I’ll be honest, I’m not good at video games. But that doesn’t stop me from playing them. In fact, it only motivates me to play them more in a feeble and mostly fruitless attempt at trying to improve.

Recently my boyfriend and I have been playing through Super Mario Wonder, and It’s been fun! For me at least.

This is the first time I’ve played through a game in the Super Mario franchise start to finish, and that fact is very apparent to any Mario veterans who might be watching me play. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, my boyfriend has been playing these games since his childhood, and in that time has become fluent in the language of Mario.

There’s a canyon-sized gap in skill between us. Which combined with the way the game controls, makes for the most chaotic experience in a video game I have ever had.

The game focusses the camera on the player with the most points. The issue that mechanic faces with us is that position flip-flops between pulling the camera back and forth and forcing one (or both) of us off the edge of a platform, and into the endless void below.

But there are also times where our individual skill levels come in. He finishes a section with ease while I fall so far behind the camera can’t see me anymore and I get pulled off the edge. This is a common occurrence in any co-op platforming game we’ve played together, but it happens so much more in Mario specifically!

So many levels are under a time limit, or they scroll automatically, and my lack of coordination with a controller simply stresses both of us out.

We’ve been playing for a few months now, and I still cannot remember what each button does. But can you blame me really when every company labels them differently?