly the same time! So by the time the second one boosts your vertical speed your feet are higher than the bottom of the first note's travel - by quick visual inspection that's the same vertical gap that you'd miss the jump by when only hitting one block.
I wonder if you would fail the jump if you let go of A before the second bounce finishes. Wouldn't you get the full bounce from the first block, but not from the second, and it would gimp your jump? Would be a pretty strict window, though. We're talking a few frames.
@@AutisticGameGuy if they *set* vertical speed vs. adding to it then yes... Guess I'm gonna have to fire up the emulator and test some things.
@@AutisticGameGuy You don't get the second noteblock jump, just the fist one. When the first noteblock's jump triggers, Mario is at higher Y position because he's at the second noteblock's height. The second noteblock jump doesn't actually trigger.
I actually knew the hold Up to enter the door after Bowser was a thing because of using a Game Genie when it first released. The GG manual when using an infinite powerup code (any of the Start and Keep X powerup codes) said to do it to avoid a pause glitch. If you entered the door by going up to it and tapping up instead of standing on it holding up, the game would pause and you could not unpause, forcing a reset.
Very interesting that the Game Genie developers knew about this door that early.
Mine didn't :(
It warned about the pause glitch, but not how to avoid it.
I absolutely always thought that running full speed gave you a star at the end. Wow! Learning is cool!
Wtf. I never knew there was a white mushroom house
That last tip about the music notes (stage 6-3) makes me wonder: do music notes actually lead to more missed inputs when trying to jump on them? I felt like they were more likely to lead to inputs getting dropped and producing weak jumps, but I don't know if that's actually an illusion.
I always thought the mushroom goes the opposite direction than the side you are standing on when the mushroom fully emerges from the block
I think it's so weird that people don't know the direction the mushroom goes in is based on which side you bop the block from. Also, yeah, the strat guides from back in the day had the coin counts necessary to get the White Mushroom House. I guess everything sort of becomes lost knowledge in time.
As Mitch said a lot of the Mario games have different rules on which direction the mushroom will go. So for someone who doesn't play a lot of SMB3 you might be looking for so many different consistencies for the mushroom that you miss this one.
@@airjodran im a lil thrown off by mitch’s comment bc mushroom behavior in every mario game works the same except for Mario 3 (and i guess Mario 2 USA if you wanna count that).
As somebody who learned about the direction of the mushroom from Nintendo Power, I was also a little surprised to learn that tidbit wasn't well known.
I wish you mentioned that coinship about how certain people do get confused with,
I also wish you explained why there will be never any spade card game appearing in dark land because of the some how different rules aplied to it.
9:20 That is actually false. If there is a door that is activated by a p-switch, you can hold up to enter it. You can see this in a level like 8-F.
Was about to make a comment about it. Now I don't need to :)
Well, the Power up going away from the corner it was hit makes sense, and it should have been kept for all new Mario Games. Two note blocks bouncing you higher also makes sense, it's not random, and by the height of that wall, probably intended.
It made sense to me too at first, but I'm not sure it actually does the more I think about it? Like, if you jumped onto two identical trampolines, one for each leg, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't bounce higher than if you only jumped onto one of them with both legs?
@@Idran Well, in a that sense, since your weight is distributed on both, then the force which each trampoline exerts on would be the same as if you had stepped on one, in the case of noteblocks, they each get depressed the same amount when you land on them, so even though they might seem like springs, it is a different mechanism that is actually pushing Mario up, so in that case both noteblocks would exert each a force upon trying to return to their original state. A bit convoluted but I think that's how it would work. Still It's not as simple as I'd originally imagined.
I played 100% recently, and didn't play when i was a kid, and i didn't even know there was a white mushroom house
It's one of those very secretive things like the Coin Ships. Most people just trigger stuff like that by pure accident.
About #10, wow, when I was a kid playing the 30 years ago, I noticed sometime I could get over that wall and sometimes I couldn't, but I had no idea it was based on bouncing off either one or two notes blocks.
If I remember correctly, the "holding up at the last door" thing was from the Game Genie code book, which had a warning that you need to do that to avoid a freeze when using some of the codes.
What is these white mushroom houses with 1-4? I've only ever seen the ship
I have actually noticed that 3rd one and I found the 4th very suspicious so I guess I was right.
Amazing. Over 25 years I've been playing this game I'm still learning new things... thanks Mitch. My love for smb3 specifically had always held its core value. And just to know I still don't know everything about it just goes to show that this game was really more than just a "game". This is my childhood and no matter how old we get, this game will always make me remember those days.
In Super Mario Advance 3, the GameBoy edition of this game, you can go back to all the worlds and get the spade cards and mushroom houses that you weren't able to get, since the hammer bros reappear once you beat every level. But yeah, in a regular playthrough, you cannot get all of them.
08:56 I've never seen the world 8 map look like that, how do you get that upper pathway?
It's a modded ROM that allows him to skip the tank level to practice Bowser's Castle.
#3, what happens if you line up your sub pixels and hit it straight in the middle?
If blocks in SMB3 turned out to secretly always have a perfectly even number of sub-pixels, how would one successfully hit the block "straight in the middle"?
I spawned a White Mushroom House and a card game on top of each other simultaneously. That bucket list item you didn't know ✔🍄
I've had that happen once. Pretty wild.
I seem to really enjoy that you can hear his controller usage through the mic. He really did these recordings as in-the-moment as he frames them to be.
Re: #7: I bet that ONE hammer bro tile in the sky section of World 5 is one of the best kept secrets in the entire game. It’s just so difficult to get the hammer bro to land up there…you either have to die a lot, or get a game over after the sky fort is cleared, or use a creative combination of clouds and the music box, all while hoping the bro wanders all the way up there.
I’ve actually gotten it once, but it was in two player mode with a friend who died a lot in those Sky world levels. It’s one of very few areas in the game that has multiple powerup blocks on the same screen, and unfortunately, trying to hit a second powerup block will despawn the first one if it’s still on the screen.
Regarding the direction of the mushrooms - I remember reading in an original guide or nintendo power article about this. I think the title of the blurb was "The Physics of Falling Mushrooms" and it described the behavior. I got the game and the magazine near the time when the game first came out in North America. 33 years ago... I am old.
Oh #4 is so funny cause even as a kid, that's always how I understood it to work: It starts flipping, so if you GET THERE with P-Speed you always land on the Star.
Never realized people thought "Running gives you a star" like that xD.
Speaking as a software developer, I would guess that for number three, the mushroom always moves away from the center of Mario at the instant the block is hit. Mechanically, this would be the same as what you said, and would probably be simpler to write.
Actually, a funny thing about the wand: it may normally be slower to catch the wand higher up on the screen... unless you catch it at the *very* top. If you have a p-wing, and catch the wand while only Mario's lower body is on the screen, the falling animation is shortened considerably! I don't know whether using a p-wing on an airship is ever practical, but it is the fastest way to go!
Another way you can do this is by walljumping on the right side of the wall, get up on top and then jump to grab the wand. This "Offscreen Wand Grab" is a strategy that Mitch always try to do when speedrunning. It's however quite difficult to do, one reason being that the walljump itself is frame perfect if you hit the right pixel alignments, but in some worlds you can't reach high enough up the wall without using the Koopakid to bounce off of.
P-Wing is not worth using for it, as it's both better used elsewhere and you are unable to firekill the Koopakid. One strategy is to grab the leaf in 6-Airship and then fly up to the wand. As, depending on the speedrun route you are using, you won't have Fire Mario here anyway. Though that will make the wallclip in 7-1 harder when you have the leaf.
Anyway, long answer :D
My misconception (which I recently put to rest once and for all, after playing the game for 30+ years) was that at the start of the airship levels, you have to jump and catch the anchor to get onto the airships. Spent thirty years always making sure to time my "jump" so Mario would catch the anchor. I swear I remember playing this as a kid and Mario just ran along below the airship if I didn't jump or mistimed my jump. Probably while getting 100% of mushroom houses...
I could be way off, but #8 might have something to do with Game Genie and the manual. I'm looking at one IRL and if you select one of the codes from the "permanent super ability" section, you are advised to hold "UP" at the door or get "caught in Bowzer's Time Trap". I just wonder if this is relevant?
I guarantee you that’s it. I remembered something about a time trap but couldn’t remember the source but after reading your comment that had to be it.
Im sure loads of people already mentioned this, but #8 has a very specific reason people believe it. With game genie, using any "start and stay" codes (hammer suit, frog suit etc) requires you to be holding up at Bowser door, otherwise you will not be able to enter and soft lock.
You would know this if you weren't already able to keep hammer suit for an entire run and had to cheat like the rest of us.
Great video! There's also a spade card game early in world 3 that you can't access if you take the boat ride.
Music Blocks ADD to the Height Variable as their animation proceeds. They don't just GIVE you a standard height variable. That is why. That's why and how you can have limp jumps.
Is #8 due to the door spawning on top of you? I believe that's the only door in the game that you can get to appear on top of you.
And interestingly for me, I HAD to hold up on that door or the game would completely hardlock me by freezing. Multiple times I made it to the end, only for the game to completely freeze. But if I immediately jumped up to the door after bowser died and held up, it worked fine.
@jake3988 The game freezing almost immediately after the door appears is something that happens if you're using a Game Genie. Specifically, any of the Game Genie codes that force Mario to constantly have a certain power-up will make that glitch happen.
@@CosmicPlatonix I did somewhat regularly use game genie, but only because it for whatever reason made it easier for the game to boot up consistently. I never actually used any codes (at least for this game anyway)
It's because the Bowser door is a sprite. So the code triggers the ending on a condition of "touching the door sprite AND up is pressed". Whereas for normal doors, the code is something like "when an up keypress is read, check to see if Mario is in front of door tiles and if so, move him to the door's exit".
@bitwize Hey it seems super likely there are sprite doors in 8-fortress? Revealed by p-switch. I noticed they that can flicker out.
Oh also world 4 fortress 2 has a p-switch door too.
I love the Pokemon TCG Gameboy color soundtrack playing in the background for a min.
Hammer Mario, how to equipped it Mario three step one get a hammer Paula what is that true power up now when the statue power comes out with a handle on it, we
with Stone Hammer Mario
OMG Thank you so much!!!! I have always hated when the mushroom goes the wrong way. You are a life saver
I didn’t know the music note one in 10. Thanks for sharing!
I think the end card one, #4 is easier to explain as "this thing consistently goes at the same speed AND starts on the same card" - therefore if your timing is also consistent, the outcome is always the same. It's a pedantic distinction, but it's not about speed at all: just "time between loading and hitting", technically modulo the time it takes to cycle through everything. Speed is just one convenient way to be consistent.
I think the reason people thought you had to hold up was because of an old Game Genie code, I think it was always stay as (insert power up here.) I remember in the Game Genie booklet it said hold up at the doorway after defeating Bowser or the game will be stuck paused.
When you get the mini castle whistle in world 1 can you not hold up and as you slide to the door? That would take you in automatically like the final door in bowser
Fun fact about the Bowser door: if you're using certain gamegenie codes, you need to hold up as he dies or the door breaks, according to the manual. I suspect this is the source of the continued belief in needing to hold up at the door at his defeat.
I wonder how many levels there are where the overworld level tile isn't a standard numbered tile, or castle. Like the sun level in World 2, the pyramid in World 2, the tower in World 5, The Piranha Plant level in World 7, and the levels in world 8 where the hand randomly pulls you in. I feel like there are more I'm forgetting.
World 8 tanks ship airship and final castle
...And here I've spent my whole life thinking the direction the mushroom moved was chosen at random. Mind = Blown.
Though at least I never had to wonder about #5, since the GBA version's New Game+ adds a counter to each of those levels specifying how many coins you needed to grab to spawn the white Toad house.
I already knew that there was one extra coin in 1-4. Though I think all the others had only the set number of coins that you need, particularly level 6-6, or whichever one it was.
There are actually multiple extra coins in 1-4. It depends on how well you do with the two multi-coin blocks in the level. The first one is easy to get the maximum of 11 from, but the second one is so high up from where you're jumping from that you'll typically get only 7-9 coins from it. If you've gotten all other coins in the level and maxed out the first multi-coin block, you need to get at least 7 from the second multi-coin block to hit the 44-coin quota for the white mushroom house.
Regarding hold "up" at Bowser's door, if you were using a Game Genie and had used one of the codes that had the effect "Start and stay [Powered-Up State]" the game would freeze at this point if you did *not* do this, the Game Genie manual cautioned against this fate by advising you to do this, and I suspect many of us first were able to get to Bowser by using a Game Genie with one of these codes enabled and so incorporated this movement into the course of our normal play, where it remained after we learned to reach Bowser without such powerful assistance.
For misconception 1, if you can jump high enough to catch the flute off-screen, there's never a falling Mario sprite, but I don't know if that makes it any faster or not
It does make it faster, yes. Mitch is always going for an Offscreen Wand Grab when speedrunning.
1. 0:27 Wand grab
2. 1:11 Early hammer
3. 2:19 Mushroom's direction
4. 3:08 End level Star card
5. 4:23 White mushroom house
6. 5:52 100% mushroom houses
7. 7:08 Random hammer brother power ups
8. 8:54 Bowser's door
9. 9:58 Hammer brother chest timer
10. 11:14 Music notes high jump
This was really interesting to see. I had a wow moment when I realized you can't get the Star card every time you run at full speed.
For #10, maybe the note block bounce effects sort of stack?
That’s what I’m thinking.
#8, I always hold Up at the last door because the Game Genie code for Start And Stay As Fire Mario required it, according to the Game Genie manual. At least here for the UK PAL version.
When you die on the final airship on a stage does it matter where it goes to? Are there any techniques to having it in a specific spot? Obviously not for speed runs but just curious if anyone had tested all the locations if there is anything secret
100% was never real😔
In #10, I would want to look at the stored jump value the game sets when you use a music note block. It could be that the jump value is not capped meaning a higher jump value if you use both music note blocks together.
My theory is that since the blocks don't trigger at the same time, the slight delay with the second block is effectively like hitting a slightly higher Note Block. Jumping on a Note Block probably sets Mario's vertical momentum to a specific value, and it would be set to that value again while Mario is in the air.
#4 Just confirmed what I always thought was the case when it came to grabbing cards.
I have a hard time believing that people would think they’d automatically get a star card *just because* they were running full speed.
Seems more like misunderstanding what they were trying to say or splitting hairs if anything.
Mario 3 has allot of little secrets that are just waiting to be discovered
2:41 i always suspected this! Good to have confirmation
the 10 misconceptions in a nutshell:
1. is it faster to catch the wand at the top? *no*
2. is it faster to kill the world 2 hammer bros early? *no*
3. how do mushrooms move out of blocks? *away from the side where you hit the block*
4. p-speed means you always get a star from the roulette. *correlation, not causation*
5. do you need all the coins in a stage for the white mushroom house? *no, but you can go over the quota*
6. can you play every stage in the game? *this one felt like the swatbot hammering in a no fun sign*
7. when do hammer bros drop items? *if they're on the right map tile*
8. do you need to press up to enter peach's chamber? *holding up is enough*
9. why get a flower from the w-1 hammer bros? *the powerup sequence doesn't interrupt the battle's tail end*
10. how do you bounce quickly off note blocks? *hit two at once*
You should've mentioned in super mario advance 4 smb3 they have a special block that shows the specific number of coins needed to spawn the white mushroom house
i knew about holding up for the doorway after bowser but only cuz of game genie codes LOL one of them said to hold up on the door to not crash or something like that
if you use a P-wing and catch the wand with Mario's head off-screen (wand not visible) the time it takes for Mario to fall back to the castle is much shorter
Wait, I didn't even know about white mushroom houses until today. Then again, I don't play this game very often.
The thing in which you hit the block in one side for the mushroom to go the other way is also how it works in other Mario games?
How simple. I'm really dumb and spent my entire life thinking it was a RNG or something. Lol.
Number 8, how abaut p-switch doors? Like 8-f?
Love your vídeos my friend. Have a nice day
I actually learned about the power up movement thing through my own experience｡
so, ive gotta know. and its been a question that maybe you can answer?
if you grab (for example a mushroom) alternating running and walking at the end of level pickup card starting at the black border, you will get the same card?
love the smb3 videos! big fan of not only your speed runs, but your awesome content!
Before now I was positive that the power-ups in the Hammer Bro fights had something to do with whether you killed the Hammer Bro or not, I don't know where that idea came from. Also, I think the fact about the Bowser door could be related to a common SMB3 Game Genie code, I forget which one, but it says to hold up on that Bowser door or the game will crash.
Doesn't the mushroom always go away from you in every 2D mario game, except for poison mushrooms?
in mario 1, it always goes right
No. In SMB1 (and SMM2, for all styles when not in night mode) the mushroom always goes the right.
I only find people citing this rule (about which side you hit the block on) in Super Mario Bros 3. I don't see any talk about Super Mario World or later games, other than a dubious claim that the red mushroom always moves towards you--but which obviously isn't true in SMB3.
if you used the game genie back in the day, you had to press up on the final doorway or it would freeze forever
I remember, for #4, in the official Nintendo Power mag that was a complete guide to SMB3, it specifically said that if you hit the block at a 45 degree angle, it will always give you a star. It's interesting now because that's obviously not what gives you the star :D
the guide said "running full speed" and they used the 45 degree angle to make you jump early rather than late, which can trigger a different item. As long as you hit the block early enough at full speed (from before the line) you get the star.
@@Nphen Is that what it said? It might have been a couple years since I read that... just a couple.
4:12 in my experience, walking also nearly guarantees a star
What if you're dead center on hitting a block? Which way does the item come out? Or is that not possible?
I believe block is 16 pixels wide, so you can't hit the center.
@@Pianist203 For what I'm
asking, that would depend on whether Mario's sprite is considered to have an even width or an odd width. If his width is even, it could completely align with an even-width block.
@@ZipplyZane You're right, but actually I think sprite size isn't determining, but its hitbox size is. Maybe there's some determining rule even if hitboxes align perfectly, but I don't know.
@@Pianist203 Maybe it's just a matter of how it's checked. Maybe if the left is checked first it will always go right when hit in the middle.
I'm thinking this because I can't imagine that Mario's hitbox is 1 pixel wide at any point, let alone at the top. Someone would've noticed that 1 pixel that was higher than all the other pixels in the hitbox :p
So, multiple points of the hitbox must be hitting the block at the same time, so it must be possible to hit both sides at the same time and I kind of doubt that the pixels are counted or that there's a left/right sensor about half a mario width from the center. So it's probably something super simple like how the game checks for collisions and that it's not done or maybe not even physically possible to do it everywhere at the same time.
If I'm right, you could have one pixel of Mario's hitbox on the left half and all the rest on the right and the mushroom would still go to the right because that one pixel is checked before the other ones. Edit: And if I'm wrong that might still happen for other reasons, but if it doesn't happen I'm definitely wrong and it's just not that.
Grabbing the wand at the top looks baller tho