Played on Wii Virtual Console

Originally written July 28, 2015

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels was the sequel to the original Super Mario Bros., but was not released for US audiences until sometime later. The story goes that this game was released only in Japan, and they felt that this game would be too hard for American audiences, so they instead took a game called Doki Doki Panic and made it into a Mario game for our release of Super Mario Bros. 2. However, Lost Levels has since surfaced in the US, and they aren’t kidding when they say it’s definitely a very hard game.

Put it this way, I actually don’t feel it’s very necessary to go into the finer details of this game in a review. Rather than saving a recommendation for the end of a review, I will simply say that if you’re a newcomer to the Mario series (or at least a newcomer to the NES games of the series), don’t bother playing this. You will find it too difficult, and I feel if that happens it will cease to be fun and will instead just be frustrating. If you’ve never played the first Super Mario Bros. game, play that before you ever attempt this. While not an extremely easy game, that game is much more lax in its difficulty, and will provide a welcome entrance into the Mario series for new players. Once you’ve gotten used to how that game plays, then you’ll be ready to play this one.

I say all of that because I don’t recommend trying out The Lost Levels until you’ve played the original game first. Lost Levels basically feels like a continuation of the original game, and a game whose purpose is to provide more of a challenge for players who have mastered the first game. For those that haven’t, this game just won’t be for you.

With all of that being said, if you have played the first game, Lost Levels will feel very familiar to you. The gameplay remains largely unchanged, aside from starting off at the beginning of a world instead of the beginning of the game when you get a game over. But other than that, the enemies are the same, the structure is the same, even the graphics and music/sounds are all largely the same. It’s a familiar style, which makes the game a welcome similar experience for veteran players.

In a game review I’d typically go in-depth with talking about the gameplay, graphics, music, and things like that, but I find that unnecessary for The Lost Levels, since (if you haven’t gotten this impression yet) its basic sole purpose is “to be like the first game, but harder.” Which is why I said that playing the first game before this should be a priority. That being said, let’s talk about the crux of what the game is about, its difficulty.

Basically, if you feel you might want to play this game, you need to know what type of gamer you are. If you want to play a game that you can just breeze through, Lost Levels simply isn’t the game for you. But if you want a game that provides a pretty difficult challenge, look no further. Notice I call it a challenge too, because Lost Levels is by no means impossible. It’s the type of game where the more you practice it, the better you become at it. I’ve actually beaten the game around 10 times or so myself, and while I’m by no means perfect at it, over that time I’ve become pretty good at it, and so it doesn’t seem so impossible anymore.

I think the designers recognized how difficult it was, because they allow you to start at the beginning of the world you get a game over on instead of starting all the way at the beginning of the game. I feel that the game would have been pretty much impossible to get through the whole thing if this wasn’t the case, which shows that the game is hard but fair. That’s the key. With games like this, you know that you’re not losing because of the game being unfair, you’re losing because you’re not skilled enough yet at it. I personally love games like this, because you get such a sense of accomplishment when you finally do conquer it. I remember the first time I beat this, it felt like one of my biggest gaming accomplishments.

To be honest, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is actually one of my favorite games in the series. It is easily the most difficult. But I don’t know, there’s just something about it that always kept me coming back to it. I first played it when it came out on the Wii Virtual Console, and it’s one of those games that’s held a special place in my heart for unexplainable reasons ever since. Those are the types of games I consider to be perfect. A game doesn’t even really have to be perfect in a technical sense, it should just fill you with that certain feeling every time you play it or even think about it. Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is one of those games for me, and so I consider it perfect.

5/5