Glitches/Easter Eggs

[Tetouani85]

the game is super mario bros, i wonder if someone knows about these hidden blocks (there is 6) here in 1-4 before bowser, is there a secret about them ??

[fcgamer]

They can help you get a 1-up if you have 96 coins. Then if you die at Bowser you still have another chance. Great way to ease new players into the game.

[UglyJoe]

Yeah, I didn't know about those coins for the longest time.  I did some speed-run challenge where you had to beat World 1 as quickly as possible, while collecting exactly 100 coins, with at least one coin in each level.  I think I had to look up how to get a coin in 1-4 and was made aware of these.

[P]

Ah, I remember as a kid that I knew about the lower ones of those hidden blocks for a very long time before discovering there were more hidden blocks above them. I think of them as one of the most classic game secrets people discover. They kinda make you think there must be something more to them but they are really just some extra coins and maybe serves to teach the player to look for hidden blocks in suspicious places.

There are a few hidden blocks in later levels that are very useful besides giving coins and points. On level 6-1, soon after the only pipe on the level there are two hidden blocks. One near the ground and one right above it. These will help you defeat Lakitu, making the rest of the level a bit easier.
I think I found this secret when playing Super Mario Bros 35 and was amazed that there still were secrets in this game I didn't know about (and on one of my old favorite levels as well).
I then went over to themushroomkingdom.net and downloaded all the maps for SMB, VSSMB, SMB2j and All Night Nippon SMB to make sure I didn't miss out on any more secrets.


There is also one general secret that's not easy to discover on your own, and I didn't really know until quite recently. Notice that there is an invincible block with a 1UP-mushroom on the first level of each world, but they don't always appear when you jump under them? They only appear if you collect enough coins (usually all or almost all coins) on the 3rd level of the previous world (which is typically an athletic course). On level 1-1 the 1UP always appears since there is no world before it and it also always appear if warping to the world.

This rule applies to VSSMB, SMB2j and ANNSMB as well but as they removed many coins in VSSMB not all hidden 1UPs can appear in that version of the game, I guess they forgot to update the coin requirements when they made the levels harder.

Then there is the fireworks you get at the end of a level if you have 1, 3 or 6 in the ones digit of the timer when hitting the flagpole. And in SMB2j you can get a very useful 1UP if the timer ones digit is the same as both digits in the coin counter when hitting the pole.