 Many of us have played Super Mario World several times, or Mega Man X, Donkey Kong Country, Yoshi's Island, many playthroughs for all. Yeah, it goes without saying that these are some of the absolute best games ever made, but there's only so much replay value to be had. That is in part why something like Super Metroid has endured over the years as one of the cornerstones of outstanding game design that stood the test of time because of how it's structured to be flexible and open-ended. You can of course play through as you normally would, getting all the power-ups exploring every area and beating every boss, but the game also enabled you to skip entire areas whether it be by wall jump, or by a special weapon, all to find new paths to the end of the game. Unfortunately, not every game is this cleverly designed, but I still try and find different ways to play through older games just to spice things up a bit. And yeah, you can come up with any old self-imposed rules or restrictions for any game, but I just thought I'd point out a few that I found to be interesting. The best example of this is for Super Mario World. I play through this game every Christmas day, it's just kind of a tradition I picked up since I was a kid, but one thing I've started to do over the years is vary the difficulty a bit. There's no actual easy, medium, and hard modes here, obviously, but the game kind of has a roundabout way of letting you change the difficulty just by simply skipping the exclamation point box switches. You can play through the game getting 3, 2, 1, or even 0 of the switches activated, and sure it makes certain special worlds nearly impossible to be completed, but just for completing the game and beating Bowser, it can be pretty fun and pretty difficult. For instance, I'd long gotten used to having a mushroom or a feather conveniently waiting for me before a boss fight, but without the switch activated, it's not there, whether I like it or not, you just gotta plow ahead. Anyway, that's just one example. One of the more common examples you'll see of this involve games that have a lot of shooting, carnage, chaos, and craziness, only you just remove the shooting from the equation. I'm talking about passive runs through games like Contra 3. This game is hard enough on its own, of course, but relying just on jumping and dodging everything while still pressing onward gives games like this a whole new level of difficulty. Of course, there's always going to be certain sections that require you to shoot, like boss fights, but I mean, even on easy, this is hard as hell to pull off. Another game where I found this worked pretty well was Super R-Type. While games like Gradius 3 and Space Megaforce just have way too much going on for you not to be shooting, and something like R-Type 3 often restricts the space for you to dodge, which makes a passive run next to impossible, a passive run with Super R-Type is actually somewhat doable. I mean, it is hard as hell, but it is possible if you're looking for a crazy challenge. Another game that lets you alter the difficulty in a roundabout way is Earthbound. For instance, sometimes you'll be in battle and one of your characters will take a critical hit, but they don't die right away. That's because your hit points are dictated by a rolling odometer, and it stops whenever the battle is completed. And if you've taken a critical hit right before you defeat an enemy, something that's pretty common against, say, territorial oaks, you'll just end up with whatever hit points are left when you leave that screen. My friend from way back, who's apparently a masochist, said he once purposefully played through Earthbound with the tech speed set to slow. So when critical hits happen, descriptions of enemy attacks take longer, but the rolling health meter goes down at the same speed. Yeah, this mode is not for everyone obviously, only for the very, very patient since it's gonna extend the game time for everything, but still, it's kind of like a hard mode for Earthbound. So if that's what you're looking for, then try it out. As someone that's played through at least three or four full seasons of NHL 96, I got a tad bit burnt out on regular game, so what I started doing instead for a challenge was the practice mode, only I'd switch the options around so I'd be going against five opponents plus the goalie, versus only two players, myself and the goaltender behind me. This game mode started with NHL 95 and continued on through 98. And believe it or not, even one on five, it's still possible to win, as long as you're picking, say, the Flyers with Eric Lindross or the Nordiques or the Abbs with Joe Sackic, or just someone with some speed, and as long as your goalie doesn't totally suck. And you can pick your own handicap here, you don't have to be a nutcase like me, you can go two on five, or two on four, or whatever. Or you can even go five on zero and just score as many goals as you can on some poor, lonely goaltender. Here's a really cool one that not many people know about, mostly because it seems like not many people know about this game. It's front-mission gun hazard, my pick for the best game to never leave Japan, and believe it or not, once you get to a certain point in the story where you gain some allies, the game can be played with the second player. Okay, granted, you don't gain allies until several hours into the game, so it's one of those secret amount of type deals where you just have to let the story progress and meet the characters. But yeah, once that part is unlocked, so to speak, just have player two press L, R down and start at the same time on the second controller, and they can control the mech instead of the AI. There's lots of different types of mechs too, like the grenade-tossing Luven or Dr. Sakata's Gigantic Shield. It's just another way to enjoy an already awesome game. Here's a game titled Lamborghini American Challenge, a pretty standard racing game by all accounts, but it's a fun playthrough because it's got all sorts of other stuff going on, like making side bets with your rivals, and getting chased by cops who find you out of your prize money, which is pretty funny. But the weird thing about this game is that it's compatible with the Super Nintendo mouse. Wait, what? Yeah, you use the right mouse button to accelerate and the left to break, and you steer using the mouse, almost the same way like you would with an old PC joystick. It actually works really well, and it's a nice break from a D-pad. But in addition to that, what's even crazier is that this game is compatible with the Super Scope. Just start the game with it plugged in, and instead of racing your rivals, you just blow them up. That is awesome, and something totally different for the 16-bit racing genre. It's well worth checking out. Finally, when it comes to new ways to play older games, there's nothing more popular right now than randomizers. The most popular, of course, is Link to the Past, and it makes sense why. The randomizer formula works best with a treasure hunting structure, and Zelda lends itself perfectly to that. But it doesn't end with just Link to the Past. There's also ROM hacks that combine Link to the Past with Super Metroid, where you're searching for items Link can use throughout Zebus, and tracking down items throughout Hyrule that Samus can use. When you hit a dead end, you just flip from one game to the other. It's a brilliant idea, and it works really well. There are tons of randomizers out there, though, and there's a link in the description that lists many of them. For instance, Donkey Kong Country has one that randomizes enemies, Mega Man X has one that randomizes everything from the music to what items are where. Even boss health is varied. You could potentially run into a boss that has one health bar. It is hilarious. Although, conversely, you could potentially run into two bosses at the same time. That's brutal. There's also randomizers out there that need a lot of work, like Star Fox. I mean, holy crap, just look at this mess. But yeah, there's a whole bunch of them out there that are continually being worked on, and they're reasonably easy to set up. And even if they're kind of a broken mess, it's still kind of fun to play through older games with a new coat of paint. And I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.