Super Mario Bros [NES] - Hard Mode No Warps 1CC Full Game (No Cheats) @psymagearcade
Super Mario Bros [NES] - Hard Mode No Warps 1CC Full Game (No Cheats)  @psymagearcade
Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 4 minutes ago
Super Mario Bros on the NES is a game that doesn't need much of an introduction. It's the game that pretty much established the NES when it launched in 1985 and saved the young video game industry at the time. However, a lot of people do not realize that there is a Hard Mode in this game. Normally, you unlock this after beating the main game. However, I decided to use the New Quest Enabled ROM hack to unlock it from the start, which I highly recommend:

romhacking.net/hacks/5354

Anyways, the Hard Mode does make some tweaks to the original game without dramatically altering the layouts of the stages. The first and most obvious one is the lack of Goombas, which have been replaced with the Buzzy Beetles that are like Koopas except that you cannot kill them with your Fire Flower. The other tweaks are a bit more minor, like the enemies moving faster and the elevator all being the short kind even on earlier stages.

I had actually never beaten the original Super Mario Bros on its default difficulty despite having played the game quite a bit growing up. Hard Mode does make things harder but not dramatically harder overall. I tried focusing on grabbing coins to get as many extends as possible because of the fact that the game does have quite the difficulty spike in World 8 regardless of whether you're playing Hard Mode or not. On this run, I didn't start dying until World 7 so I was mostly clean up until that point. I took my time after a while on later stages in an attempt to avoid as many unnecessary deaths as possible.

The only limitation that I imposed on myself for this game was not using the Warp Pipes. I used to use these all the time but instead, I decided to avoid them this time around in order to fully experience the game from start to finish. Playing the game this game allows you to earn more extends, but your execution has to be really solid as it is easy to make a dumb mistake and lose a life, or a bunch of lives if you're not careful. Also, there are some surprisingly tricky platforming sections at times like in Stage 1-4. Playing the game this way does show some of the repetition in the stage layouts in later worlds, particularly World 7 after 7-1. That's not even getting into the Hammer Bros being a serious threat and the fact that there is RNG with their spawn points.

While this game certainly isn't as hard as The Lost Levels, it is no cakewalk either. It is certainly harder than than many of the Mario game that came after it. I think some of it has to do with Mario's movement having more inertia than it later games, making him a bit tricky to control when you need to be precise.

All that being said, this game still holds up despite some repetition in the level design and Mario's inertia. I still prefer this game over both The Lost Levels and the American version of Super Mario Bros 2. It's still one of the best games on the NES to this day.

Played using the Nestopia core in RetroArch. My controller of choice was a modded Qanba Crystal mixbox setup with the T-Spin installed.

00:00 Intro + World 1
03:51 World 2
09:12 World 3
14:25 World 4
19:35 World 5
25:40 World 6
31:25 World 7
37:18 World 8
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Super Mario Bros [NES] - Hard Mode No Warps 1CC Full Game (No Cheats)

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