Hello, fellow gamers and general pop culture jackals of ONTD! Today, September 13th 2025, marks the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros! While Mario, and his vastly superior brother Luigi (all hail the uncut king!), already existed prior to this game, Super Mario Bros, released on the Famicom, was what really put the characters on the map, giving them a hold on the pop culture zeitgeist that they’ve really never let go of. And I’ve played basically all of the core Super Mario [put the rest of the title here] games across my many years of gaming. I openly loathe the character of Mario, because I stan the hell out of Luigi, but his games will always hold a special place in my heart.
So, what’s the purpose of this post? Well, mostly just to make one, really. But I figured I would talk about some levels that I recall in different Mario games that really, really taxed me and my gaming patience. And clips on YouTube that show how to beat them. With that in mind…
Super Mario Bros: World 8-2 (NES)
We start at the very beginning. My first video game, at least that I can recall. And recall it vividly I do. I picked up the controller at a friend’s house, moved to the right (because moving to the left after a certain point went against God’s will in this game), walked straight into a Goomba and died. Everyone watching me laughed. Nobody pointed out to me that one had to press a button to jump. Anyway, I’ve gotten my vengeance against many a Goomba since. Not the point. The point is that in that first game it was this level that gave me the most amount of grief. I did not understand that you could just run across gaps that were 1 layer long without dying. Eventually, I did. I mean, I didn’t beat this game until I was a freshman in college doing it via emulation, but I did beat it!
Super Mario Bros 3: World 7 – Pipe Land (NES)
This is one time where I am going to break my overall concept of “levels” in the strictest sense of the word, and there’s a very good reason for it: I HATE this world in Super Mario Bros 3. The whole thing. With the mazing and that one level where if you don’t have the frog suit or a fire flower you basically have to pray to the old Gods and the new that you have perfect reflexes to get through it… I have no idea why this penultimate world is more difficult than the entire last world of the game, but in my experience it is! I’ll usually just warp flute on by so I don’t have to be bothered. Minor shout outs, however, specifically go to World 3 and 6’s bosses, Wendy and Lemmy, because those rings/balls that bounce around the level and act as extra obstacles were really, really annoying.
Super Mario World: Tubular (SNES)
In all honesty, this probably held the title for “level in a Mario game that cost me the most lives” until the very last entry in this list, and it held that title for an exceedingly long amount of time. I never knew that there was an easier way of handling this with the blue Yoshi (side note: best Yoshi ever… and it just inspired me to make a quick little bonus at the end of this post), so I have always done it in the way that Miyamoto seemingly intended: by ballooning the hell up and floating. It’s so annoying, trying to avoid the baseballs or the prickly seed things that those flowers shoot up into the air, all while trying to find the next balloon and making sure that it doesn’t float away. Ugh. Just ugh.
Super Mario 64: Course 15 – Rainbow Ride (N64)
I will admit that, in more recent times, this particular part of the game has gotten much easier for me. It also falls under that category of “not a level,” but it deserves a shout out all the same. The reason it’s gotten easier for me is because I think analog controlling has gotten easier to handle in the decades since Mario 64 came out. But with that giant trident pad and moving on the N64 analog stick? Not falling off those carpets and climbing up the poles to jump onto something else and not whiff? It was not easy!
Super Mario Sunshine: The Pachinko Machine (Gamecube)
Likely the most infamous level of the Mario series most polarizing game. There were some parts of the game where you didn’t have access to Fludd, the water pack. This level allowed you to keep it, giving you some level of assistance, but in the end? It rarely ever mattered. It was a pain in the ass.
Super Mario Odyssey: Long Journey’s End (Switch)
I’m skipping over Galaxy 1 and Galaxy 2, simply because I can’t really remember what those levels or challenges were enough to pull them up. I’m also not giving much attention to the 2.5D platformers that started around the Wii era, mostly because they weren’t that challenging overall (still enjoyable, though!). Now we get to the point in this original where I have to make a confession: I’ve actually never beaten this level without using Amiibo to give me that power up that doubles my life mid-level. That’s how difficult it is, I have to use what is functionally a bit of a cheat code to beat it.
Super Mario Wonder: The Final-Final Test Badge Marathon (Switch)
Here we go: the Mario level that has undoubtedly cost me the most amount of lives. How do I know that? Because in Wonder, like in most Mario games, you can stock 99 lives. And I went through an entire stock of 99 lives trying to beat this level. And then almost depleted a second stock of 99 more before I finally, finally did it! At least this time I didn’t have to use any Amiibo or anything, because it wouldn’t help! I also had the advantage of not playing this game with anyone else, even though it is intended to be a multiplayer game. I couldn’t imagine the chaos that would happen, and the stock of lives that would go up in smoke even quicker, if others were playing with me.
Bonus! Super Mario RPG: The Boshi Race (SNES/Switch)
What brought this on? When I mentioned how the blue Yoshi is the best Yoshi. I stand by that. And then I remembered… Boshi. My nemesis. I have NEVER beaten Boshi in the race, both in the SNES original and the Switch remake. It just doesn’t happen. It is my failure as a gamer. Boshi, I bow to you. The unconquerable. But I bet Luigi could beat you.
SOURCE 1, SOURCE 2, SOURCE 3, SOURCE 4, SOURCE 5, SOURCE 6, SOURCE 7, SOURCE 8.
