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Introduction

There are over a dozen levels in the SMB3 coding not found in the actual game. They can be accessed with a ROM hacking program. Someone at themushroomkingdom.net made an IPS patch that allows access to these "lost levels".
At the website, you can also find some level maps of these "lost levels".

Notes

Emulator used: FCEU 0.98.15
This is my first TAS. I made a few screw-ups on the overworld movements. Sorry about that.

Level comments

Level 1: I run to the right at the start to show what's at that part of the level. Then I run back to the beginning and take the pipe to the rest of the stage.
Level 2: Another intereresting level. At the end, there is a pipe attached to a wall. The pipe leads to a boring Coin Heaven. Flying over the big wall leads to the "real" goal. I tried to walljump over it, but I couldn't.
Level 3: I get a Kuribo's Shoe here. There is an interesting glitch involving jumping with the shoe. After falling (not jumping) off a platform, you can jump once again in midair because the game thinks you are on the ground.
Level 4: This is like a harder version of 1-5. This turned out pretty good, I think.
Interesting note: The angle of a "slope jump" exactly equals the angle of the ground that I slope jump at.
Level 5: This level just has a Tanooki Suit block. I get it and take the pipe to exit the level. Using a Walk-thru-walls Game Genie code, it is possible to go through the walls to see more Tanooki Suit rooms.
Level 6: Interesting level. I think this turned out well.
Level 7: World 7-4 redux. Autoscrollers are kind of boring, but I think this turned out pretty good.
A "lost" enemy appears here: Gold Cheep Cheeps swim faster than normal ones and swim in groups of three.
Level 8: A pretty interesting level. Getting the third of three matching panel cards here causes a graphics glitch: When the big "fireworks" powerup appears during the fanfare, there will be a bunch of scrambled letters in the background.
Level 9: A sky level! Another lost enemy here: Green Parabeetles are faster versions of Red ones.
Level 10: A "lost" Coin Heaven, maybe?
Level 11: A harder version of 1-6.
Level 12: Much shorter version of 1-6. No exit here, so I die in a pit to exit.
Level 13: Copy of Level 12, except Mario's starting position is lower.
Level 14: No enemies, pits, or exit here. The big jump I make about halfway through is to show some of the black glitchy background. I reset the game to get out.
Level 15: No enemies, pits, or exit here either. Some "lost" cloud platforms are here. The Bullet Bill cannon doesn't fire anything. I reset the game to get out.
...and that's it! Hope you liked it!

Other comments

Improvements:

  • Fix overworld mistakes.
  • Possibly some routes improvable, such as the water in Level 2 and/or Level 8.
EDIT: Run cancelled, re-doing with improvements.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1917: Zowayix's NES Super Mario Bros. 3 "lost levels" in 07:37.95
Editor, Skilled player (1938)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3246
I hate to say "TAS this hack at SMB3 standard or no one cares" for fear of perpetuating a vicious cycle. But the lack of competence in this movie is appalling. If you are going to showcase this hack, be reasonable about it. 500-something rerecords won't do. That said, I'll look at this submission hack-wise. There's a reason why they are "lost levels". That's because Nintendo made it that way, and they are not that good. In any case it is a hack, and, in my opinion, it's not good for TASing. No vote.
Post subject: Re: #1917: Zowayix's NES Super Mario Bros. 3 "lost levels" i
Experienced player (822)
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NesVideoAgent wrote:
This is my first TAS. I made a few screw-ups on the overworld movements. Sorry about that.
This is not good. If the overworld isn't even optimized, I can't expect the rest of the run to be any better. If you know you messed up, why didn't you go back and fix it? There are rerecords available for you to use for a reason. Also, this
Level 1: I run to the right at the start to show what's at that part of the level. Then I run back to the beginning and take the pipe to the rest of the stage.
has no place in a TAS. This isn't a site to publish let's play movies.
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Joined: 10/3/2005
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Well I'll be damned. I remember a screenshot on the back of the SMB 3 box of some level that doesn't exist- I think it was number 4 in this video. That bugged the hell out of me. Nice vid, but it's more suited to the "let's see you play something" thread than a submission.
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FractalFusion wrote:
There's a reason why they are "lost levels". That's because Nintendo made it that way, and they are not that good.
I see what you're saying... It's like, the deleted scenes section of a movie DVD does not constitute a movie of its own.
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No. Heres why:
  • Why are you in such a rush to submit this. You say you messed up on the overworld. Thats fair enough, but why did you not fix this? You clearly have the concept of re-records grasped, so it puzzles me why you would not make sure its perfect before you continued..
  • I do not think such a showcase is TAS-worthy. No fault of your own, just that it doesn't really add much to the SMB3 experience (Mario Adventure is a good example of a hack that adds alot). As such this doesn't seem like an interesting enough hack in my opinion.
  • It's more of a demonstration than a speed run. While this works for Air, it doesn't really seem to work for this run. As mentioned above, this would be better suited for the "let's see you play something" topic, so be sure to post it there at the very least.
Hope the negative feedback hasn't put you off TASing in the future.
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Post subject: Re: #1917: Zowayix's NES Super Mario Bros. 3 "lost levels" i
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
Location: Canada
NesVideoAgent wrote:
http://themushroomkingdom.net/smb3_lost.shtml
I find this page fascinating. The discovery of 15 unused levels is kind of neat, but finding two unused enemies is really cool. The two extra mini games is also an interesting find. I love stuff like this. This is right up there with the Arwing in Zelda OoT and the Citadel in Goldeneye. I wonder if any unused stuff made it into any other Mario games. The code for SMB1 has been analyzed to death -- partially thanks to efforts to determine if the level fragment that makes up the Minus World was deliberate or a bug -- so I assume that sprites for any characters that didn't make it into the game would have been discovered by now. There could be cool unused stuff in SMB2 and SMW. Anyway, let's talk about the run. I like it. It has some merit as a demonstration of a hacked ROM, in that it shows off a cool piece of SMB3 history that can't otherwise be seen. I even support your choice in Level 1, which allows the entire level to be seen. The swimming in Level 8 didn't look very optimized, though. I like the stylistic choices you made, as far as playing with Koopa shells and messing around during auto-scrolling levels, and I like how you dealt with the fact that some levels have no exit. If you can submit this run "fully optimized" (i.e. without any known improvements), I'll vote Yes to this.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
Joined: 12/29/2007
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Raiscan wrote:
Hope the negative feedback hasn't put you off TASing in the future.
No, the negative votes hasn't put me off. However, I'm surprised that this run actually got worse votes than my SMB3 "quickest death" run. I'm cancelling and re-doing this run, fixing all the overworld moves and changing some levels. It seems like the overworld screw-ups really busted this run.
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Aww... I've already started working on it and am about 1/4 of the way thorugh..... Oh well! I'll kep trying!
See Youtube page (GIRfanaticTAS) for all runs and stuff.
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