Are you planning on buying Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D for your Nintendo 3DS? If so, you might want to check out Best Buy's current pre-order bonus with the game. What might that be? If you pre-order the game from Best Buy right now, you will receive a download code for SMB: The Lost Levels for your Nintendo 3DS' Virtual Console, when Donkey Kong's new 3DS adventure releases later this week! You can see the details, HERE.
SMB: The Lost Levels was originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1986, but only in Japan. It was the true sequel to Super Mario Bros. in Japan, being called Super Mario Bros. 2 there. It never released for the NES in the United States, but thanks to digital distribution the original NES version finally did reach our shores in a more accessible way.
Nintendo made SMB: The Lost Levels available on the Wii's Virtual Console service on October 1, 2007 and it is available to download for just $6 (600 Wii Points). The game is also now available to download from the 3DS eShop for just $4.99. The game received an ESRB rating of "EVERYONE", on both systems, with no content listed for parents and gamers to be aware of.
If you have never played the real sequel (depending who you ask, I know) to the original Super Mario Bros., how many hours can you expect out of the game? How many U.S. Wii owners have game-play data reported for SMB: The Lost Levels, since it released in 2007? Brew yourself some coffee, and let's take a look!
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| Better than the original? |
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels has approximately 116,065 U.S. Wii owners, who have the 481,632 Total Hours of game-play reported (seen above) through the Wii's Nintendo Channel with about 2,058 days reported. The game's average reported play time shown of 4 Hours 9 Minutes "Per person", averages out to about 24 Minutes played per time reported.
For some comparison to the other NES Virtual Console Super Mario games, SMB: The Lost Levels' reported average play time "Per person" is actually the lowest of them. Those other games being Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2 (titled in America), and Super Mario Bros. 3.
How much has SMB: The Lost Levels' Wii Virtual Console release has made Nintendo, just off its U.S. release? The game's U.S. digital release has made Nintendo over $600,000 since it release in 2007, based on the information from the Nintendo Channel data and its $6 price.
Caffeinated Thoughts
If you haven't seen any footage of SMB: The Lost Levels, the video below is the video for the game on the Wii's Nintendo Channel, and I find it a bit odd for an info video. Take a look:
I don't know if they were recording somebody playing the game for the first time ever, but I think it's funny the player skips over the mushroom (Bean 1 does that quite often), and is just running and jumping around quickly, without much planning.
As for the data, while I find it interesting this game has the lowest reported average out of all the Super Mario Bros. NES games, that it is actually a dollar more than the standard price of NES Virtual Console titles on the Wii, is surprising. Maybe Nintendo of America had to do more work in getting the original version localized for the Virtual Console, since it was only originally in Super Mario All Stars on the SNES?
Have I ever played Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels? No, I haven't! After reading up more on the game in the last week though, I'm interested in it. Not only because it has the words "Super" and "Mario" in its title, but also because the game said to be pretty challenging, and that's supposedly one big reason why Nintendo of America didn't originally localize it. I guess the the subtitle, "The Lost Levels", is appropriate. But hey, it's a Mario title, so better
Being that we don't have this one in our collection, I will probably just wait until Nintendo releases the game for the Wii U's Virtual Console to get the added GamePad play; well, if they release it for the Wii U's Virtual Console. I haven't see any information on it, but I would imagine they will at some point, considering it has "Mario" in its title, even if abbreviated!
Questions
If you have played every NES Super Mario game, even if only in digital form, where would you rank SMB: The Lost Levels? Better than the original, but not as good as Super Mario Bros. 3? Perhaps it's your favorite one?
Also, if you have played The Lost Levels, do you know how many hours of game-play you have gotten out of the game, whether its the Wii Virtual Console version, and/or even the 3DS Virtual Console version?
You can see a few Mario related items below, including the SNES Super Mario All Stars which includes a version of SMB: The Lost Levels in it:
I would say SMB2 is probably the worst SMB title. That said, it's still very good. It's more of an expansion pack for experts than a true sequel IMO. It's hard. I consider myself pretty good at controlling Mario, but the difficulty is cranked way up. It's probably played less because, honestly you tend not to live very long. That mushroom in the trailer for example is poisonous and will kill you, It's easily in the same league as Ghosts n Goblins. If you play slowly and conservatively you get much further. Interestingly enough, Luigi is more than a palette swap! His jumps are a little more floaty and he jumps much further. As a handicap though his traction stinks. It's common to make an incredible leap, stick the landing,...and slide right off the other side! I see a lot of similarities between this and the Super Luigi WiiU. The inclusion of Nabbit will hopefully make that a little more palatable for those playing with kids.
ReplyDelete"That mushroom in the trailer for example is poisonous and will kill you..."
ReplyDeleteTHAT. IS. INCREDIBLE! I literally played the video again, and even showed Mrs. Coffee the video. She had never played it, and after she watched it I said, "Notice how he jumped over the mushroom?" So, I played it again, she didn't know why, but did notice the first time it had looked different...then I told her what you said!
This would seriously be a day one buy on our Wii U. I had no clue about the poison mushrooms!
Thanks for the comment and feedback!
Yeah, see? While I LOVE SMB2 USA (as I believe it's called in Japan) SMB2LL does have a certain charm to it that can't be denied. Calling it the weakest of the SMB series is not condemnation but praise. It's still an interesting game and one I intend to complete someday. I have noticed that certain titles on Wii VC -Japanese only releases do cost 1.00 more. Shockman and Sin and Punishment are the only ones I'm aware of though. SMB2LL is on the 25th anniversary Mario disc, but not Super Mario World. IMO, Nintendo could have really capitalized on the date but didn't, which makes me believe the rumors that their resources were stretched very thin.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm very interested in Super Luigi U. It looks much harder than SMBWU, and I'm fully convinced it's a spiritual successor to Luigi and SMB2LL. I think the inclusion of Nabbit is akin to super guide or whatever they call it in each game, where less experienced players call explore and see the whole game. I think this is a great idea, although widely derided as "baby mode" the recent re-releases of SMW and Super Metroid indicate that current gamers aren't used to that difficulty level. And it's optional! You don't have to use it,but it's there if you get frustrated. The other option would be to " Nerf" the entire game or have a difficulty selector, but that would apply to ALL players.
So as much as super guide gets derided, these awesome gamers aren't shy about using save states to help them "beat" a game. I feel like like it's the Konami code debate allover again...
Anyway, if you are going to purchase SMB2LL, I wouldn't play it on 3DS. The screen is too small and minute errors will kill you. Happy gaming!
Wow Scott you are on a ROLL! Tons of Nintendo Data updates recently and keep it up! I like the fact that I can check it out here instead of firing up my Nintendo Wii since it takes too long due to how slow it takes to enter the Wii Menu using the Wii U. Other than that, I seriously thought this game was worth buying when I got it for the Nintendo Wii via virtual console. I can't see myself buying it again for the Nintendo 3DS and I am sure Nintendo will add it to the Wii U e-shop sometime later in the future. Anyways, hey Scott! Yeah, you, Scott! If you ever have the time, could you do a report/post and compare the data from all of the NES mario games which is: 1: Mario Bros, 2: Super Mario Bros, 3: Super Mario Bros 2, 4: Super Mario Bros Lost Levels and 5: Super Mario Bros 3? You could just focus on the NES games first then maybe in the future you could do NES, SNES, N64 Mario games but for now let's see if you are up for the task of doing the NES mario games! :)
ReplyDeleteWould this be pointless or too much work? I know you could easily just post a separate post for each game but instead of that you could compare all the data for days reported, play time, per time, etc all that jazz! I strongly think it could be an interesting report for you and possibly quite challenging! You could really go all out with this one and it would be fully detailed. However, you may need 2-3 cups of coffee for that type of project which I strongly recommend!
Super Mario Bros 2 may be the worst title for you but for me I thought it was the hardest one out of them all because of the stupid continues/lives system. You have to collected those stupid coins when you drop the potion to enter another world via door, then you have to do the stupid slot machine and just hope you get an 1up from spinning the slot machine. I do like the fact that you can change between four characters after beating any of the levels and I thought the enemies were all weird! I can see why you say that SMB2 is the worst mario game since the game was originally a demo for a vertically scrolling aka Doki Doki Panic which eventually changed to fit with with the theme of the mascots of Nintendo. Other than that I still believe SMB2 is still worth playing if the player is a Mario fan because it is certainly unique and DIFFERENT from any other mario game that was released by Nintendo. I will admit that if I had to choose between Super Mario Land and Super Mario Bros 2, I would pick Super Mario Land since both of those games were weird but good fun!
ReplyDeleteI was referring to the Lost Levels when I said it was the worst. Sorry if that was unclear. It's still a good game, it just doesn't bring much to the table besides difficulty.
ReplyDelete"Anyway, if you are going to purchase SMB2LL, I wouldn't play it on 3DS. The screen is too small and minute errors will kill you. Happy gaming!"
ReplyDeleteActually, we don't have a 3DS in the house yet, but it is likely to join our collection within the year. Thanks for that feedback though, and I do think it's interesting seeing some of the Miiverse comments on the Wii U's Virtual Console games. But, at least they have a place to go quickly and try and get some help!
Thanks for the comments and feedback, again!
Yeah, the titles are bit confusing because in the U.S., Super Mario Bros. 2 was the Doki Doki Panic game originally, while this data report is on the U.S. SMB: The Lost Levels game, which was called Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan.
ReplyDeleteSo, it's one of those things that can be easily lost in translation!
Thanks for the comment and feedback!
"If you ever have the time, could you do a report/post and compare the data from all of the NES mario games which is: 1: Mario Bros, 2: Super Mario Bros, 3: Super Mario Bros 2, 4: Super Mario Bros Lost Levels and 5: Super Mario Bros 3? You could just focus on the NES games first then maybe in the future you could do NES, SNES, N64 Mario games but for now let's see if you are up for the task of doing the NES mario games! :)
ReplyDeleteWould this be pointless or too much work?"
It wouldn't be pointless to me, and would be good to show them side-by-side...or, stacked like I have done in the past I guess.
Here are a few "comparisons" of the NSMBW to SMG, that I have done over the years:
http://www.coffeewithgames.com/2011/07/wiis-super-mario-battle-2d-versus-3d.html
http://www.coffeewithgames.com/2010/06/2d-versus-3d-mario-wii-games-data.html
http://www.coffeewithgames.com/2010/06/3d-mario-versus-2d-mario-smg2-and-nsmbw.html
It probably won't happen this week, or next though, but I can try to get something up perhaps in June if my schedule of posts allows it. I try to plan these out a week or two in advance at least, but sometimes I spend way too much time editing photos, and reading up on them, looking for trailers, etc., that I don't always get everything done.
"However, you may need 2-3 cups of coffee for that type of project which I strongly recommend!"
That wouldn't be a problem at all, and would be only a portion of my normal daily coffee!
Thanks for the comments and feedback!
sweet thanks! I am not expecting you to do the compare thing right away but I was thinking you could do it sometime this summer or when you are reaching to the point where you have nearly covered all the games on the Nintendo Channel data..
ReplyDeleteI just think it would be fun to see how you compare all 5 mario games into one giant graph or whatever instead of 5 separate posts. give it a shot! I bet it could be the most in depth article you will post on coffewithgames to date! It would also probably be the longest amount of time spending on creating this article for the 5 mario NES games. Hell, if you feel like you should only do Super Mario bros 1-3 then so be it! But I think all 5 mario games for the NES would seal the deal!
Ah, the old poisoned mushroom. We have have Super Mario All-stars for our SNES, so we played this years ago when it released on there. It was never one of our most-played games, but my son got pretty good at it.
ReplyDeleteI have The Lost Levels on my copies of Super Mario All-Stars (SNES and Wii), and now I have it on 3DS thanks to the Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D promotion. It's not my favorite 2D Mario, by any means. I actually listed it on a recent segment as one of the weakest Mario games, just in front of Super Mario Land.
ReplyDelete"We have have Super Mario All-stars for our SNES..."
ReplyDeleteI'll buy that from you, so you can clear some space for the newer games you keep adding to your backlog...$2?
So, being that you have so many copies of it...perhaps I should make my awesome $2 offer I made to Chalgyr to you? Since you have so many copies though, that means I can lower my offer right? You have more supply, so less demand?
ReplyDelete$1.50?
Thanks for the comment, and feel free to link to your segment piece...I looked on SPC, but didn't see it when I just skimmed the first two pages, but I know you write for a few different sites now, so not sure where it is!
Haha - this reminds me of an unexpected find we had over the weekend. We were at a used game shop (my son and I) and saw Conker's Bad Fur Day for the n64 on it. Apparently, that game's a bit pricey now. Most of the n64 titles were 4-6 bucks, with Super Smash Bros ringing in at $25 and Conker sitting at $70.
ReplyDeleteI think I got one of those today in SMB 3D land. It was purple, chased me around and made me smaller.
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I quite like the Lost Levels.
ReplyDeleteIt's quite a challenging game, and the NES version on Virtual Console is more challenging than the remake that was released on SNES.
Out of the original 4 games (1-3 + LL), I'd probably say it's my least favourite. That's not saying Lost Levels is bad, it's saying all the other 3 games are incredibly good.