Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels

I'll spare you the often-repeated history of The Lost Levels, as I've heard it myself at least three dozen times. Diving right in, I feel like this game acts more as an expansion to the original, rather than a full new game. The difficulty of the first world in this game picks up right after the eighth world of it's predecessor, and it just grows from there. The only thing that really makes this feel like a full new entry in the series is the updated background sprites and the addition of new mechanics, like the poison mushroom and wind.

As they share an engine, The Lost Levels is identical to the original in terms of gameplay. Thus, it can easily be assumed that the platforming is pristine. Unfortunately, the developers seemed to be grasping for new ways to increase the difficulty, and leaned a bit too much on tactics that people like myself consider "unfair." When my jump needs to be timed to the fraction of a second in order to cross a pit, or hidden blocks halt my upwards momentum and drop me to my death, I get a little grumpy. I can appreciate that this game was designed to give champions of the original a new challenge, and it does that really well, but it's hard to get through a single world without something irksome raining on the parade.

Despite all of my negativity, this game still earned it's place among the NES greats, and a fan of the old Mario games would be foolish to skip this one. It's clearly not my favorite, but there is still an abundance of smart game design here, and I'm glad that I played it.

The game is available for 3DS here (as of 10/2/20): https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/super-mario-bros-the-lost-levels-3ds/
The game is available for WiiU here (as of 10/2/20): https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/super-mario-bros-the-lost-levels-wii-u/
The game is available for Switch here (as of 10/2/20): https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/nintendo-entertainment-system-nintendo-switch-online-switch/

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