Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (1986)

Now I Know Why I Never Beat This As a Kid. We had the amazing 'Super Mario All-Stars' for the SNES growing up and we just thought these were some extra levels thrown in for added value, but in reality this was Mario 2 all along...not that "other weird one". (That we also never beat) We never got far in this one, and there's some absolute moronic and unfair sections of the game, but a lot of the time, if you just use momentum (or not) and 30+ years of platforming expertise - you CAN do it! I believe in you.

However, it's fundamentally too difficult, riddled with trial-and-error and purposefully fucks with you at times. I hear the actual Famicom version is even more unforgiving, so it was probably a good idea they never released this onto the unsuspecting western public.

Get Lost!

[2.3] / [5]

Like how you can make spicy food ridiculously spicy without any complex or complimentary flavor, they took that philosophy with this game. While it certainly is significantly more challenging than the original game, it relies heavily on secret paths and blind jumps to elevate difficulty which honestly doesn't feel satisfying to overcome. Everytime I ran into a proverbial wall, eventually looking up online the solution, I never thought to myself "ah hah! Wow that was clever!" Instead I thought "WTF?! That's bullshit!"

It does still maintain the core mechanics and art direction that make the original charming, but it's hard for me to get on board with this. I can understand how this could be appealing to someone, but I honestly felt the same way as I felt with the Ocarina of Time Master Quest. More obtuse than satisfyingly challenging.

After over 20 years of being stuck on world 5-3, with multiple runs ending the same way over the years, I decided to give this yet another go (this time not the DX version on the GBC, but the original NES). As far as I'm concerned, these levels could've stayed lost. Favorite moments include: Dead ends and those mazes that make you redo the level if you don't go down the correct path, constantly falling into pits because of how ridiculously difficult it is to time spring jumps, and last but not least the warp zone that forcefully took me all the way back to world 1-1.

Still, I'm reminded of that warm summer day when we went out grilling with the family, and I got a purple Gameboy Color and a copy of Super Mario Bros. DX for my 7th birthday. Although it was done by warping past world 5-3 right to 7-1, I've now finally fulfilled what little me had set out to accomplish and beaten this game.

The Lost Levels is the "real" Mario Bros. 2, which was not released outside of Japan due to being "too difficult" for western audiences. I would go further, and say that The Lost Levels is not only difficult, but actively hostile towards the player, introducing a ridiculous group of levels that I think only a very small subset of people can enjoy. I am not one of those people.

If there's anything positive I can say towards The Lost Levels, it’s that it carries forward a lot of the good core mechanics from the original Super Mario Bros. Controlling Mario feels as great as always, and we now have Luigi as a playable character option with slightly different physics. This game picks up right where the original game left off, not only in terms of mechanics, but also in difficulty.

The Lost Levels doubles down on a lot of the worst mechanics from the first game. This includes more horrid level design that relies on secret paths that are impossible to know unless you trial and error it out, or look it up online. And just like with those same levels in the back-half of the original Super Mario Bros., I'll say again: this type of design does NOT work when you have a timer counting down to your doom. On top of this, The Lost Levels introduces new terrible level types of its own, including a horrible trampoline level that requires you to make a sequence of ridiculous blind jumps, and moments where you purposely have to take damage to proceed. Most commonly, there will simply be a brutal amount of obstacles that push things from "difficult" to "unfair."

I just don't find this game to be fun, and that's probably why I have never beaten it before. But now I have, thanks to the rewind feature on the Switch Online app. Without it, I can tell you I wouldn't have bothered, but below is the proof that I persevered until the end of this game. Now that I can say I've beaten it, I am never going to play this again, unless I feel like I need a reason to punish myself.

Preliminary: I know it must just be me and not having played the first Super Mario Bros for a bit but the momentum and mid-jump-change-direction controls seem different from what I remember. Rare that I do this in a Mario, but since I totally don't know these levels, and they're infamously hard, I'm not just running all the time! Didn't like my first taste of a Bad Mushroom but I was getting along just fine. Plus I was playing as Luigi! (Ok, maybe later in the game I started running a lot of the time lol)

Look: 7/10 I mean, it's exactly the first game, just new levels right? I will be saying this a lot in the review, but it's like those fan-made super-hard silly levels people make

Sound: 7/10 Again, it's the original. And the ending song wasn't particularly good either.

Play: 8/10 Ohhhh maybe some of the quirky-feeling controls, considering it wasn't that long ago that I played the first Super Mario Bros, is that I'm playing as Luigi. Regardless, some of the mechanics are outright clunky, like a couple times I jumped off a bullet that I clearly was hit by etc. One definite thing, like with the first Super Mario Bros though, is what a deliciously responsive jump button! No matter how clunky the momentum was in that moment you could almost always still fit in a jump!... even if the momentum/direction wound up not where you expected ha

Lol those trampolines in 2-1 (I accidentally got to a level warp, I had a tendency to do that in the first Mario and they had it in the same cave 1-2 level! woops!). You jump up in the air for some ambiguous amount of time then suddenly drop down. A lot of this seriously feels like fan hacks tbh. And lol that you can jump over the flagpoles, did that happen in the first game??? Feels really fanmade-ish. (And indeed, the trampoline mechanics exploits in later levels like 4-3 were just awkward and remind me of microcomputer/speccy/c64 platformers where they have toexploit a quirky or faulty mechanic to add difficulty).

The collision masks of the Fire Bars is super messy and they clearly want you to learn them and exploit them (like C64 amateur programmers used to do). Like, at some angles/spots, the Fire Bars get ya, but if you duck in a corner despite 2 full fire balls being in your sprite, you don't get hurt lol. And you need to know this to get through certain levels. Classic platformer antic, but silly for an NES game. Nintendo certified usually has a higher quality than that.

Feel: 7/10 Lol! I was so proud of finding the Warp Zone in 3-1 but then realized it's back to World 1 >.< (3-1 was such a short and silly level in its normal form...) And now I gotta deal with a water world without Fire Mario (which the water mechanics are still so bad lol especially the momentum factor/dropping down/bouncing off things) . Annnnd now a Castle/Bowser without Fire Mario >.< Gr. 3-4 apparently is one of those levels where you have to go the "right path" to move on properly, never was a fan of those "secrets" in the first Mario Bros. I had no interest in figuring it out myself, especially with only 2 lives left and just a Big Mario. The fact I went straight to looking up the path isn't so positive for how much I was enjoying the game: I do really love the first Mario Bros and was having a lot of fun with this too, felt like a continuation from where it left off, but the levels just felt... silly? Amateurish? Something. (Well, the 3-4 Bowser wasn't bad as just a Big Mario, but still...)

Attachment: 7/10 Woops, accidentally warped from World 5 to World 7. Unlike the original Super Mario Bros, I didn't feel the need to replay to see all of the levels though--it had nothing strikingly new from the first game and had some goofy level designs. Ironic, though, that the good warp, that skips to worlds, was easier to find than the "bad warp" that brought you backward that I stumbled upon (luckily they had a fall in there so you could kill yourself instead ha)

Ohhhh, yea I just read up: Luigi has a higher jump but has worse traction. Makes sense! I should've played as Mario >.< lol. Then it would have matched the first game better. Meh. Wait omg I just read there are 13 worlds?! That's too many! (Oh, phew, I read on Wikipedia it's only 8, so I'm almost done).

Lol at 7-3's odd use of the awful trampoline mechanic in this. So illogical but luckily didn't take long to figure its illogical nature out. Ugh, I was going to say how I love moments like these--coming upon secrets based on the usual mechanics of the game--but nope. The utter pettiness. I got up here, which should always mean access to something cool or at least skip through the level but nope. You just reach the edge of the level and can't move on... so had to wait for the timer to go down to die. If only could go backward... Lame. That had to be intentional design too

I took a break for the rest of the night after that frustrating moment haha. Welp, replaying it, luckily stumbled upon a Big Mario Mushroom. Not a fan of how much they use the faults of the first Mario in this. Again, it really feels amateurish, can't believe this was a legitimate sequel while Zelda 2 and Castlevania 2 made such bold strides as sequels this was just like the first Mario but as if it had been a C64 platformer. Sorry C64 purists, but I look for more, or rather a different quality, in my NES platformers. God the rest of this level would've been so much easier as Fire Mario ha, but nooo I had to go up there. But bam! I made fast work of the stretch before Bowser and ran under him as he jumped and finished him off immediately. Now that's that classic Mario feeling I want more of.

8-2 did start to have a unique/interesting look, at least. And I do like how that secret worked, reminded me of Super Mario World style secret. No spoiling :-p It's actually doable. And lol the final Bowser was a joke as per usual, I was even a small Mario because I had accidentally ran into a fire projectile from Bowser Brother or w/e.

Oh wait, so there are 13 worlds?! Just 4 of them are secret?! Well, because I used a Warp, I guess I don't get access to them? And tbh, that's fine with me. Neat secret though.

Not one I plan to return to, but it's still that classic Mario gameplay I can't deny I love. Even as frustrating as it was. Felt like a C64 amateur programmer was given Super Mario Maker back in 1986 ha. Again, though, still can't deny my love of Mario gameplay. I'm a sucker for it.

Completion: All 8 regular worlds, 527300 Score (I only had one life left for the bonus at the end ha) Playtime: ~1 hour

So I remember playing this some as a kid on my super Nintendo but always bouncing off it...now I know why. As an adult playing with the save state on the switch, beating this game (all the way through world d) was extremely challenging and I can confidently say I would not have beat it any other way. While increases difficulty was nice, this game is so cheap and requires such precise playing that is asking a lot of it's primitive controls.

But I still can't deny the Mario flow in it...this game felt like the major precursor to the Mario maker games.

Pros:

• Added difficulty is a great challenge for people coming from the 1st game.
• Level design asks more from the player. Players will make use of more mechanics from the game. (The 1st level requires bonking a mushroom from below to retrive it.)
• Warp zones return to help pacing in return playthroughs. It also includes an evil warp that sends you backwards in progression!
• More levels than the original with the A-D world's.

Cons:

• This game is hard. On top of the live and continue system makes it brutal to actually complete.
• Same graphics as the 1st game, which makes it feel less distinct.
• Not many new concepts were introduced since the 1st game. The level design is distinctively different, but the enemies and power-ups are the same, which is disappointing.
• It is generally hard to find this game in the U.S. The confusing naming convention does not help.

Fun for enthusiasts of the 1st game, but it doesn't do much to separate itself from it.

Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels is one of the coolest entries in the franchise in many ways.

Picture this, You live in the United States, and the only Mario 2 you ever knew of was the US version that was just a reskin of Doki Doki Panic and you got yourself the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. You hear about the next new game, Super Mario All-Stars and you rush to buy it. All the games you knew and loved are on there. Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3. But you notice a game you never heard of before. Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels. You play the game and you get your ass kicked.

Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels made its way to the US under these conditions. But Japan had this game for a lot longer than we had.

When making Super Mario Bros. 2 after the success of the first game, Nintendo believed that the US would struggle with the new game. So they made a different game entirely for the US. Japan got a different Super Mario Bros. 2... Which would morph into Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels for the US.

The Lost Levels isn't anything special. It's basically Super Mario Bros. The presentation is the same, the number of levels is the same, the number of worlds is the same, it has the same power-ups, etc. But what this game has that the first game doesn't is Luigi.

Luigi is playable and is basically the easy mode. He jumps higher at the expense of him having a hard time stopping. Besides that, he isn't much different from Mario in terms of gameplay...

No, what truly makes this game different from Super Mario Bros. is the sheer difficulty. Imagine if World 8-4 (The Final World and Level) of Super Mario Bros. was every level. That's what we are looking at here. This is the hardest Mario game I've played (At least in the 2D) titles. It's extremely unforgiving and requires quick reaction timing and tricky platform and obstacle maneuvering. Rather than keeping up the momentum to beat the level, the game becomes a challenge of memorizing the levels after dying over and over again. It's as if Super Mario Maker levels were every level.

And I don't hate this. I love it. Though this game makes me wanna throw my controller into the wall, pull my hair out, and smash my table with a sledgehammer, I still love it. I welcomed the challenge and beating the game was extremely satisfying.

They were right when they thought the US would struggle with it

3/5

Would Recommend

Beat on SNES Super Mario All Stars right after beating Super Mario Bros 1, so I was familiar with the controls. I never played this before. I played as Luigi just to be different, not knowing about the mechanical differences. His higher jumps felt like cheating, but I did have a few deaths from his skidding into drops or enemies. I used save state scumming to erase all deaths, and there were some very hard parts. I never managed to keep fireball for any of the Bowser fights from worlds 1 to 9, and I never used warps. I loaded the state if I found a warp secret. Then I did the A to D worlds. In A1, I think, I got over the flagpole to the fort beyond. I did not think that was possible. Then in D1 I got into the single most difficult situation. C4 castle had a fire rotator that I could not figure out how to get past so I just took the hit. So I started D4 small and right at the beginning is 2 hammer bros with a big pit directly behind. The upper platform overhangs the lower so you can't get up there or use the lower to jump over the pit. Big form could just break the blocks, but instead I had to perfectly time the jump to hit the koopa flying across the pit to get enough distance and not hit the overhang.

This was so much harder than the original game but I did like how they explored the mechanics and mixed things up. Like flooded normal levels, aquatic enemies in the air and normal enemies under water. It is not as good as the original though. Definitely feels like an expansion. Hard to give a proper rating since it is a bit too hard for many and I am not sure how well I would have received it as a kid. It could be anything from a 7 to 9, but I'll average it out.

8.0/10

...It's crazy hard. And not really worth it IMO. The game is basicallly a SMB revisitiation with some extras thanks to expanded memory, sound and pallete and other things, but the controls are just as slippy, and for me the game emulated with some sprite lag when things get busy in way none of these games did on NES. Still for sake of memories here are some good bits