Once you get the hang of things in Super Mario Bros. the game becomes pretty easy. Enemies have predictable patterns, and with a little patience, there’s little in the way of challenge outside of timing your mad dash for every Bowser visit. But there’s one area of the game that never gets easy and to this day still makes me nervous.

The Hammer Bros drunkenly move and jump, with no predictable pattern that I’ve noticed (other than they have a limited left to right movement), and just when you think it’s safe to dash through, one of them jumps down. Or one of the eight zillions hammers they throw smashes in your face. You can kill them by jumping on them, which is practically suicide (i.e. a hammer to the crotch) or hitting the brick below them, which is harder than it seems given their unpredictability.

If you only have a couple of lives left by the time you get to 8-3, it’s time to do a lot of praying.