The first few boxers in the Punch-Out!! games have techniques that teach you how to play the game better.

Like Don Flamenco, for example.

The first time you fight him, you have to throw a punch (which he'll block), so he can counter it (he's kind of a showoff)

Dodge that and he'll be vulnerable to taking punches (like everyone else in the game).

But, unlike everyone else in the game, if you keep alternating left and right punches Don will never recover, letting you pummel him until he runs out of stamina and crashes to the mat.

Even better is that each time he gets up he gets a little more aggressive and throws the first punch, which you dodge, and then you can immediately start with the alternating jabs again.

Which means that you're going to win in record time.

Just be aware that this doesn't work the second time you have to face him.

In Super Mario Bros. 3, every time you score 80,000 points, you get to play the card matching game

Ignoring the grammar error, you are presented with a grid of 18 cards and have to try to match pairs of cards to get the powerups they contain.

If you fail twice, you have to stop and try again when you get another 80,000 points. But! The layouts aren't random. There are eight possible ways that they could be laid out.

And maybe you have a better memory than I do, but I can't remember eight layouts of 18 cards each. Sure, you could write them down, but then you'd have to make sure that you had your notes handy every time you played, which might be OK.

But, take a closer look at the second picture. Notice how the last 3 cards in the bottom row are Mushroom, Fire Flower, Starman? It turns out that those three cards are the same cards in the same order on all eight of the variations! Making it really easy to remember at least the three of them.

The first Mega Man game (like hundreds of other games) has a 'feature' where if you get hit, your character flashes for a few seconds and is invulnerable. And in Mega Man, this also extends to the boss characters. Probably to keep you from trapping them in a corner and getting a cheap victory.

But you can totally get a cheap victory anyway.

If you hit a Robot Master with a shot of any weapon you like, he'll start to flash

But if you hit Select to pause the game and wait a few seconds

You'll find that the momentary invulnerability he enjoys will wear off while the game is frozen.

Allowing you to unload a stream of shots, and as long as you pause between each one, they're all going to hit home.

Making it much easier to win.

The second Legend of Zelda game is the only one with this weird experience point system. Get enough points and you can level up your Attack, Life Points, or Magic Points. And, after a while, it takes a lot of points to get to the next level. Thousands of 'em, in fact.

But, if you go to the end of one of the Castles and set a jewel in the statue at the end, your experience is ratcheted up to the next level, no matter how much you have to go.

So, as soon as the experience starts counting up, pause the game

Do a Quick Save by hitting Up + A on Controller 2

And start a new game (or continue an old one)

You'll notice that your new Link will start to get the rest of the experience points that the old Link was going to get before you paused and exited the game!

Which is great for a few levels early on in the game.

Though this does have rather limited use. You have to actually get pretty far into the game for the amount of experience points that transfer to amount to more than a level or two for the new guy, which kind of implies that you're going to be pretty far in the game (or have finished it at least once). But if you're sharing the game with a less-skilled player, it's a good way to give him a bump up in strength to make the early going slightly easier.

The original Metal Gear game holds a special place in a lot of people's hearts. But sometimes you just don't have the time to play through the whole thing. Or, worse, you've lost your password that started you at the end of the game.

So what do you do?

Well, you could go to the password screen and put in "TOOOU" over and over again until you run out of room.

Which will start you just past the final boss battle!

All you have to do is survive a room full of guys and pick the correct door to leave (you have three choices)

Choose correctly and you too can pretend like you've actually finished Metal Gear!

Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball is an... interesting softball game for a lot of reasons, like the unique characters that are featured. Like Zelda the witch

But let's suppose for a minute that you went to the title screen

And while there you took Controller 2 and held Up while pressing A six times, then held Down while pressing B four times. Then used the Start button on controller 1 to start the game as normal. Then what would you have?

Well, nothing obvious. But when you get to the part of the game where the camera's zoomed out to show the field (i.e. after a ball's been hit), you can hold down the Start button and use the Control Pad to look at any part of the field you want.

Which is actually kind of useless since the default is for the camera to follow the ball so you can make plays. I really only found it useful as something to do after I hit a home run and was waiting for the guys to round the bases.

When you're playing through Chip 'N Dale's Rescue Rangers, you'll occasionally come across these grey crates that you have to stack up to make any progress.

But, if you grab one of the crates off the bottom of the stack, you're going to be in for a surprise, the ones on top don't fall down!

Which will allow you to do some interesting thing with their formations.

Toward the beginning of James Pond 2, you'll find a group of collectibles laid out as such:

Not too exciting, right?

But!

If you collect them in this order:

Cake
Hammer
Earth
Apple
Tap (at least, I'm pretty sure it's a Tap... like a spigot)

(the first letters of which conveniently spells out the word 'CHEAT'), you become invincible... for several minutes, in fact. I was able to clear out two whole areas and part of a third before it wore off. Just don't get too complacent, it will wear off without much of a warning.

One of the games I used to play a lot was Hero of the Golden Talisman for the Commodore 64.

But, as much as I played it, I never really got very far. Lots of the passages look alike, and it's real easy to get lost.

For some reason, it never dawned on me that I should have made a map, like this one (drawn by Michael Lambert and available here).

Which would have helped me figure out where I was, where to go, and how big the game actually is.

Any time you play a game with a moderately complex, maze-like layout (Metroid, I'm looking at you), drawing a map is a great way to keep track of where things are. And, no, they don't have to look great, they just need to be good enough that you can read and interpret them.

In Yoshi's Island you occasionally find a locked door that, when unlocked, will lead to a bonus game where you have to play a game against a Bandit for extra lives.

But what if you're low on lives and you haven't taken the time to stock up, and you don't want to bother going through a stage to find one of those locked doors?

Well, good news!

If you go the map screen

And on Controller 1 hold Select while pressing X, X, Y, B, A, you'll be greeted with fanfare and a new screen

Which lets you choose which of the mini games you want to play (as an added bonus, you can play a couple of them with a second player)

And if you lose, there's no penalty, so there's really no reason to not go for it.