Categories
Games Geek / Technical

Great Gaming Moments: Super Mario World

Sometimes great gaming moments need more context than the game itself provides. Such was the case while hanging out with a friend in seventh grade. By 1994, Super Mario World had been out a few years, but it was the only game she had, and we had already finished watching movies like “Born in East L.A.”, so that’s what we were playing.

And of course, I had to flex my geek muscles and boast about how good I was at playing video games, especially this game. I had beaten Bowser and saved the princess in a matter of days, then spent the next month or so just figuring out all of the secrets and finding all of the hidden levels. It’s funny how I never found such things appealing in games like Donkey Kong Country, but I guess when you’re young and have the time, you’ll spend it having fun, even if it is marginal. You just don’t have as many options.

Anyway, we’re drinking pink lemonade, having a great time, and we made it to Star World. Star World featured a different colored Yoshi in each level. While you normally get a green Yoshi and get super powers from the various colored shells he could eat, the colored Yoshis gave you those powers regardless of the shell color. So a red Yoshi would always breathe fire when spitting out a shell, and a blue Yoshi would fly. Of course, when you meet these Yoshis, they’re babies, and you need to feed them a number of items, usually enemies, before they can grow.

One level featured a red Yoshi on a floating platform right at the start. It was my turn to play, and I’ve gone through this level hundreds of times before, and I wanted to see how fast I could complete the level.

So I jumped up onto the floating platform…and accidentally kicked the newly-hatched red Yoshi off into the abyss.

It took a second for both of us to register what had just happened, and my friend was just taking a sip from her lemonade before she had to burst out laughing. I couldn’t help but laugh as well. The level had just started, and I had somehow missed the button press to pick up the baby Yoshi. Ba-doop! Right off the edge of the platform, never to be seen again.

Maybe it wasn’t a “great” gaming moment, but it was unintentionally funny, and I won’t ever forget it.

[tags] super mario world, great gaming moments, video games [/tags]