Super Mario Brothers 1 9999950%

[Princess Rescuer]

Super Mario Brothers 1 was a very influential game, and one of its influences was the diminishing importance of getting a High Score. This is one of the reasons the game remains extremely playable today. It is possible to obtain 9999950 points, the maximum the game can remember, in Super Mario Brothers 1. Doing so is very repetitive, and the final part is something you can lose the run to, but you may want to try this after getting sub 5 in any% and sub 19 in Warpless and the PBs are running dry. This category will likely offer you minutes, if not hours, to save for quite some time. It's the ultimate challenge for Super Players.

The rules are: No warps, No Koopa Grinding, and No Pausing. Koopa Grinding takes the risk factor out of the majority of the run, and has been patched out of newer versions of the game. If you need to get a drink or use the toilet, leave the timer running. And no suspending either if it's on a newer console. Also, no emulators- it must be an official release of the game on a real Nintendo console. I mentioned on SDA Older Consoles that Koopa Grinding is allowed, but True 9999950, the version of this category that matters, doesn't allow it.

In this run, score as many points as you can in a timely fashion. Most importantly, focus on coins and time points, for reasons I will get into later. Do this until you reach 8-2. 8-2 has no checkpoints and an extra life that can be collected on every single attempt and isn't far away from the beginning. There are also additional coins, which will eventually add up for more extra lives. In 8-2, you will want to get to the end as soon as possible and use the remaining time to stomp on the paratroopa that comes down the final staircase and bounce it against the cannon (which won't fire as long as enough of it is off-screen). One of the rules is no koopa grinding, but that's when you bounce it against one block above for extra lives. Stopping and kicking it against the wall for 600 points each is fine. If you don't collect the extra life and coins, you will have extra time to do this, hence the risk factor of not stocking up on extra lives and potentially losing them before the end when making a mistake. Now comes the tricky part- when you have at least 9.9 million points, find a good stopping point to finish 8-2, leaving yourself plenty of lives and plenty of points below the maximum. The fewer lives you have, the faster you'll be because you'll have gotten more points per 8-2 attempt due to not getting coins as much and getting to the end faster. You'll also be faster if you have more points, because gaining points is slower in 8-3 than it is in 8-2 (and thankfully comparatively non-existent in 8-4). Also remember that the lowest rung you can get on the Flagpole is 100 points, and every remaining second gives you an additional 50 points, not to mention that certain conditions produce fireworks which give you additional points (which you will likely want to evade). Surviving the risk every time and getting good at this can save hours.

You'll want to finish 8-3 with the Fire Flower and a score where the last 3 digits are an odd number and 50 (such as 9998750). Remember how many points each thing gives you. Coins (you will likely have to collect one in 8-4) give you 200 points. Fireballing a Hammer Brother gives you 1000 points. And in case you need to balance out your numbers to get the proper score when you can't do it on the flagpole without fireworks ruining it, breaking blocks will give you 50 points each. Remember that hitting blocks with your upwards fist (not head, contrary to popular belief) starts to break them when you're big. Finishing 8-3 with a fire flower isn't difficult after the second pair since you can fireball the remaining ones from a safe distance, but here comes the clutch moment- 8-4. Kill a few too many enemies, and it's over. I mentioned that 9998750 is a good score to enter 8-4 with earlier, on the assumption that you will collect 1 coin and fireball the hammer brother at the end, but you can enter with a score like 9999750 and just collect the one coin, then running into the Hammer Brother and lasting through the fireball and Bowser with the damage invincibility. The time ends once you press B and you're back on the title screen with Top-9999950. Congratulations, you are a Super Player!