Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels

I

think it's right before The Lost Levels.

It was a promotion of the Japanese Mario 2.

So what does this anime do with the

You know, "You want me to make, like..." You know, Super Mario Bros.

2, the, the actual one, which, which in the West was eventually called The Lost Levels, really is just Super Mario Bros., um, with different levels.

Uh, and they didn't bother to sell that in the US.

So, um, it, it may have been the case that just they could not have made, um, a game that was truly bigger and better than the last one with the technology that they had at the time, and then eventually they could.

He was like a, a, a play tester and gave impressions of games.

But he was a public spokesman for Nintendo, uh, Stateside, and probably his most, uh, notorious claim to fame is he is one of the main reasons that Super Mario Brothers 2, which eventually came here as The Lost Levels, was not originally released in the States when it came out.

He was the one who told Nintendo Japan that he felt like it was too punishing and, uh, didn't really innovate enough to grab American atte- North American attention.

So he's one of the reasons that we got the Super Mario Brothers 2 that we did.

But yeah, I mean, all the games here are obviously good.

There's Super Mario Brothers 1, 2, and 3, and the Lost Levels.

I think the Lost Levels gets a little unfairly shit on because that's the original Super Mario Brothers 2, of course, and that was made in an era where Gamers hated themselves and just wanted to be punished in one of the most challenging thing imaginable.

That was the design mindset.

Uh, so as long as you go into it knowing that, is The Lost Levels that bad of game? Not really.

So you're getting four, uh, well, you're getting three amazing platformers and a good platformer, just a very challenging one in Super Mario Bros. 2, are The Lost Levels, and really can't complain with that.

Uh, throw a little cherry on top of that when you have the s- somewhat semi-rare, uh, compilation cart of Super Mario World and Super Mario All-Stars.

I really don't think in terms of a pure platforming 16-bit experience on the Super Nintendo you can beat that.

Like, I think that would just feel weird, and it would take away a lot of the charm, like you're talking about.

However, I do think one of the best remakes of all time, and maybe you could quibble with me and, and say that this is actually a remaster, Super Mario All-Stars was a, uh, incredible remake compilation where it was one, two, three, and Lost Levels, and all remade in kind of like the Super Mario World adjacent-

Yeah

... art style.

[laughs]

I, I don't, I'm, I'm not a big fan of how they made Mario look in, uh, Mario 1 and Lost Levels.

It's...

I- in All-Stars.

you i mean you know initially a lot of super mario world and then i just remember all-stars like blowing our minds Because we knew enough to know that those were the NES games, but now they're in 16-bit.

And then you had the Lost Levels, and that was, like, this mysterious, weird thing where you're like, what is this? What do you mean there was a Japan-only, you know? So I remember a lot of time with that, especially that first day, like...

not being good, because I was like, oh, well, it's Super Nintendo, so I've got to be better at Super Mario Bros. than this version.

No.

Mario Bros. 3 started development just after the original Super Mario Bros. 2 came out for the Famicom disk system in Japan.

Uh, we know it in the west as The Lost Levels.

Mm-hmm.

But that means it had a two-year development cycle.

Like, it was, uh, like, at, at the time it was a, it was a million-dollar-plus development budget.

It was immense.

And when you just compare it to Mario Bros. and Mario Bros. 2: The Lost Levels, and this, the overworld map, the, the, the changes in the sprites-

Mm-hmm

Well, there is a Super Mario 2 in Japan that is just like the first game, except it's like way more difficult.

I think it was put out in the States as The Lost Levels.

Correct.

Yeah.

On the Super Mario All-Stars cartridge, it was The Lost Levels, which was technically the real Super Mario 2.

It gets confusing.

Anyway, just to give that one more minute on the tangent, the newer movies, I watched the Super Mario movie, which I've had on Blu-ray for a few years, which I remember I put on a year ago and had to go to orchestra practice 20 minutes and it never finished.