Can't stress enough the benefit of checking local ads and searching thrift shops. I got a $50 NES that way. Two controllers and two games, and a $15 Mario World Cartridge.

Yeah some of them are like that - others are hidden.. and I mean reaaaaally hidden. Like, hidden in places you'd never think to look.

They're hidden in such random places and it's a chore to find them.. that's why. I mean spraying a random wall with FLUDD? Seriously?

Has anybody here done it? I've been trying reaaaaaaaally hard but searching every nook and cranny in all 8 levels of the same map is tedious as ****. I don't know what Nintendo was thinking. Usually getting 100% completion in a Mario game is fun and rewarding.. I'm not feeling it here.

It's part of my disorder. I have crippling OCD. lol. Even if I'm half-consciously aware that something isn't a big deal, I still get a sinking feeling and I need [like you said] some form of validation from others to snap out of my obsessive thinking. I just hold Mario 3 in such high regard that I was worried I cheated myself out of the true M3 experience, which I could never get back now that I know how to navigate world 8's castle. It even sounds stupid saying it out loud - so I can imagine how dumb this thread looks from the outside looking in.

Well the Nintendo Power game guide was basically a map of the game, showing where all the secrets and alternate routes were found. Essentially reading it back when the game came out gave the same outcome as watching a video guide. And honestly I only did it for two sections of the game, and only after trying numerous times and getting dangerously close to a game over.

But to be fair, it's not much different than seeing an older sibling beat a level or reading the nintendo power game guide in the 90s though, right?

Touche. Thanks dude, that makes me feel better about the whole thing. :D

But like, do you think looking up videos to navigate a maze of a level or finding secrets takes away from the core experience of playing a game and discovering everything naturally? I know I didn't really do it until world 8 but I can't help but feel like I didn't do the right thing. Especially since I used a walkthrough to avoid an outcome [game over] that would have occurred because I wasn't skilled enough to do it naturally.

I just beat Super Mario 3 on my NES for the first time in my life - but there's a catch. At the very last world I was down to 10 lives and I didn't want to get another game over after spending 3 hours getting this far.

So for world 8-1 I looked up a video walkthrough and found the secret pipe that contains 3 lives. After that I used a p-wing on World 8-2 since I saved up a ton of them and looked up another video guide to get through the castle before the very last level, since that place is like a maze.

I'm kind of OCD about my gaming accomplishments, and I know I should have this huge rush of dopamine from beating one of my all time favourite childhood games for the first time, but I don't feel it - because I'm worried my victory was tarnished by using guides.

So my question is this. Did I cheat by looking up a guide? Or is that an acceptable part of the experience? Like if you were 9 years old and you saw your older siblings beat a level and you learned a new trick in the process.