Super Mario Bros. 2: Lost Levels - RetroAchievements

Game #48 is one I am very passionate about - the REAL Super Mario Bros. 2, also known as Lost Levels. This is the most underrated Mario game in the entire mainline series. I'm not joking. This 100% should have been the Super Mario Bros. 2 here in the US. To be clear, I'm not saying the actual Super Mario Bros. 2 USA version (I mean Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic 😉) is bad. It's a great game and we'll get to it for RA. But, the criticisms from people about this game while praising the original Super Mario Bros. are not warranted IMO. The main complaint is that the game is too hard ... Is it a hard game? Yes, but this is far from kaizo, and there are MUCH harder games on NES that are often praised. And the biggest thing? If you get a game over in Lost Levels - you start at the beginning of the world, not the entire game like a lot of other NES games (including the original Super Mario Bros.). Plus, every world has a 1-up for you to get in the first level. And, if you're really worried about getting stuck, you can do the 1-up trick at the very beginning of the game and get dozens of lives ahead of time. As far as just game comparison between the original Super Mario Bros. and Lost Levels, you get quite a bit more content with Lost Levels. Total levels: SMB1: 32 SMB2 (LL): 52 I also think you get much better variety and creativity with the stages in Lost Levels compared to SMB1. Lost Levels also gives you Luigi as a playable character (but his lack of traction is PAINFUL) and introduced the poison mushroom. Ultimately, Lost Levels took SMB1 and made a better version of it. SMB1 is still a great game. Lost Levels is just superior. Another complaint I hear is there are too many hidden blocks and that it's unfair. My response to that is - have you played NES games before? There are so many random secrets with hidden doors, secrets, treasures, etc in many of the beloved NES games. And in many of those situations, there's no way to know about them unless you had a players guide, a friend told you, you called the Nintendo hotline or just got lucky with insane trial and error. At least in Lost Levels when it comes to the hidden blocks, they're in positions that make sense (both to help you and to hurt you as an obstacle). And again, even if you're struggling with one of the few hidden block situations, you have the failsafe of only starting over at the beginning of the world if you game over. The one criticism in this version of the game that I think is 100% fair though is that it takes beating the game 8 times to unlock the letter worlds. That's such a random number and pretty absurd. I think that should have just been part of the fantasy world requirement (World 9) of beating worlds 1-8 warpless. Fortunately, they fixed that in the Lost Levels version released on Super Mario All-Stars for SNES. Anyways, my rant is over on Lost Levels being underrated lol. As for my RA run of the game - I honestly didn't play well, especially early on. I was a bit rusty at first, but then the SNES controller I was using would drop an input with the A button on rare occasion. Eventually I got another one, and then I started playing better and was more warmed up. I think this achievement set is perfect for the game. You have to beat the game with both characters, you need to find all the hidden 1-ups and warp zones, and most importantly, you have to beat all the bowsers with fireballs. Having a good D-pad for C-4 is absolutely crucial for that (look at thumbnail). Also one piece of advice - when you get to D4, kill BOTH bowsers with fireballs and not just the last one. I failed reading comprehension and only did the last bowser and stupidly thought I got scammed briefly lol. Last thing - I don't want to make it sound like that this game is easy. It is a challenging 2D platformer and is the most difficult 2D game in the mainline Mario series. I just don't think it's nearly as tough as some make it out to be. With solid movement and understanding what kind of obstacles this game provides, it's perfectly doable for a vast majority of players. Super Mario Bros. 2 (LL) achievement set: https://retroachievements.org/game/5183 RA profile: https://retroachievements.org/user/it... 0:00 Run 1 1:51:23 Yet These Flames Still Burn (World 9) 2:01:20 Technicolor Tastebuds, Maybe Lay Off the Pasta 2:04:00 Penniless Professional attempts 2:17:20 Penniless Professional 2:21:12 Warp zones & jumping over poles 3:20:50 Run 2 - Luigi 4:54:59 Run 3 - more warp zones and 1-ups 5:45:04 Runs 4&5 - defeating bowsers with fireballs 8:16:49 Runs 6-8 9:05:27 World A 9:29:19 World B 9:48:54 World C 10:29:30 Beyond the Impossible Fire Bar 10:30:55 World D 11:19:34 The "L" Stands for "Winner"