{"id":207,"date":"2011-09-22T13:56:54","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T13:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=207"},"modified":"2011-09-22T14:01:59","modified_gmt":"2011-09-22T14:01:59","slug":"super-mario-all-stars-the-lost-levels-super-nes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=207","title":{"rendered":"Super Mario All-Stars: The Lost Levels (Super NES)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a boatload of Mario<\/em> games to play through, so I’ll focus on them for the next couple posts.<\/p>\n

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1993 - Super NES (Nintendo)<\/p><\/div>\n

Enhanced re-makes and re-releases of classic games seem to be pretty common these days.\u00a0 When Super Mario All-Stars<\/em> was announced, the idea of a fancy-looking version of three NES classics was quite an exciting concept.\u00a0 Even more awesome was its inclusion of The Lost Levels<\/em>, the unreleased-in-America edition of Super Mario Bros. 2<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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1986 in Japan - NES (Nintendo)<\/p><\/div>\n

I remember being quite excited to play what was essentially just a more difficult version of the original, and I got that chance on my 10th birthday.\u00a0 I popped it in, chose it from the menu and…\u00a0 I had already played it before.<\/p>\n

In the very early 90’s on\u00a0one of our many\u00a0trips to Baie Sainte-Anne (I seem to recall them often on this blog), I went with my mother to a small\u00a0convenience store down the road to rent a game.\u00a0 There were a few\u00a0cartridges similar to the 31-in-1<\/em> game I had played a few times, with the two-piece carts with a blue ribbon sticking out from between them.\u00a0\u00a0One of them showed Mario on it with a crew of other characters,\u00a0and the only thing I could understand from the writing on it was a “2”.\u00a0 We had to rent it…\u00a0 plain and simple.<\/p>\n

As I popped it in back at my grandmother’s, it was quite obvious that what I had rented was a scam of some kind.\u00a0 It looked exactly like Super Mario Bros.<\/em>, with the level layouts changed\u00a0slightly, and a darker “super” mushroom that (after finding out the hard way) was actually poisonous.\u00a0 I was convinced that this was a hack of some kind, and was none too impressed that we’d been duped into renting it.\u00a0 Still, I got a fair amount of enjoyment out of it.<\/p>\n

Of course, when All-Stars<\/em> came around,\u00a0I learned as I played that very first stage\u00a0that what I had played that day in Baie Sainte-Anne was 100% legit.\u00a0 Oops!<\/p>\n

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