It may come as a shock that as someone who played his first video game on the NES I’ve never played Super Mario World. Not once. Not even on an emulator. The game that is known by many as one of the best games in the Mario series (even still today), never ended up in my hands through the early 90’s. After the NES I became a Genesis gamer, where you could play more mature games such as the unedited Mortal Kombat or Zero Tolerance.

Although I enjoyed Super Mario Bros. on the NES, I was never very good at it (I’m still not). Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3 mostly passed me by as well, but at least I can say I’ve played them. I love the music and look of the third game, however I’ve never been able to make it past the second world. I’d always get frustrated and quit for good, never to pick up the controller again.

My frustrating experiences with the Super Mario Bros. series led me to mostly ignore the series, at least up until the release of Mario 64 (which I also was, and am, terrible at). I’d often hear people express their love for the Super Nintendo’s Super Mario World, but I never really wanted to try it out as I knew I’d just get mad at it. However, I started to get a taste of Mario World via the Wii U’s Super Mario Maker. I rode Yoshi for the first time, and also experienced the game’s joyful music for the first time. My time with Mario Maker got me interested in checking out World, so tonight I bought it on the Wii U.

The $7.99 price tag on the Virtual Console seemed a little steep for a 25 year old game, especially when much newer games sell for less than $5 on Steam, but I decided experiencing it on a Nintendo console would be better than an emulated experience.

When I first booted up Super Mario World, I felt already familiar with the world, thanks to Super Mario Maker. In fact, for awhile I kept expecting to see the evil red x’s that mark a player’s death in Mario Maker to pop up on the screen each time I died an embarrassing death.

The hour I spent with Mario World so far was filled with numerous frustrating deaths, as always seems to happen when I pick up a Mario game. I’d jump into the same enemy over and over again, or I’d fall to my death trying to avoid an incoming enemy. Once I got a handle on the controls I didn’t have much trouble completing Yoshi’s Island, however Donut Plains was another story.

Much like level 2-1 in Super Mario Bros. 3, Donut Plains 1 almost made me quit the game for good before I’d ever made much progress. I kept dying over and over again at the hands of the Super Koopas. In fact the very first one you encounter in the level killed me at least 7 times as I tried to get the cape feather. I eventually gave up on getting the cape and tried to storm through the level, only to meet my fate at the hands of Chargin’ Chuck and his obnoxious baseballs. It took a frustrating 30 minutes to finish Donut Plains 1 (and two continues), but eventually I managed it. At this point I had to turn the Wii U off before my frustration and anger at the game got any worse. I’m dreading losing all of my lives and having to play through Donut Plains 1 again at some point.

I’m looking forward to experiencing more of Super Mario World, yet at the same time I’m afraid of the challenges ahead. Hopefully I can make it through Mario World with my Wii U gamepad intact!