It's honestly just okay in my opinion. It seems like people either love or absolutely hate this game, but I can't help but find myself gravitating somewhere in between. One hand, the concept of "SMB1, but harder" isn't necessarily a bad thing to me considering I've beaten the original too many times to count (including several times under the influence of our world's magic mushrooms...heh) and I can appreciate that concept. That being said...the hammer brothers spam, the dumb wind gimmick and springs that launch you at inconsistent heights and speeds are really god damned annoying and keep me from coming back to this game as much.

Although unofficial, I think there are a handful of hacks out there nowadays that do the whole "Mario...but for super players!" thing far better. SMB Special: 35th Anniversary comes to mind as far as the original game goes. Bandicoot's Super Mario World hacks (especially Crown Tale which I loved cringe story aside) also fit this bill nicely. None of those games get as hard as this one, but offer a comfortable step up in challenge IMO.

Esto es terror psicológico 🤡. De verdad que es muy injusto y no, no tanto es habilidad, también es culpa del juego en sí, es divertido pero no es apto para cardíacos 💀.
A y sí no están satisfechos, para jugar los mundos A-D es necesario pasarlo más de 7 veces 💀🤡.
-Extra: Esta versión es un remake en 16bits.
-Extra: Esta versión es la de Switch la cual está en HD.
Juego completado al 100%.

Mario ist deutlich sichtbar fett geworden, also soll er jetzt abnehmen.

Nintendo schickt ihn dafür durch eine Hölle aus Elementen, für die die Firma eigentlich nie bekannt war. Schlechte, unzuverlässige Steuerung, dazu unsichtbare Blöcke, die absichtlich so platziert sind, dass man in den Abgrund fällt (Kaizo-Blöcke), außerdem eine Menge Sprünge, bei denen man blind ins Nichts springt (Blind-Jumps).

Das häufig sadistische Leveldesign mit zufallsbasierten Gegner- und Plattform-Spawnpunkten, die irrsinnigen Bonus-Welten mit Unterwasser-Feuer sowie die grünen Trampoline, die einen ewig lang unsichtbar oberhalb des Bildschirms entlangfliegen lassen, machen das Durchspielen zu einer Qual. Durch Skill und Glück konnte ich es bis Level 7-4 komplett ohne Savestates schaffen. Immerhin sieht das Spiel in dieser Remaster-Fassung aber optisch sehr gut auf dem SNES aus.

Achievements: 87,5 %

I'm one of the few people who thinks this game is good, at least this Super Mario All-Stars version, thanks to it saving after each level, which does alleviate the frustration and makes overcoming tough challenges more satisfying. I also think this game is overhated. Aaaaaaaaaaand, here we go, my credibility goes from zero into negatives now.

(BTW, I recommend watching this retrospective by Jeremy Parish for the context behind this game, hopefully it'll give you a better understanding on why it is the way it is)

(Part 2 of 5)

So, as one could expect, the original Super Mario Bros. was a smash hit, not only bringing the video game industry back into a good state after a good period of uncertainty, but also selling a whopping 58 MILLION copies all the way up to this day, which is pretty damn impressive for what it is. With all that in mind, you know this instant success would lead Nintendo to immediately develop a follow-up for the game to capitalize on its success. Not only one follow-up, but… two of them? Yeah, we all know this at this point, but for those who somehow don’t, we would end up getting a doppelganger game, a fake Mario 2 you could say, which was still a good game, but not the true follow-up to the original. The original true sequel would stay in Japan for 7 years, and if you ask me, it is where the game should’ve stayed after all this time. For anyone who has played Super Mario Bros. 2, or The Lost Levels as it is more well known as, you know exactly why.

For those who may be unfamiliar with this game, you may not assume that much about it upon looking at it at first. It just seems like another batch of Super Mario Bros. levels, with a few changes here and there, and that’s it. So, what is the problem? Well, we will get to that in a second, but for everyone who has played this game, many of them would say that this game is one of, if not THE WORST Mario game ever made, even after all of this time, and I can’t help but partially agree with the wide majority on this. While I don’t think the game is complete garbage, as a sequel to the original game, it is pretty fucking terrible, not only being incredibly lazy, but also taking all of the elements that made the original game fun to play, and completely ruining them.

For the most part, the game is a complete copy of the original game, having the exact same graphics, the same music, the same story, the same control, the same gameplay, the same EVERYTHING. That’s not to say that nothing was added to the game though, as there are a few new elements…… key word being few. There is drop shadows on a lot of the text on screen, there is more detail given to a lot of the background elements and items, and there is one new item………. which hurts you whenever you touch it, so, you know, fuck all of the developers. At its core, it is mostly the same game as the original Super Mario Bros., so if you liked the gameplay of the original, you probably aren’t going to mind the gameplay in this game. But, there is one central element of this game that completely ruins the entire package: the level design.

The game was originally designed to be much harder than the original Super Mario Bros., to the point where the game is sometimes given the subtitle “For Super Players”, and you know what, I would say they succeeded in making the game harder. In fact, I would say they did TOO good of a job at this. As a whole, the level design of this game is not only made much harder then the original, but also made much more asinine, with there being plenty of bullshit moments where it feels like you need to have the skills of a god in order to get through them unscathed. Yes, it is all still possible to beat without getting hurt, but none of that is gonna be achieved without lots of practise, and piles of dead Marios that would reach to the height of the Empire State Building. Now, that’s not to say that extreme difficulty in video games is bad, as many games have been made that live or die on its tough challenge, especially nowadays, but the difference between this game and all of those games, is that those games have something called GOOD GAME DESIGN.

In addition to this bad level design, there are also plenty of dickish elements that were placed in the game that I can only assume was meant to make the player ask “Why”. Not only is there the item I mentioned earlier that is meant to kill you, but the warp pipes also make a return in this game. However, instead of sending you forward to a different world, it sends you BACK to previous worlds of the game, which makes me ask who would EVER use these pipes, and why? In addition to this, there is also a bunch of bonus levels that you can play for this game, which is pretty cool if there is somebody out there that wants to torture themselves any further for some reason. But, in order to unlock these bonus levels, you have to beat the game EIGHT TIMES, which also makes me ask, who the hell is gonna play through this game eight times, let alone TWO times? Except for, again, those who wanna torture themselves.

So yeah, as a whole, this game is pretty bad as a sequel, but you may be wondering, “Is there anything that this game does right compared to the original?” Well, yes, there is. As I mentioned before, despite there only being minor changes to them, the sprites and graphics are better as a whole, and in terms of my one problem with the original, they actually fixed it! In this game, whenever you do get a game over, instead of being sent back to the beginning of the game, you get sent back to the beginning of the world that you are on. It isn’t much of an improvement over the original game, as you do have to go through a bunch of poorly designed levels again, but at least it is some mercy that the original game didn’t give you. But aside from that, there are almost no other positives I can give this game, as it is still pretty bad.

Overall, despite an improved life system and some graphical updates, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is one of the best examples of how NOT to make a sequel to your video game, as it completely takes everything that made the original game so good and shoots it straight in the back of the head until it can’t bleed anymore. I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone, unless you just think Mario is too easy, and you want some more challenge from this series, because this game will certainly give you that and then some. And you wonder why they originally kept this game exclusive to Japan for a good while……… it’s a stupid reason, but hey, it is a valid one.

Remake #4

I saved stated my way through this over the course of the afternoon. If this was a regular Mario release, I'd be harsh on it, but it existing as a hardtype makes me forgive how unforgiving it is.

Being that it's looser with proper level design, there's a lot of interesting gameplay concepts like having to find the secret beanstalk to progress to the next level or having to hop off of parakoopas to get to higher and necessary platforms.

Nothing I'd want to play seriously, but a fascinating game.