Nothing can possibly be said about the quality or content of this game. Everyone knows it is a masterpiece. For me, this and the original Legend of Zelda evoke such strong emotions, have such fleshed-out worlds, and feel so complete, it doesn’t even seem possible considering the years they were released. Instead of trying to do some kind of “review,” here is a description of how I did this particular run. I think this run strikes the right balance of fun, challenging, and not so time-consuming that you can’t do it in one sitting.

• Complete worlds 1 and 2 as normal, and DO NOT FORGET to get all 3 whistles.
• In World 1-2, do the ‘infinite lives’ trick if you think you might need them. This is the one where as Raccoon Mario, you can lure Goombas out of one of the ‘unlimited Goomba’ pipes, and bounce off their heads indefinitely. Repeat this enough times without touching the ground, and eventually they will become 1UPS instead of points. The Raccoon tail is needed so that you can slowly float down off one jump while waiting for the next Goomba to fall out of the pipe. In just 1 run, I was able to get my total lives up to 21 or 22 before the time got tight and I ran on to the end.
• Whistle locations reminder
  • Whistle 1: World 1-3. Do the trick at the end where you drop through the white block, then run ‘behind’ the goal area
  • Whistle 2: World 1 Fortress. In the area with the leaf power-up, stomp the dry bones, run as far as you can to the right, then run left to build up P-speed. Fly up and to the right, off screen, and you’ll land on a platform. Go as far right as you can, and you’ll get to a door. Go in the door to find a treasure box with Whistle 2
  • Whistle 3: World 2 secret area. Fight the Hammer Bros until you find the hammer. Use it in the upper-left-most corner of the map to reveal a secret path. Beat one more Hammer Bros in here to get Whistle 3. The group of Hammer Bros in the secret area are fireball bros, and I like to use a starman before going in here just to make sure there are no mistakes.
• After beating World 2 and landing in World 3, use a Whistle to go to the Warp Zone. From the Warp Zone, go to World 5
• In World 5, go as far as it takes to beat both Hammer Bros. If you want, you can also do a few more levels to rack up points, play the match game some more, and get more items. By this point, I was almost full of items and had to start dumping some.
• After at least beating both Hammer Bros in World 5, play the whistle 2 times. This will land you in World 8.
• Play through all of World 8 as normal. You should have plenty of lives and plenty of power-ups to get through it. For the really annoying fortress level, I used the Cloud to bypass it. For the really annoying fast-scrolling level (I think this is the hardest level in the game) I used one of my extra P-wings.