the appeal of a convention stems from the yawning tide of people who embody it; a mass of the like-minded enveloping a space, to the extent that one could never meet or know every one at once. the homogeneity would not be pleasant if it permeated our entire lives, but to momentarily enter a crowd knowing that each person among it could understand your drive and passion is invigorating. when I come to these I tend to roam solo, poking my head into every room I find and silently people-watching from the sidelines. I greet friends of course, and I may strike up a conversation in line waiting for a cabinet, but I find my immersion into the atmosphere alone provides a mental balm before even socializing comes into play.

every year going to magfest I plan new ways to make the experience more comfortable: a well-rounded diet, planned breaks, and more consistent sleeping arrangements. this time my new innovation was a fanny pack, replacing the cumbersome backpack of previous trips with something less intrusive and throwing my misplaced sense of embarrassment at wearing one out the window. with this came a swap from my switch to the smaller form factor of my 3ds. I've come to really lean into my 3ds as of late, bringing it to long waits at the barber or when lazing around at a friend's house. at some point I realized that all my downtime wasted on scrolling twitter could be funneled into a marginally more meaningful hobby by using my 3ds instead. besides, the console is becoming a bit retro! recently a young child saw me with one and asked their mother about the strange two-screened phone I was holding, begging to peer over my shoulder while I played dragon quest.

bringing the 3ds to magfest also gave me the opportunity to try to shore up my puzzles on streetpass, which I had neglected for quite some time. the entire idea behind streetpass - every person's 3ds signalling out in an attempt for two to pass each other and exchange information - was an outgrowth of nintendo's attempts to turn the handhelds into tools for positive social reinforcement, originating at least as far back as the nascent pokemon exchanges on the original game boy. it turned the 3ds into something that continually engaged with the world while you did, giving you brief glimpses into the lives of those around you while you traveled. the most basic of these was puzzle swap, less of a game and more of a mass exercise in collecting pieces of various puzzles distributed by nintendo through occasional content updates. some pieces you could roll for using "play coins" collected while walking with the 3ds in your pocket, but some were exclusively gained through trading with others, and in general the most consistent way to locate certain pieces was by trading with as wide of a group of people as possible. of course, this collaborative effort operated best in a world of mass public transit and high population density, traits missing from the suburban american experience. my regular streetpass contacts were ones at my high school, and the minimal outside interaction led to an eventual disinterest in churning through the same puzzle collections day after day. the eventual death of the 3ds only cemented the end of my streetpassing days.

even just from waiting in the eye-watering badge pickup line at the con, snaked switchback style across an expo room before leaking out from one side of the building to the other, I had already matched with at least 10 people, showering me with new pieces and puzzles I had never gotten a chance to download. a feature past my time called "bonus chance" had kicked in, giving me many pieces from each individual I streetpassed instead of just one like the old days and letting me mop up my collection way quicker than I had anticipated. every break I took during the con seemed to have at least a couple more people trickle into my waiting queue, and by the end of the con I had collected every trade-only piece with less than 100 to go overall. there were people walking around with all of the pieces, people walking around with just a few, some who had scarcely updated their streetpass since the mid '10s, and others who seemed to have gotten in on the tail-end of the whole phenomenon, with lots of pieces for the last few puzzles and barely any for the early ones. for a weekend, this social game that had withered away over five years prior got the chance to bloom again.

these people who I previously just saw from afar, stood next to at adjacent cabinets, or sat behind at a panel now became little figments inside my 3ds. I had always perceived the con as a regional experience, but their data now told me there were those as far as the west coast or even alaska participating, perhaps expats who had moved close by, or former residents flying back to stay with friends. little tidbits such as their most recently played game gave me insight into their tastes, and many of them had included celebratory messages of excitement for the return of the con. their collections, their smiling avatars, their flairs, their messages; it humanized these many con attendees who I often had passed by and further strengthened that bond we shared of mutual attendance. after years of using an ugly caricature of mips from sm64 as my avatar, I finally changed it to one that reflected my face. it only seemed natural to give them the same clarity they gave me.

Beaten on 8Mhz (in the M88 emulator) as that is what Japanese consumers would have been playing this on at the time of release. Full disclosure, I did use savestates to act as "extra lives" but beat every level normally in one sitting. I'd like to see if I can beat this with "FF" lives at some point but that will wait for a bit. I'm writing this review basically immediately after beating this game at like 5 in the morning

This game is like genuinely one of the worst games I have ever played, but also incredibly fun if you have the mindset for it. It's extremely difficult. It's just absolutely baffling that it exists at all, a weird Super Mario Bros sequel for a couple of two japanese home computers. It even predates the Lost Levels! There's a bit of a misunderstanding about this game online since I think there's a fair amount of people who just assume it's a port, and some who are just aware of some of its surface level stuff (there's stuff based on the arcade games, the scrolling is messed up etc).

The game just feels like complete shit to play. I'm under the suspicion that the PC-88 port was fairly low effort, and it is incredibly aggressive to play. I will not refer to its aesthetics as while they are pretty ugly I don't think it particularly detracts from the game. The game has some fun ideas like introducing enemies from the Arcade games but most of them are just unkillable and painful to deal with. The additional items introduced are also far too sparse and situational.

Mario controls ridiculously terribly in 8mhz mode (which again, is what PC-88 owners would have been using for videogames) and I frankly think it has to be played to be believed. Every single jump in the game becomes a challenge and you have to be incredibly methodical with your movement, while still being fast due to the strict time limits on the stages. This game even frequently makes you do jumps from 1x1 block to 1x1 block, which is incredibly difficult. Making things worse, the game actually slows down if you have a mushroom, since Super Mario is made from two objects, as opposed to small Mario who is just one. As a result of this, a mushroom is vital due to giving you far better reaction times, given how absurdly fast this game is. The amount of blind jumps in this game that are hidden away by screen transitions insane by the way. I mean like actual blind jumps, no hints. There's even a blind jump from a 1x1 block to another! It's ridiculous!

I don't think people are quite aware that this game is just genuinely broken in a lot of ways. One notable example that walled me for months was when a platform refused to spawn in 4-3. I had assumed that I had emulation issues, or maybe even a bad dump, and I had been searching around ages for a solution. I later discovered that you are supposed to collapse a pair of platforms earlier in the level, because there too many platforms in existence. If you do not, that platform, which is vital for progression, does not spawn. It's insane how consistent this is, given that the game has a pretty frequent issue with just not spawning enemies or powerups sometimes.

It's strange because while I do genuinely think this game is completely awful, and blatantly the worst Mario game ever made, I think it must be played to be believed. I had so much fun progressing through this game over a long time with my friends in calls, it was such a spectacle and the game just kept giving in how obscene it was. I hope more people talk about this game because it's genuinely one of the most fascinating things relating to the Mario series, and another example of how strange third party Mario offerings were (perhaps the most interesting, in my opinion).

Side note, do not play this in Retroarch! 4-4 broke for me in it and lead to me having to switch to M88, which worked flawlessly.

yesterday on february 13th i finally moved out of my mother's house. I have been suffering with severe ocd for about a year now, it got so bad that i couldnt leave the building. I have chemical burns up and down my thighs and my arms are permanently scarred from washing them so much. This is a big achievement for me, because i needed to leave for my health. but i really didnt want to. i miss my mother, i miss living in the woods. i miss the ivy growing on our neighbors house and the wombats that lived under our porch. Its really, really hard. so to ground myself, i decided to boot up my old new leaf file from 2016. i played this game on and off for years, and it was integral to my life..
the second i heard the title screen music everything just hit me like a truck. all the memories and feelings i has when playing this game, the person who i was, were still encapsulated within it. i remembered playing this on the bus ride home from school, and crying when Fuchsia left suddenly, and excitedly telling my mom about completely normal events that nonetheless felt wonderful to me. as i walked around my little town i just couldnt stop crying. villagers told me of dreams i used to have, my house was a wreck but well loved, it felt like home. every little thing about my life was preserved here in this game. it felt like i had a little piece of my childhood house in my pocket, in a way. what other kind of game can do that? i miss those days so much... i wish i could go back to the times before i was so sick...