Day 2 – The Realisation sets in.

So after a long day of work, I continued my play through of Super Mario Bros. The game’s difficulty increased, but not substantially  After the rest from last night, I was able to fly through the rest of the game pretty easily. Though I did get a large sense of pride when I finally got to the end of Castle 8-4, as it’s been an awful long time since I saw a chubby plumber get a kiss from a princess!

I then began my play through of Super Mario – Lost Levels.While it is really the second Super Mario title in Japan, we Westerners didn’t get it until the Mario Allstars version (which I am playing). Now, there is clear reasoning why the West didn’t get this game (and instead got Super Mario Bros. 2, which was released in Japan as Super Mario USA). In their wisdom, Nintendo of America after seeing the game in action, realised that not only was the game too similar to the original title, but the game was incredibly difficult. NIA thus released that if the game were released in the US, not only would the brand be diluted, but people might not play another Mario game.

If I’m being honest, I am very glad that NIA made this choice (though they made some terrible ones in that era! Namely scraping Mother’s English Translation at the last minute), as the game is one of the most difficult games I have ever played, and while it’s easy to speculate, it could have meant the death of Mario had it hit shelves in the US.

While there are plenty of super difficult games by modern standards, I feel I need to make it clear that while the game is difficult, it is (almost) never unfair. The game was designed for those who had mastered the original SMB, and thus is expected to be a challenge. As it is a Mario game, it doesn’t suffer the same idea of difficulty as say, the NES Turtles game (or in my opinion, Bloody Trapland), in the sense that the game’s controls are perfectly responsive and do not hinder the player. Still, it doesn’t make the title any easier…

In playing Lost Levels, you are essentially signing a contract that you are going to die a lot. Hundereds, maybe thousands of times. Frustratingly high amounts of deaths from turtles. tricky jumps and hammers. Oh, if I ever meet whoever suggested putting the Hammer Bros. in the Mario games, I will gladly force-feed them my controller!  But I persevered.  The game is difficult, but there is a certain level of reward in each level. Finally throwing up your controller in  celebration as your fastidious learning of a level (often the levels go down to muscle memory, it’s that intense), that you have concurred the odds, which as I’ve said, can result in hundreds of deaths if you’re not clinical with your jumps.

I understand to some people that this might seem as fun as putting a fork in toaster, but there is some joy to be had from it, though admittedly it’s a very hard slog. I got to the end of Castle 5-4 (I watched an entire Game of Thrones episode while dying on it…), before I called it a night. I am hitting some serious gamer fatigue, so while I will aim to complete the Lost Levels today (this blog is posted the day after because I had a late night), there will probably be a break from the start of SMB2.

– M