User:Remely1000/sandbox/2

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (in Japan known as Super Mario Bros. 2: For Super Players) is a platform video game developed and published by mh:awesomegames:Nintendo for the mh:awesomegames:Family Computer Disk System.

The first time this game was released outside of Japan was its remake in mh:awesomegames:Super Mario All-Stars for the mh:awesomegames:Super Nintendo Entertainment System, where it gained its title Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels in 1993. Then, as part of Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, it was redone and renamed as Super Mario Bros. for Super Players. It was later released on the mh:awesomegames:Game Boy Advance, however, like the original release, it was only released in Japan. Eventually, the game came out as a limited-edition mh:awesomegames:Game & Watch game (bundled with mh:awesomegames:Super Mario Bros. and mh:awesomegames:Super Mario Bros. 3) to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Super Mario series.

Gameplay
The game is similar to the first game in style and gameplay, apart from a steep increase in difficulty. Like the original, Mario or Luigi venture to rescue the Princess from Bowser. Unlike the original, the game has no two-player option and Luigi is differentiated from his twin plumber brother with reduced ground friction and increased jump height. The Lost Levels also introduces setbacks such as poison mushroom power-ups, counterproductive level warps, and mid-air wind gusts. The game has 32 levels across eight worlds as well as 20 bonus levels.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The gameplay, while too difficult and infuriating, is decently fun at times, particularly in the normal sections, there are also some levels that are still worth playing, it can also be fun and challenging for experienced players looking out for a challenge.
 * 2) *Also the gameplay and the controls of the first game are decently functional on some occasions, although they are not enough.
 * 3) Different stage types allow for variety,although there's not much variety. The overworld is bright and cheerful and the more common stages. The underworld is dark and features a ton of bricks that can be destroyed. The water stages allow Mario to swim around and avoid enemies and the castles have obstacles that must be avoided and treetop levels are levels that require you to jump on precise platforms while dodging enemies.
 * 4) Castles finally count your remaining time by adding it to your score.
 * 5) Although executed in a mediocre way, the replay value is interesting, with five more challenging bonus worlds, interestingly, there are 3 general routes through the game (to an "end"): Worlds 1-9, Worlds 1-8 (with warps), Worlds A-D (unlocked after beating the game 8 times). All-Stars changes the way you unlock Worlds A-D, making you just have to complete World 8 to unlock these bonus worlds.
 * 6) The music is still good, catchy, and accurate for each level theme just like the first game, although no new songs were included and the music can become very repetitive.
 * 7) The controls are quite solid and functional on their own merits, also the skid and the momentum is precise like the first game, although as indicated above, Luigi is very slippery to control.
 * 8) Luigi, for the first time, handles differently from Mario, as his jumps are much higher than Mario's but he is more slippery to control. This would be seen in almost all his playable appearances in future games.
 * 9) The version included in Super Mario All-Stars is a bit fairer and more playable, although it is still quite difficult and infuriating to play.
 * 10) *The Super Nintendo version as stated above makes it so that you only have to complete World 8 once to unlock Worlds A-D (once without warping to reach World 9).
 * 11) *Looping castles give an audible indication if the player is going through the wrong or right paths.
 * 12) *Also the game has been redesigned with better graphics, (including completely new graphics for the poison mushroom) and includes more frequent checkpoints to save player progress.
 * 13) *The springboards in Worlds D-2 and C-3 have been fixed so they always spawn as they're supposed to.
 * 14) Notably, every updated version of the game has done something to make it slightly easier. The All-Stars and Deluxe ports save the game on a per level basis, rather than a per world basis as is the case with every other game it includes. The Super Mario All-Stars also makes Worlds 9 and A-D much easier to get as stated above.  Even the straight ports of the original game for the Virtual Console and Nintendo Switch Online are made slightly easier with the addition of save states.
 * 15) * As previously stated, the poison mushroom has been redone in the All-Stars and Deluxe ports, being made dark purple on white in the former and dark green over purple in the latter, both having a distinct skull graphic on their stems, to further distinguish them from power-ups and discourage players from touching them.
 * 16) The Power-Ups from the first game are back, and minus a single instance with a star and a flying Koopa Troopa, they are still very useful.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The Poison Mushrooms are a stupid move. They even had the nerve to put one in the first row of coin blocks that you encounter. The demo player outright drives into one of them to show the poison mushroom's effect. The Super Mushroom, on the other hand, is within brick blocks that a newcomer might not know to hit.  Worse yet, it is between solid blocks that make it harder to reach. Also, poisonous mushrooms are a nuisance, scattered widely throughout much of the game, often found within easily reachable bricks or coin blocks, and look similar to 1-up mushrooms, only with a darker shade of green and blue.
 * 2) Most new features included in this game are badly or terribly implemented because of different problems:
 * 3) * The new difficulty is made in a rather mediocre way, with too many sections with exaggerated traps and leaps of faith, plus awkward physics makes the game feel weird to play.
 * 4) *The level design doesn't fit with physics and the Mario series, saturated with frustrating sections where you have to have too much precision or you'll have a certain death, the design is so heinous that most of the article will focus on this.
 * 5) *New obstacles, such as poisonous mushrooms, air gusts, and more aggressive variants of enemies, air bursts are often needed to cross wide gaps, but make precision jumps more difficult.
 * 6) *Luigi's new way of moving is poorly implemented, jumps higher but reduces friction, which is quite slippery and results in many cheap deaths because Luigi does not fit the level design.
 * 7) The original Super Mario Bros. was generous with the secrets hidden in the levels, giving you access to hidden parts of a level like pipes that led to hidden rewards, or warp pipes that you could access if you were good at the game? Well... In Lost Levels, the game unfairly penalizes you for wanting to look for secrets. There are parts of the level design that you would believe at first instance that lead you to some secret that is worthwhile in the level, but no, they only lead you to traps that reflect cruel level design, with false rewards of that type, with segments in which you get stuck and there is no choice but to commit suicide as previously mentioned or warp pipes that return you to world 1-1 just for being curious.
 * 8) There are two Warp Zones that take you backwards. The first one is in World 3-1, which takes you back to World 1, and the second one is in World 8-1, which takes you back to World 5.
 * 9) *Speaking of which, in order to unlock World 9, you have to beat the entire game without using Warp Zones. Similarly, to unlock Worlds A-D, you have to beat the game eight times without using Warp Zones (That is sixty-four worlds. That is two hundred and fifty-six levels, it can take more than seven hours just to unlock world A), this artificially extends the game's length through forced repetition,it's too frustrating and repetitive to play the game eight times due to artificial difficulty and because you have to play everything again several times and it gets boring very fast, plus you're forced to unlock these worlds if you want to complete the game,besides that bonus worlds are bad and a few levels are recycled from the other worlds, it's a pathetic excuse for replayability.
 * 10) *In many instances of reaching backwards Warp Zones, there's a conveniently-placed pit where you can kill yourself to avoid warping back. If it doesn't, such as the one in 8-1, you can always just wait for the timer to expire.
 * 11) Although the graphics are still good, some new sprites look bad, the ground sprite is overly rocky and grainy looking, and lacks a distinguishable edge, which doesn't go good at all with the other more simplistic sprites. When you rescue Peach, Bowser's castle lights up into a light blue color. Due to the "black" pixels in the sprites of Peach, the Toads, and the bricks actually being non-existent (giving the illusion that those sprites have black pixels due to the black background), this causes those sprites to look odd when the castle light up. Peach and the Toad's eyes glow a light blue, while the bricks look like they're floating. This can be seen here.
 * 12) The controls, while still good and functional like the first game, have a few problems related to the level design.
 * 13) *Mario's jump is very stiff and running momentum is very high so it can be an issue on single-block platforms, in some narrow sections, or sections with strange designs.
 * 14) *In this game, Luigi's handling differs from Mario's. He can jump higher, and while you may think this is helpful, unfortunately, the drawback of this is that Luigi has reduced friction, making it feel as if you're walking on ice, and the increased jump height is mostly redundant as Mario can reach the same places normally, so playing as Luigi is nothing more than a handicap to the game as it makes levels more difficult. Luigi is only recommended to use if you are a masochist.
 * 15) While the camera is decent, limit your vision in several sections, which is bad, since the game is full of unfair obstacles and traps that are not self-deductible at first glance, the camera automatically moves according to Mario/Luigi's movement, so you can't see enemies and traps until they reach them, which most often results in cheap deaths, also because your vision is limited, jumping on small platforms is more coerced and there are too many sections with precise jumps that feel uncomfortable.
 * 16) Worlds A-D are very hard and yet they're supposed to be rewards, it also not worth spending your time experimenting with how the game is artificially stretched just to unlock Worlds 9 and A-D. For example, the insipid level C-3 literally consists of jumping off cliffs with a spring and praying that the wind doesn't kill you so that you land on ridiculously small platforms. Being a long game doesn't make it "good".
 * 17) *Also, you don't get any special rewards or even dialogue changes for rescuing Peach in these worlds. Also, didn't Mario and Luigi rescue Peach already?
 * 18) The game is very short (although this is understandable because it is a Famicom Disk System video game) and can be completed in two hours or an hour if you are very good, but the game has a replay value with bonus worlds which is made in a rather mediocre way, since you have to complete the game eight times without using warp zones, which takes a long time (eight hours or more to be exact), it's pretty tedious and bonus worlds are also not worth it, but the replayable value was best done in the Super Mario All-Stars version although the bonus worlds are still bad.

Super Mario Bros. Deluxe

 * 1) In the Super Mario Bros: Deluxe version the screen is cropped and some features are omitted, such as the wind and Goomba Springboard mechanics, making some jumps extremely difficult, and the five bonus Worlds were also removed, so you don't get any reward when you pass the game eight times, due to the limited memory of the Game Boy Color, also the game screen is so cropped that it makes playing even more difficult. Sometimes you can't even tell if there's a pit or solid ground below you,blind jumps are common, hammers will fly out of nowhere and you better hope a Goomba doesn't fall out of the sky. Also, this version has the same jumping physics as the original Super Mario Bros., making moves such as reaching the exit in World 8-2 more difficult to perform.
 * 2) *On the flipside, there is no blowing wind in Deluxe, and gaps that required it were narrowed so you can cross them with a simple running jump.