The 'graphically enhanced' version nobody played, and the original

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (The Real Super Mario 2)

You know what they say. If you haven’t finished the original Super Mario Bros, it’s difficult to imagine that you could like yourself, let alone call yourself a gamer. But for those who do, it’s time you played the real Super Mario Bros. 2, the best Mario game you probably never played, and without a doubt the most difficult Mario game ever made.

According to Wikipedia folklore, the original Super Mario Bros. 2, which debuted in Japan in 1986, was never released in North America because Nintendo of America employees felt the game was “too difficult and confusing”. In light of developments in video games over the past 20 years, and the skill-level of the present day first-person shooter elite, this sounds ridiculous. But, the game was indeed canned, and another game nearly ready for release, called Doki Doki Panic, was re-fitted with Mario-esque sprites, and in 1988 a game which was never conceived of as a Mario title was released in North America as Super Mario 2. And we never knew the difference. And we’ve been throwing vegetables ever since.

A few years later in 1993, the lost Mario game was released… sort of. It premiered in North America as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. It was souped up with better graphics and sound effects, but the gameplay remained essentially the same, with only a couple of minor changes.

Released with little fanfare, as a mere supplemental on Super Mario All-Stars (a best-of compilation), many years too late to be cutting edge, but many years too soon to be ‘retro’, The Lost Levels were largely ignored.  Maybe the title “The Lost Levels” led people to believe it consisted of outtakes, or otherwise second-rate material, rather than a complete release, which was plenty good enough for Japan… In any case the game, which is terrific in my opinion, was in a sense wasted.

Through my cousin Carl I discovered and played it via emulator a couple of years ago.  Suffice to say, coming across a lost game was a real trip. A Mario game, over 20 years old, that I’d never played! Naturally I was on the internet within minutes, babbling about it.

holy fuck.

And when I sat down and got into the game, I was instantly hooked. Easily the toughest NES game I’ve played (including Battletoads), it requires premium Mario 1 skills, with many sections requiring you to ninja your way between narrow gaps with ridiculous precision and without hesitation. In terms of physics and game mechanics it behaves like the original but offers a brand-new set of puzzles and fresh doses of Mario twitch to unleash upon your nervous system.

Comparing this non-release with the original Super Mario 1 (the most successful, most played platform game of all time) with regards to difficulty is a no-brainer – I remember SMB1 getting pretty easy over time, with the exception being parts of World 8 (8-2 and 8-3 in particular) which were evil, regardless of many times you played them. Well, many sections of the Real Super Mario 2 fit this description. Does a springboard-to-floating turtle-to-floating turtle-to-single block platform jump combination, in strong wind, with Lakitu spikies raining down on you, and WALKING Hammer Bros. to greet you on the other side, sound ridiculous to you? Me too. This is why I love this game.

But, I don’t want to ruin it, so I won’t discuss the gameplay in detail… I want you to experience it for yourself. And you can, because it’s a now a Virtual Console release and only costs 6 bucks. Not the version they tried to ‘enhance’, but the original, in all its retro awesomeness.  Search the directory in Wii Shop Channel for the one with the Japanese flag icon next to it.

To re-iterate: you should try this one because:

• It’s retro, and retro stuff is cool
• It’s previously unreleased, and having previously unreleased material is cool
• It’s incredibly difficult, and beating it will give you a sense of satisfaction
• It’s incredibly difficult, and beating it will give you bragging rights, and the right to claim status as a perennial Nintendo Master

Excited yet? You’re a real gamer aren’t you?  Well then download it!  And puff your chest out a little, with the knowledge that you’ve defeated the most difficult Nintendo game ever made.

The best platformer you might never get to play

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

The year was 1995 and I was in my late teens. Bosnia, Croatia, Rawanda, and the Oklahoma city bombing were in the news, briefly (but unsucessfully) threatening to draw public attention away from Southern Califonia, Baywatch fandemonium, and the Pam and Tommy wedding. On the opposite coast, a creepy and hilarious idiot named Will Ferrel was joining the cast of Saturday Night Live and Drew Barrymore was flashing David Letterman and the same year, OJ cut his wife’s head off, then got his own TV show for a few months. Somehow the release of Yoshi’s Island, by far the most important thing to happen in the world that year, was lost in the shuffle.

Possibly the best 2D platform game ever made, Super Mario World 2 and its mesmerizing crayola-esque art style was like nothing before it; it was the first Nintendo game to properly utilize the Super FX2 chip, its scoring and loot-collecting elements gave it tremendous play AND replay value and sublime level design kept gamers challenged, but not frustrated.

And… here’s the paragraph in which I’d be suggesting you immediately go to the Wii Shop Channel and download it.  But, you can’t, because Nintendo hasn’t made it available.

Worse, there aren’t any ROM/emulation solutions, either; something about a roadblock in FX2 chip emulation. So, apologies for getting all political but… do the right thing, and email Nintendo and yell! This game deserves to see the light of day again. And presently, unless we’re willing to go rooting around at flea markets or on eBay for SNES gear, we can’t have this one, to distract us from Iraq and the economy.

In the meantime, a sequel to Yoshi’s Island which looks and behaves similarly (but isn’t the real deal) is available in DS form. And The original Paper Mario is on Wii Shop. To tide yourself over, get those.

Yes, this is an action shot. From the actual game.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves

There are two types of people in the world.  There are those who perfectly understand the appeal of thrusting a motion-sensitive video game controller to ram false teeth into the mouth of an on-screen elderly woman before time runs out, and those who don’t understand the appeal of using a motion-sensitive controller to ram false teeth into the mouth of an on-screen elderly woman before time runs out.

No big write write-up for this one; Smooth Moves is a very weird, very japanese game that is actually about 200 different “microgames” that you play in succession, against a clock, while wildly passing a wiimote around the room and laughing your ass off.  It plays well to all audiences (basically anyone except those who are too cool to act silly in public) because it puts the Wiimote’s motion controls to great and varied use, it causes much meyhem, and because the Wii is “the party console” and Smooth Moves is THE perennial party game.

No More Heroes

This game is packed full of homage to gamers from the golden age! The tributes to 80s gaming are everywhere—in the navigation, in the mini games, in the menu design, and in little flourishes of sound and sight throughout the entire thing.

And in spite of a few technical shortcomings No More Heroes is terrific, totally worth the money, and probably the best Wii title of 2008, and chances are it will be one of the most memorable games you’ve ever played. Suda51, the game’s creator, allegedly cites the cultish Mexican film “El Topo” as one of the inspirations for No More Heroes. This revelation has made me decide to find a copy of El Topo.

No More Heroes has so much style and cool it’s just ridiculous. With an art house feel and a foreign action flick vibe through and through, it’s quirky and unapologetic and, like a Tarantino movie or Bohachi Busido: Code of the Forgotten Eight, it’s at times perfectly content to just get up in your face and scream “look at me, motherfucker.” This includes pointless loot-collection in the form of Mexican wrestler trading cards—they’re just kind of there to look at. But it works.

The game is “too much” but justifiably so. The ridiculously over-the-top blood spew, the toilet jokes and the boob shots all manage to, seemingly, have artistic merit and be essential to the action. The game, as a unit, just works. Really well. No More Heroes is loud, gruesome, imprecise, funny, unique, and plain satisfying to play through. It raises the bar for uniqueness, humour and satisfaction are concerned; in fact, I’m beginning to wonder why all video game bad guys don’t scream “my spleen!” while in their death throes.

And that’s a wrap… almost.  Given that there are only 9 titles on the list, we have room for 1 more… what do you think it should be, and why?  Please be more specific than “I can’t believe you didn’t include Zelda”… make a convincing case. I look forward to hearing what you think, and to the debates this exercise may result in…