"By 1988, Nintendo was pretty much ready to leave behind the lives system that had become such an integral part of video game identity. Having limited continues was an imported concept from arcade machines that didn’t really suit home console gaming in the first place, but it was the most convenient way for developers to work around the lack of save features of early generation hardware, as well as the relative brevity of the games due to their software restrictions. This rings especially true for action-oriented games like platformers. The first Super Mario Bros. is a prime example for this and arguably had the most accomplished implementation of this design philosophy at the time. Nintendo had no reason to fix an issue and at first glance it doesn’t look like they tried. You still start your adventure with a limited number of lives, the game still resets you to the beginning when you’ve lost them all, and there is still no save feature to be found whatsoever. However, once you start playing, you’ll quickly realize that this time, the developers really do not want you to run out of lives in the first place. The game throws so many possibilities to obtain extra lives at you that it sometimes felt like I was being showered in 1-Ups.
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