Virtually Overlooked: Super Mario Bros. Special
Perhaps most notably, the lack of support for the PC-8801 outside Japan means that we missed the sequel to Super Mario Bros. No, not The Lost Levels. Even lost-er.
Hudson Soft made an agreement with Nintendo to port their arcade/Famicom hits to the PC-8801 system. It was in this way that fairly ugly, slow versions of Mario Bros., Ice Climber, and Excitebike appeared on the computer system with Hudson's name on the title screens. For the most part, they kept the games as accurate as they could. But for Super Mario Bros., for some reason, Hudson decided to create a new game. They retitled it Super Mario Bros. Special and went about designing new levels and inserting enemies from other games. The hammer weapon, barrels, and fireball enemies from Donkey Kong appear in this game, as do elements of Mario Bros. ... which actually leads us to wonder why that stuff didn't appear more in the Nintendo-developed Super Mario Bros. series.
The PC-8801 was clearly not designed to run Super Mario Bros. Hudson's Special is slow, choppy, flickery, and has a severely reduced color palette. Most importantly to gameplay, it no longer scrolls smoothly, instead moving one screen at a time like The Legend of Zelda.
There shouldn't be any need to explain the appeal of a largely undiscovered Mario game in general, but there's a certain compelling quality about one that's not quite right. It's the same feeling that we get from seeing things like the Kaizo Mario remixes or Nintendo's own Super Mario Bros. 2 (the Japanese version). The basic nature and rules of the game -- stuff we take for granted -- is all messed up in games like these. We can't trust the innate sense we develop for understanding Mario's world. Also the Hudson bee's in there, and that's pretty weird.
Virtually Overlooked is a weekly feature that spotlights games that aren't yet on the Virtual Console, but should be. This week's column was written by JC Fletcher Special, who is just like the normal JC Fletcher, but much less well-known and also quite a bit slower. Want more Virtually Overlooked? Check out the first year!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chazz @ May 8th 2008 8:21PM
Wow I had no idea this even existed. I'd be interested in playing it, but if the screen doesn't scroll, I couldn't imagine it being any good.
Ghen @ May 8th 2008 8:37PM
the flickering would drive me insane.
Macroy @ May 8th 2008 8:42PM
Good lord, even the music is depressing.
Jeff @ May 9th 2008 12:16PM
haha totally...
It's like the music is slowed down enough so idiots can keep up with it... it's almost condescending. :)
Roto13 @ May 8th 2008 8:45PM
Because Super Mario Bros. was just too fast paced.
racecar @ May 8th 2008 8:46PM
Wow. That really is... special. So much for a side-scrolling platformer.
TheOverlord#2 can has Mario Karts?(MK:2578-3517-9859) @ May 8th 2008 9:37PM
You forgot to end in "-racecar"
-TheOverlord#2
racecar @ May 9th 2008 12:13AM
So nice of you to care. Or something...
Habb @ May 8th 2008 8:57PM
This is what playing video games is like in Hell.
Phil @ May 8th 2008 9:30PM
Wait, this piece of crap is in virtually overlooked?
...This would be much more appropriate for say, an opposite to virtually overlooked. That game is in no way... VC worthy.
NightKev @ May 8th 2008 11:29PM
Obviously they'd have to fix it up, but once they did it would be perfect. A brand new bunch of mario levels to play...
CJC @ May 8th 2008 9:41PM
Gotta agree with Phil. Some things deserve to be overlooked.
marzz @ May 8th 2008 10:33PM
er, yeah. I've had experience with this game, running an emulated version.
Not only is it ridiculously hard due to faulty physics (i.e., you tap forward, and go sliding a mile ahead, and gravity that pulls you down when you least expect it), the graphics start to give you a headache from playing.
The level design is great, but combined with the screen-by-screen scrolling its just a practice in frustration.
PiemanPieman @ May 8th 2008 10:55PM
I can't believe nobody made the joke yet. Oh well, leave it to me!
"More like Super Mario Bros. Special Ed!"
NightKev @ May 8th 2008 11:30PM
No one made the joke because it was a stupid one.
PiemanPieman @ May 8th 2008 11:35PM
I'd rather be the cheerful retard who goes around making stupid jokes than the cynical bastard that points out their stupidity.
Darksyntax @ May 8th 2008 11:33PM
I could see a "fixed" version of the game on the VC, Maybe.
RatMasterD21 @ May 8th 2008 11:47PM
just terrible
Covarr @ May 9th 2008 8:19AM
I'm pretty sure that the reason they redesigned the levels was that they couldn't get scrolling to work properly, and they wanted levels that would still be playable with screen-at-once scrolling.
Kye - Joystiq Greybeard @ May 9th 2008 9:37AM
Some things should stay lost.
Shadow31 @ May 9th 2008 10:03AM
Wait, isn't Virtually Overlooked for games that should be on the VC? This one should be in the garbage. EVERY SINGLE COPY.
wrc3 @ May 9th 2008 12:10PM
Looks and scrolls terribly and the music sounds like it's on downers. I have to agree with Kye - Joystiq Greybeard and say that this one should remain lost.
TurboFool @ May 9th 2008 12:11PM
Couldn't you have posted a video that included the non-Mario characters you referenced in the article? I wanted to see the hammer and barrels and such in action.
Mr Khan @ May 9th 2008 4:54PM
You all overlooked the most grievous offense
The end-of-stage flag and the end-of-stage stairs are on different screens
Epic fail
Kamek @ May 9th 2008 5:48PM
I would't download this from the VC even if it was free, it's just a terrible game.
jamesFF @ May 10th 2008 1:59AM
This is what Mario would look like on the Atari.
XionPH @ May 15th 2008 12:37AM
Wow...that was a really bad game. Not a very good player either :P My eyes hurt so bad....
Bibbly53 @ May 15th 2008 10:02AM
It's drab crap and that compelling quality spoken of seems to be the assurance that someone might care and read all of this article and watch all of the YouTube video shown.
Personally I didn't waste my time on it. Why would I want to formulate an opinion on something I can plainly see was worth burning at conception?
It looks like some Dev.Student mashed together a look-a-like game and pawned it off as some McRiddle. Dull, drab, total farce.