The Hardest Mario Speedrun: The Lost Levels

[@Storster]

Thank you so much for watching everyone! This has been one of the most interesting runs to talk about to me! I started this at the very beginning of May! I'm not sure if I will be able to get something out by the end of August before college starts, but no matter what, I am not going away! Cheers to more! Edit: Niftski instantly obsoleted information in this video and on the same day of this coming out improved the 8-4 IL Record by one frame. The human sum of best is now 7:47.680!

[@Kosmicd12]

5:06 that's not an FDS! I could not be more upset

[@bobbydog6762]

So true

[@olipolygon]

almost seems done intentionally given one of your recent videos...

[@Storster]

Whoops, I missed your TED Talk

[@chiefzach7418]

Kosmic we need part 2 of your ted talk

[@KJgameplay14]

When I got to that part of the video I instantly thought about you lmao

[@hitzcritz]

I'm glad how Super Mario Bros. 2 Japan is getting more attention, that game's hard to beat even casually lmfao

[@ruben._._34577]

Lmao, also yes it is underrated

[@ThaAwesome10]

The game is much easier to beat when speedrunning than playing casually lol

[@SECONDQUEST]

Omg it's Obama!

[@HonkeyKongLive]

I beat it once and I haven't touched it since. I cannot fathom speedrunning it.

[@GoldenGamerFox7272fromYT]

@@ThaAwesome10 the game is way easier when you have rewind lol

[@AndrewgSpeedruns]

Good stuff! I just stumbled onto this video. Glad to see the research and all. One thing I want to note is that the reason there werent earlier speedruns for this was simply because it was only available on emu or FDS prior to 2007. 2007 was the first time it was properly released outside of Japan. I would have done a run earlier hahaha

[@Storster]

Thanks for the watch Andrew! Good to know, thanks for all the runs you have done over the years!!!

[@19Szabolcs91]

By the way, "First Bowser" on 8-4 is actually Bowser's Brother according to the original manual. Really.

[@richarddavis8863]

Buruukoopa. Blue Koopa I guess

[@richarddavis8863]

@LolKing Buuruuceukoopa haha

[@19Szabolcs91]

@LolKing I prefer the theory that he is called Morton, and Morton Jr., along with all the other Koopa Kids are his children.

[@adude6568]

Browser

[@vaiyt]

My original character blowser

[@Real_Artician]

"I was *shocked* how Mr. Miyamoto could have made such a cruel game." And here, 30 odd years on and people are beating that "cruel" game twice in a coffee break.

[@19Szabolcs91]

Fun fact, Miyamoto didn't actually make The Lost Levels aka SMB2(J), it was directed and designed by Takashi Tezuka. In the meantime Miyamoto was working on Doki Doki Panic which ended up bying reskinned to the Western SMB2. Fun how it all comes around.

[@Real_Artician]

Full, direct, copied, and famous, quote from Howard Phillips. Wikipedia's actually provides source for the quote too. Sorry I wasn't completely accurate with a reference to a famous quote. As I continued to play, I found that Super Mario Bros. 2 asked me again and again to take a leap of faith, and each of those leaps resulted in my immediate death. This was not a fun game to play. It was punishment - undeserved punishment. I put down my controller, astonished that Mr. Miyamoto had chosen to design such a painful game. -Howard Phillips on his test playthrough of The Lost Levels[12]

[@legoboy7107]

@@Real_Artician The annoying thing is, Lost Levels never really asks you to make a blind leap of faith anywhere if you just stop and assess the situation for once. With all those "blind parakoopa jumps" people have talked about where you can't see the parakoopa you have to jump on, you can actually always get a full perfect view of the parakoopa if you just stop, walk back, and slowly edge the screen scroll forward, and then you have everything you need to actually time your jump rather than going in blind. Similar thing with the infamous big springs, you can just use the screen scroll to tell where Mario currently is horizontally, since if the screen is scrolling that means Mario is in the center.

[@nogoat]

This game doesn't get enough coverage as it's brother, Super Mario Bros. Glad it's getting covered in recent times.

[@WoddCar]

The fact that people are able to beat this game very fast without many deaths or pauses is amazing for me

[@Larszard]

Fantastic content as always! SMB2J is so exciting because it's a bit less optimised than SMB so big timesaves can still happen. Also, the background music in this was impeccable

[@iBall1]

45:25 Look Gary there I am!

[@Storster]

ibowl

[@awesomefrog.]

These videos are so entertaining, modern internet history combined with in-depth speedrunning trick explanations is just an amazing combo. Keep it up man!

[@legoboy7107]

SMB Lost Levels has genuinely become one of my favorite 2D Mario games in the past few months. I've gotten good enough at SMB1 in the past couple years that I can do a normal playthrough of Worlds 1-8 (and 9) on the FDS version of Lost Levels without any game overs like it's any other 2D Mario game, and the higher difficulty honestly feels mostly amazing given how easy other traditional non-kaizo Mario games have become. Lost Levels is difficult but it's still traditional in its design, not kaizo-esque, and I love that. And, when you look at it from the perspective of how it was made specifically for players who had completely mastered everything about SMB1 and not intended for newcomers, a target audience literally no other official 2D Mario game has been designed around (the closest thing being some DLC in NSMB2), Lost Levels is actually VERY well designed with that goal in mind. It's much better designed than people give it credit for but is just designed around a very different audience from other Mario games, which is why it likely doesn't feel great for an amateur casual like other Mario games do, because it simply wasn't designed for them. I understand people who say that Mario games should be accessible and not designed just specifically for hardcore veterans, but when EVERY Mario game is designed to be beginner-accessible when Nintendo could do so much with the robust Mario mechanics in a game specifically targeted toward hardcore players, it gets stale, so it's nice to have at least ONE official Nintendo-made Mario game designed specifically for hardcore veterans. In my opinion not EVERY Mario game should have to be beginner-accessible and not targeted specifically toward series veterans, and having an entire official game, rather than just a single bonus world or some DLC, designed for veterans feels awesome for someone like me. Though reskinning Doki Doki Panic for the West was still probably the best call given the situation at the time, and in the long run it resulted in us having BOTH SMB2s which are both fantastic in my opinion, albeit for different reasons, so even though I love Lost Levels I'm still glad Nintendo made the decision they did.

[@SwedePotato314]

I can't wait!!! When I was a kid and finally upgraded to SNES, I had the SMB All-Stars cart with the Lost Levels on it... it was sooo much more challenging than the SMB I was used to, but oh man did I love it! So so so excited Sorester is doing this deep dive! Worth Worth wait, every time! 🖤🎮🕹

[@ultraspinalki11]

I heard that the version of Lost Levels in SNES All Stars is slightly toned down in difficulty, is missing a few levels and has slightly altered physics. Still, it was a blast to play.

[@Kosmicd12]

@@ultraspinalki11 it's not missing any levels, nor or any of them altered in any significant way :)

[@ultraspinalki11]

@@Kosmicd12 It's on the wiki, but I suppose it could be wrong: "The first appearance of the game outside of Japan was in remastered form in Super Mario All-Stars for SNES; some level designs were slightly modified to be made a bit easier, additional checkpoints and 1-ups were added, and poison mushrooms were altered to appear less similar to super mushrooms. A save feature was also added to allow starting the game from any accessed level." And my mistake, it was the GBC version of Lost Levels in "SMB Deluxe" that had levels missing.

[@Kosmicd12]

@@ultraspinalki11 actually the opposite is true, they removed midway points in the letter worlds, made enemies move faster, and made more of the bowsers throw hammers. There aren't more 1-ups, but you do start with 2 more lives and game overs basically don't matter since you save your progress on every level.

[@SwedePotato314]

@@Kosmicd12 The master has confirmed my childhood badassery is still intact! Thank you, senpai.

[@mathprodigy]

Just in the middle of watching this rn and i love the Uniracers music. Underappreciated classic game

[@the1barbarian781]

Incredible video. Learned so much about a game that I’ve never played

[@yungvarg2301]

It's so hard because you have to find the levels first

[@GensoBees]

Thank you thumbnail, for finding my lost Bowser! I don't know what I would have done without him!

[@the1barbarian781]

Exited for it! Also irrelevant to the lost levels but scalpels Rubik’s cube stuff is even more insane than his speedrunning

[@kissen1_]

I too get exited

[@ujkloin]

8:08 WOW that is insane that back in 2010 speedrunners went for that and in 2020 just 1 year ago not many records did it!

[@MiniIand]

yoooooo i just watched this whole video and its insanely good its also worth noting that on i believe the same day niftski got 7:52, he had a run a full second ahead of his 7:52 to 4-4 clip, saving triple 1-2 framerule + 4-3 double framerule save :o

[@steveeveslage4873]

I was not prepared for this game. Eventually learned to appreciate it though. Love the videos demonstrating the skills of the speed runners. Nice!

[@joebrunina8697]

This video is great and very informative. I love the long form docs. Big fan of the channel!

[@inverse_of_zero]

i think it was nice how darbian got the last ever minute barrier

[@StepBaum]

Awesome editing and use of music. Good job honestly :), also appreciate the sections in the video

[@MeesterTweester]

I beat the game for the first time last September and this week beat it on the Game & Watch. Great video!

[@mathprodigy]

Yea man fantastic presentation, loved this quite a bit

[@fredhrodrigues9019]

This is amazing, thank you for it, keep on with the great work!

[@katepuddings2]

Darbian's first sub 8 is probably the funniest Mario run i have ever watched

[@kevinhay2267]

Awesome, loved it, thanks so much for the effort you put into your videos. We should all have a party when you have 1 million subs.

[@srich040]

Great work as always!

[@pawer_themaw]

Super Mario Bros: The Lost Speedruns :)

[@sheepdog_81]

Incredible video! Incredible game! Incredible players! Incredible story! Awesome!

[@UzzyT.]

I’m glad I have the bell hit for you.

[@ghostedisnotgoofy]

Nice video been waiting a to see this for a while now amazing as always!

[@ThaAwesome10]

I kinda wish you at least mentioned lekukie’s 7:57.04/7:56.545

[@SlimecraftStudios]

"Overall Cleaner 1-2" **BLURY VIDEO**

[@snakeywakey3893]

The quality here is amazing.

[@DeaDGoD_XIV]

I love the use of the Zombies Ate my Neighbors soundtrack

[@sarysa]

With SMB1 more or less out of seconds to shave, I'll be looking forward to what these amazing runners can do with SMB's forgotten cousin.

[@kaspi644]

good job as always!

[@superdejan64]

Can we appreciate that Darbian goes for sblj at the very end of his Marihour run? Can't imagine how many runs he lost to that

[@Overwatchaddictt]

This was an awesome video that was very informative Great job!

[@PatrickDavis28]

The crazy thing is, 7:51 could be done pretty easily. Kosmic accidentally got an FPG in 8-2 that saved a framerule, and in the same run he also saved a framerule in 8-1. The thing is, neither of those framerules are in the world record. If Niftski went for those timesaves, he could just barely clutch out a 7:51. Also, fun fact: If you count loading times, Somewes would still have the world record with a time of 7:57.

[@idkyet9458]

how do you accidentally get an fpg

[@thekilla1234]

Nintendo 1986: This game is way too hard, let's make a different one. SMM Super Expert: bruh

[@vaporwavevocap]

13:30 what's this song? The songs in this video are such bangers I keep leaving to look them up but I can't find this one.

[@donwald3436]

That Niftski robot is at it again!!! lol

[@Gregggggggggg]

8:56 Arabesque by Burgmuller, classical musicians unite!

[@pralyuris5936]

Happy to see this underrated game covered

[@serbonkers4130]

Yeah i grew up in SEA and this is the mario 2 that i know. Never beat it once lol

[@idkyet9458]

i am growing up in SEA and it feels like adults want to eradicate games from the face of the earth i hardly knew any mario games until recent years i beat this game before but used tons of savestates

[@christopherjones8149]

I got close once, never made it again 😂😂😂😂😂

[@NinetyLegos]

I think Kosmic has 8-4 100% WR

[@riahlexington]

Oh the roast beef infomercial I remember that well!!

[@OGGI_ZOMBIE]

its not that Mario Lost Levels are hard, its that its incredibly trolley. I consider it the origins of Mario Maker. Why did they have to make every castle a puzzle?

[@slopyardjoe]

i like how when niftski jumps he looks like he's playing bass

[@SECONDQUEST]

Love your channel dogg!

[@Selickaredeed]

Great video

[@ujkloin]

17:35 what you said he beat it by "over" a second but that is 0.95 seconds saved

[@TACOINSURANCE]

Kosmic is GOAT. We know this.

[@shad0wphoenix1]

I love storster content :’)

[@ColinGeorgie]

what is the name of the classical piece being techno remixed at 10:27 i played it as a child and cant remember the name

[@alaeriia01]

What's the music that plays at 6:53? It's quoting a piece I remember from back when I was learning piano.

[@vaporwavevocap]

Super Tetris 3 SNES - OST Technotris

[@ThatOneLegendEmerald]

Well, guess what I'm watching while packing for moving-

[@miketate3445]

14:23 Take me home tonight...

[@qwertyrhoads9295]

Dang, this music though.

[@ThaAwesome10]

Can’t wait!

[@quandle8647]

“Flagtable glitch”

[@mateotraveling]

You already know I have a reminder

[@chiefzach7418]

Enjoyed the video

[@andrewburris4370]

how come some of the speedrun tricks in the first smb aren't used in the lost levels, like the flagpole glitch and stuff like that?

[@ricogoins]

i cant wait! its probably way harder than smb1

[@waxknucklebearingjuice5592]

volume inconsistency kills !

[@Storster]

I know my audio has sucked at certain points haha. I hope you'd agree my last few uploads are way more consistent. That's been a priority lately.

[@rinbros]

It’s amazing how Summoning Salt is the only one who can pull videos like this.

[@BarrelRollFlex]

what is that fake ken theme in the beginning?

[@NewSchattenRayquaza]

17:00 Bro looks just like me playing dark souls lamo

[@manawyrm6282]

+ Like. Can you make video about Warpless D-4 category?

[@clippysoft]

ey, anyone know the song at 13:27 ??

[@KiraKibosh]

What song is playing at 37:50?

[@laytonjr6601]

Is there a reason why the timing method doesn't get adjusted by the frame rate? The one with the fewest frames would have the word record instead of the one with the fastest time

[@Kosmicd12]

lower framerate means bigger window to hit tricks. The fastest time should be the fastest time haha.

[@laytonjr6601]

@@Kosmicd12 Thanks for the answer!

[@19Szabolcs91]

@@Kosmicd12 Afaik, some speedrun communities do count frames instead of raw time, and convert, like Mario Kart 64. This makes PAL very advantageous because it's easier to play if it's 20% slower.

[@dylansmith6911]

1m subs incoming

[@AdamFerrari64]

But Can you beat All the levels ? 😎🔥

[@starting7725]

and that's when we have warpless

[@AdamFerrari64]

@@starting7725 lol I know I was being sarcastic. I have the wr for all levels so it’s an inside joke between me and Pat :)

[@starting7725]

@@AdamFerrari64 yea I know

[@ThaAwesome10]

@@AdamFerrari64 whos pat

[@nogoat]

@@ThaAwesome10 Storster.

[@Larszard]

I haven't found time to watch this yet but bro how many different titles has it had? Are you trying to set a new WR for amount of title changes on a KZbin video? 😂

[@Storster]

I promise it won't change again, I couldn't settle on one haha

[@whiterottenrabbit]

Love your engaging upbeat non-monothone narrating style **slow clap**

[@salt546-lfc]

Meow wow speedrun bing has gone far

[@wheelinshirt]

Neat video but that techno version of 'take me home tonight' is absolutely grating. turned off the video because i just couldn't take it anymore.

[@billymaier6712]

UNIRACERS MUSIC!!!!!!!!!!!

[@findharry7]

I feel like someone is gonna start talking about summoning salt in the comment😂

[@brandoncolon1160]

Beat it as a kid its fuckin brutal the japanese are intense

[@beatrizmendoza6045]

Let’s GOO

[@ujkloin]

39:27 5-1*

[@ujkloin]

39:48 down*

[@matts9382]

What is that intro song?!? Rules!!!

[@zLance2409]

Number 15...

[@thefrankperspective4247]

Are we sub-7:00 yet lol

[@ujkloin]

16:24 sorry but thats not sml lol

[@spaniardprince]

Subbed

[@Mighty_Dork]

Your voice sounds way different in every video of yours I watch

[@dylansmith6911]

voice mod like alt history hub and youll have a million subs

[@mokomoko1876]

WHATS THE SONG AT 47:34 PLEASE GOD IM NOT DIGGING THRU THAT HUGE SONG LIST 😿

[@bloodhound1182]

1:25 WHY DID THIS TAKE SO LONG ?? WHY IS NOBODY ELSE MENTIONING THIS

[@kakuuirukusu1868]

Had to skip to 10:02 because the music playing before that was so awful and repetitive that I wanted to blow my brains out for a minute there. Brother I wanted to hear what you had to say but that music was too much

[@mateotraveling]

Had a notification for this lmao

[@Besitzerstolz]

I really enjoy your videos, but your thumbnails are just not good. For the last few videos, they were pretty bland, but easy to recognize as a Storster video. But this time it's just messy! This arrow pointing to Bowser's neck makes no sense at all and the word "Lost" is just not fitting, too. It makes you interested in a record not seen for years or hidden by the language barrier. Instead, when you read the title you understand, that it's actually a video about a game, which has the word as main part of the title. It seems to be misplaced and brings up wrong expectations.

[@kkmac7247]

Was the thumbnail changed?

[@Besitzerstolz]

@@kkmac7247 yeah, good to see he listens to criticism.