LostLevels

Take the original SuperMarioBrothers Nintendo game. Add some more levels. Differentiate Mario and Luigi's abilities. Add poisonous mushrooms. Make the enemies (especially hammer brothers) more intelligent. Have more stages with "looping" sections (requiring the player to go through the stage *exactly* as the game desires, or else it throws you back to the beginning). Add the concept of "wind" to some stages. Stick in a lot more springboards--some of which keep you off screen for about 5-10 seconds (real time). Make a couple of "optional" Bowsers. Create a larger number of difficult jumps requiring perfect timing. Add a MetricBoatLoad of pure evil.

Then add about 10,000 turps more of pure evil.

You might be getting the picture at this point. (Assuming you caught KurtDresner's explanation of the unit "turp". Note: A particularly annoying hammer brother in the late stages received a rating of 70 turps.)

I think it is interesting to point out that the so-called Lost Levels were only 'lost' in the US. They were included in a NES Super Mario Bros. game called SMB2(J) that was not released in the US. SMB2(US) is actually a Japanese game called "Doki Doki Panic" that was Marioized for its US release. SMB2(US) was released later in Japan with its Mario textures under the name "Super Mario USA". Anyway, by SMB3, both the Japanese and US Mario series had the same numbering.

I didn't see a mushroom that was obtainable after C-4 until I rescued the princess (for the *second* time) after beating D-4. I hadn't seen a fire flower since an even earlier castle (I'm pretty sure it was all the way back in 8-4, but no promises on that one--I know it required looping back to get a hidden item block twice). 1UPs? Virtually non-existent. There are probably 5 times as many poison mushrooms as there are 1UPs. There is a mushroom in D-3 that's not too hard to get.

Through all of this, I have one thing to say:

This is the best game I've played in a *long* time. It was amazingly fun, even taking the staggering level of evilness into account. Oh yeah, and it was *hard*. Hard like only early Nintendo games can be, except more so. Games have been getting easier as time passes; I can't remember the last time a game has challenged me so much. Assuming perfect play, I'd bet it could be beaten in around 45 minutes (no warping). It took me between 10 and 11 hours.

No matter how much swearing this game induced, I loved it. The next time I have a *lot* of time to kill, I'm going to do it again. In one run through of the game, I'm sure there's plenty that I missed--hey, I didn't find any warps, forward or backward (yes, I did say "backward"; there are warps that force you *back* to earlier levels--talk about EVIL!).

--DanCicio

AlexBobbs: I've revisited this game this summer and have conquered it (Yes, even I am surprised. It only took a good chunk of my weekend.). I find that Luigi actually suits me best and has made several parts a LOT easier. Basically, Luigi has crap control on the ground (takes too long to speed up and slow down) but makes up for it with amazing arial abilities. He jumps really high and even higher when bouncing off enemies. What this boils down to is a change in tactics: Rather than trying to make all the difficult jumps as intended, Luigi can actually clear some difficult areas entirely (even when it looks like you can't), especially if there are enemies around to keep him in the air. Oh, and don't rely on being able to stop, just keep going, making death-defying arial stunts as needed. And did I mention how incredibly nice it is to easily clear the entire throwing range of hammer brothers (given no roof)?

Strangely enough, given my playing style, I can't stand using Luigi. Anyone who's watched me play--and there are a bunch of you--will say that I never stop running and jump frequently. It may just be that I'm so used to the controls of Mario from the other Mario games that Luigi is just too much of a stretch, but I'm convinced that his crappy acceleration and breaking don't compensate for his somewhat more impressive jumping ability. Maybe I'm just good enough at jumps with Mario that it's moot. Meh. Luigi can suck it. Plus, there are enough levels where excessive jumping ability is actually a *hindrance* (mostly the dungeons) that I pick Mario hands down. --DanCicio

I'm wondering what people thought were the most evil sections of the game. Feel free to add to this list.

• The exit to 8-2 being placed in a very unorthodox area
• the two "well"-placed hidden blocks (containing poison mushrooms, of course) at the exact spots where you want to jump past the pair of hammer brothers in 8-3
• hell, *all* of 8-3 Die! Die! Die!
• wind + off-screen springboards (7-3 and D-3, I believe)
• the loop in 8-4
• the smallinator in C-4 (eliminating the possibility of letting Bowser hit you so you could have a free run at the axe) Hell, can you even get past that when you're small?
  • I've done it. It's not easy. My preferred method is to be big and just take the hit. (Actually, I'm pretty sure it can be done while *big*, I just haven't invested the time and energy to prove it.)--DanCicio
• the "mushroom block of doom", which was a regular mushroom block, but was hidden so that DanCicio bounced off it into the lava.
• The warp back to level 1-1 on 3-1. They make it disturbingly easy to get to, too. --EdMiller There's another one of these backwards warps that you get to using a beanstalk (World 7, I believe)
  • At least they warn you that you're about to warp backwards, so you can just stand there and let time run out. It still sucks, though.--DanCicio
• The ceiling of hidden blocks in D-3 where you must dodge canon shots and hammer brothers
• The Leap of Faith (TM) with a pirana plant on the other side (though I found that going to the edge of the runway, waiting about 5 seconds, and then jumping gets consistently good results)
  • The trick about this one is that enemies don't exist until they're onscreen. You need to get it onscreen by going as far to the right as possible and waiting a moment before jumping. Believe it or not, with a small bit of practice and good timing, this is doable without triggering the plant before jumping--but probably not with Luigi.--DanCicio I believe it, and it may even be possible with Luigi, but it just looked much easier my way.-AlexBobbs
• The optional Bowser, guarding a very tempting row of Item Boxes, ALL CONTAINING COINS!!!