0.5/5 ★ – cha0sknightmare's review of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.

There is well documented history of the two versions of Super Mario Bros 2, (The western and eastern versions) but I'll avoid the history lesson and jump straight to the point.. avoid this game. The Lost Levels doesn't feel like a sequel in any real concievable way... it comes across like a slapdash unrefined mess of level design, more akin to something you would find on a bootleg cart or a ROM hack, than an official release by Nintendo, and this feeling only grows stronger the further you get into the game. The most glaring thing here is just how little work has been done to improve or build upon the fundamentals of the first Super Mario Bros. The sprites, music, levels, gimmicks (including the annoying "maze" levels) and boss fights remain almost entirely the same, with very few new additions. Any features that could have brought some new QOL improvements, such as vertical scrolling or the ability to go backwards through levels are absent to. The Lost Levels also feels almost malicious and intentionally punishing by design... the speed and precision that many of the sections require, feel at odds with the way Mario controls, often leaving you frustrated, or with not enough reaction time. You are constantly battered with trial and error gameplay, or required to take leap of faith jumps, which will more often than not kill you, soft-lock your progress in the level, or just require to replay huge chunks of the level again. I stuck to strict rule when emulating the first Mario Bros, I would pop a save state at the start of each level, just to give myself a more "modern" experience, and with that I was able to play that game though. I very quickly broke that rule with this game, and as I got deeper in, save scumming and making use of the emulators rewind feature became more and more common. It's shocking to me that Nintendo would follow up one of the most iconic and revolutionary platformers of the time with this game, it's almost a perfect antithesis to what a sequel should be in every regard. I can honestly say I will likely not return to this game.