~Mario's Fortune



Being a 16 year old boy, I am very involved in video games. I particularly like certain Nintendo franchises such as Kirby, Super Mario, and Legend of Zelda. So I was pretty happy when I found that Nintendo cartridge in the back corner of my attic.

It all started when I was rummaging around in my attic looking for our Christmas tree ornaments. As I moved boxes around I noticed a small white box in the back corner of the attic. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the exact size and shape as a 3DS game box. But the box didn’t have a label. There wasn’t any “and there was 3DS written in permanent marker” or any of that kind of crap. The label was just missing. I opened the box and found a 3DS game cartridge. The game didn’t have a label either, but it looked as though it had never had one to begin with. Forgetting about the ornaments, I went back to my room curious to see what game this could possibly be.

As I turned on my 3DS I was shocked to see that it was New Super Mario Bros. 2! I was puzzled that this game was on a cartridge with no label, but at the same time happy because I had been wanting to get the game for a while. I started the game and everything seemed to be working like it should. I started a new game seeing as there were no save files and the overall coin counter read zero. I played through each level with grace and defeated Bowser in about two days. I then decided that it would be fun to complete the goal of getting one million coins. As I went to coin rush mode to buy a level pack, I noticed that the shop button wasn’t there. I restarted my 3DS and tried again but the shop button didn’t appear. Frustrated, I decided to go to the rainbow levels instead. (If you don’t know what that is, the rainbow levels are levels you unlock if you end a level with the last two digits on the timer matching the world number. Like X11 if you are in world 1, X22 if you are in world 2, etc.) As I was standing next to the flagpole, Mario turned to face the camera. This shocked me because that can’t happen in this game, and the game played mostly normal until here. Once Mario slid down the flag pole he said, “Hoohoo! Not this way!” as if he were sliding down a secret flagpole. But I clearly saw that it was the normal pole. Was he trying to tell me not to play the rainbow level? I got even more confused when I actually started playing the level. Usually the rainbow levels consist of Mario standing on a moving platform while tons of coins fly around the screen for you to collect. However this time every normal coin that was supposed to be there was replaced with “10”coins, making it much easier to reach one million coins. This made me really question why Mario said what he said after sliding down the flagpole earlier. After getting 100,000 coins I was a little uneasy about what the game said when congratulating you. “You earned 100,000 coins! There is still time to turn back though.” Sheer curiosity is what kept me going after seeing that. I played the game for ten or so minutes more, then put it away for the night.

The next day, I couldn’t stop thinking about the game. I kept wondering why the game told me not to get one million coins, but at the same time, making it easier to do so.

After school I started to play the game more. I had to figure out what was going on. As my coin counter got closer and closer to one million, more strange things started to happen. After the 500,000 mark, Mario stopped doing his flips off the flagpole. Instead he just stepped off and walked away. After the 800,000 mark, he started to shake his head in disagreement. It was as if he was begging for me to stop collecting coins. But after I finally collected one million coins, the game asked me if I wanted to keep the coins I had earned and gave me a yes or no option. When I saw this, I was both confused and frustrated. No! I didn’t want to get rid of all the progress I had made! I had played for hours to get that many coins! So naturally, I selected yes. After that, I was eager to see what all my hard work had given me. What I got was a cut scene. It started off as the normal title screen where Mario Luigi chase the Koopalings in their clown car, trying to save princess peach. After they stopped, Ludwig then waved his magic staff and many coins appeared while the Koopalings flew away. The coins started falling from the sky landing on Mario and Luigi, killing them instantly.

I couldn’t play the game anymore because every time I tried, it would say the same thing. “Game Over! You were too greedy!”