Over Christmas Break, Nintendo made five classic games available for the Wii's Virtual Console. One of those was the legendary Super Mario Bros for the NES. I had some extra points left over from my purchase of Mario 64, so I decided to pick up SMB for the reasonable price of $5.

The last time I played this was probably back in 96 or so, shortly before my family made the uneducated decision to sell our NES. Whatever the case, I never beat it. Not really for any lack of trying, but because I was just uneducated.

This was before the days of the internet, before I could click a few links and learn a few tricks here and there. So I was blissfully, or "frustratingly" if you actually watched me play, unaware of the ability to Continue a game by pressing A + Start on the title screen. So when I learned of this yesterday suddenly the game became considerably less impossible. I uttered a few curses here and there in the course of a few of the trickier jumps, and I managed to squeak through that a-maze-ing 8-4 with a very slim about of time left. But I did it. I finally beat the original Mario. 20 years after its original release.

It was really a triumph of the spirit though, and I wish I hadn't been alone in the house when it happened. Mostly because I doubted the dog would understand why his master was jumping up and down with glee. And then I saw this:

Why do the fates torture me so?