Slate has just published a nifty think piece on Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, which is now available for download on the Wii's Virtual Console. This game was supposed to be the sequel to the NES classic, but it never got a US release because it was considered "too hard" and possibly "too Japanese." Rumors are that Shigeru Miyamoto was depressed when he made the game, which would account for the game's frequently cruel left turns.
Read the story here.
6 comments:
Actually, the US saw The Lost Levels on Super Mario All-Stars (Which included SMBs 1, 2, and 3 along with the LL on SNES).
If it mentioned it in the article, then I'm busted for not reading it.
Crap. I guess I'll go do that now.
Nope, dude just does sloppy research. I'd have expected the bar to be higher at Slate.
Documentation
Gah. It's a shame the story was inaccurate. It's actually got good insights about the way that the Lost Levels don't jive with the Nintendo's core philosophies.
I always assumed they really were the lost levels- that they had been designed for the original game but were removed or redesigned because they were so hard.
Also, the section of the All-Stars Wiki page that spoils Lost Levels explains the rationale behind the warp back to level one pipe.
Was this added? "(And yes, gaming obsessives, I know that a version of the Lost Levels made it into 1993's Super Mario All-Stars for the Super Nintendo. But that wasn't the Real Super Mario Bros. 2—that was a colorized Citizen Kane.)"
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