Warning!!! This movie contains flashing lights!
Overview
The Lost Levels is a remake of the game released in Japan as Super Mario Bros 2. It introduces a number of new obstacles into the standard Super Mario Bros. formula, including poisonous mushrooms, wind, reverse warp zones, and of course many tricky jumps. It's difficult enough that Nintendo of America decided to completely re-theme a different game and release that as Super Mario Bros. 2 instead; The Lost Levels is the first time the Japanese sequel was released to the rest of the world.
The original game has long been known to have 2 endings: One at 8-4 and one at D-4. But now, at least 39 years after the game came out, it was found that there was a third hidden ending, where you literally enter glitched levels. This was made possible by the remastered version of Lost Levels in Super Mario All-Stars containing the Save and Quit feature.
Determined to crack the matrix (or crash the game, for that matter), Mario quickly rescued the princess, moving to the bonus levels, and ending his journey (a.k.a the game) in less than half an hour.
This TAS improves on my previous submission by 00:42.347.
Game Objectives
- Reach the end of B-M and crash the game.
- Timing starts from console power on.
- Abuses glitches.
- Make use of warpzones.
- Timing ends on the first frame the game crashes.
Glitches Used
- Flagpole Glitch (FPG): By clipping into the base of the flagpole with a margin of half a pixel, Mario can touch the flagpole at a position lower than normally possible. This triggers code to skip the flag lowering cutscene, saving up to 21 frames. This clip works by pushing left when Mario's speed (0x5D) is set to 0 after a block collision, giving Mario a small negative speed. The game responds by sucking him further into the block, and a jump is done to grab the flagpole. This is done in 1-1, 1-2, 4-1, 4-2... well, every stage ending with a flagpole.
- Grabbing the right side of the flagpole: By facing left while doing the Flagpole Glitch, Mario ended up snapping to the right of it. This skips the animation where Mario gains horizontal displacement and flips to the right side of the flagpole since Mario is already in that state. This works with certain flagpoles but also requires a powerup to be on the left of the screen in other levels. This trick works with every level ending in a flagpole.
- Wall Jump: When Mario moves into a wall, Mario actually moves inside the block for at most 2 frames. If Mario is also found on top of a block, he can stand on it and therefore can jump from it. This is used in 1-2, 5-1, A-2, B-L, and twice in B-M.
- Crouch Clip: As Big Mario or Fire Mario, by standing inside the block after a crouch (like the Wall Jump), Mario uncrouches. If Mario's head is found inside a wall, he can freely move to the right. This is used in 1-2, B-2 and B-4
- Corner Clip: With precise positioning, Mario can find himself barely not clearing a corner of a block. By pressing left when Mario collides with the corner, he can clip inside that corner and into the block. This is used in 8-4 while underwater to increase Mario's X position.
- Wall Clip: When Mario runs into a wall, in rare circumstances he can be 3 pixels deep inside the wall. By pushing left and repeatedly jump. Mario can work his way inside the wall and run to the right. This is used in 1-2, 4-4, B-9, B-D and B-I.
- Fast Acceleration:
- Ground Acceleration: Mario accelerates twice as fast when facing the direction opposite to his movement. Note that Mario has 2 speed caps: 24 (walking speed) and 40 (running speed). In order to accelerate past walking speed, Mario must be on the ground while B is held. This means the fastest way to accelerate is by doing a fast acceleration to reach the walking speed cap, then run on the ground, and then do another fast acceleration. This is even more powerful with the Left + Right input combination, as that will make Mario move right while facing left immidiately instead of having to do a left tap to setup his direction. This is used to accelerate to the walking speed cap faster, although it can't be used to accelerate to the running speed cap as pressing Left + Right with at least 25 speed on the ground sets his speed back to 24. Additionally, Left + Right also can't be used to accelerate while Mario's moving to the left. Fast acceleration can save 5 frames on flat ground and more on other surfaces.
- Swimming Acceleration: When Mario is at 11 speed or more while L+R is pressed, he can accelerate twice as fast to the maximum swimming speed of 24. This 11 speed thing also works on the ground and is an alternative to when Mario's unable to jump from 0 speed (like after a wall clip). Mario can also accelerate to a speed of 2 faster from 0 with a single-frame L+R input.
- Going through enemies: The game only checks for collision every other frame. This means Mario can enter and leave enemy hitboxes on consecutive frames. This is used to go through piranha plants and kill Bowser.
- Warpzone Glitch: There are variables in memory called the Area Pointer and the Entrance Page. When Mario enters a pipe or climbs a vine, Mario is taken to an area determined by the Area Pointer, at a page (each page ia a 16 block chunk of a level starting at a value of 0). These values get loaded whenever Mario is close to a pipe or vine and stay in memory until a new pipe or vine appears. This is why if you enter a warpzone while it's not loaded, you can enter a different area or the area just resets. However, if Mario scrolls the screen while entering a warpzone, the screen will scroll and loads the warpzone, which defaults to setting the Entrance Page value to 0. This means Mario respawns at the start of whatever area he's in. It just so happens that the warpzone area normally accessed by the pipe in B-4 is at the end of the A-3 level layout, so Mario appears in the start of THAT area and can finish the level, incrementing his level value by 1 (like B-4 to B-5). This is the key to glitched levels.
- Wrong Warp: Because the Entrance Page stays in memory, it inherits the huge value left over by the warpzone pipe in B-4. This means that trying to enter a pipe in level layout C-1 while in world B just takes Mario to that huge Entrance Page value, which is at the end of the flagpole. This trick saves close to 10 seconds per level.
- Desync from entering a level from the menu: Whenever Mario completes a level normally, the game loads the next level by looking at a list of levels in the game and adds 1. This is why after completing B-4 with a flagpole, you're still sent to the C-1 level layout. In contrast, while opening a level from the menu, the game uses a different list which keeps track of the area to load. Since we're reaching the depths of world B, there is a point where the game tries to read data out of bounds from the table and loads whatever data happens to be next in memory. This leads to many glitched levels. Here's a table of what selecting each level in the menu would result in: (Note that all the normally underwater levels are no longer underwater, for the glitched levels)
| Level | Level layout from menu selection | Layout on the next level |
|---|---|---|
| B-5 | B-1 | B-2 |
| B-6 | B-2 with pipe cutscene | B-3 |
| B-7 | B-2 without pipe cutscene | B-3 |
| B-8 | B-3 | B-4 |
| B-9 | B-1 | B-2 |
| B-A | B-2 with pipe cutscene | B-3 |
| B-B | B-2 without pipe cutscene | B-3 |
| B-C | B-3 | B-4 |
| B-D | C-2 | C-3 |
| B-E | Glitched 6-2 | |
| B-F | B-1 | B-2 |
| B-G | C-1 | C-2 |
| B-H | Glitched 9-1 | Glitched B-2 |
| B-I | Glitched 7-1 | |
| B-J | Glitched 9-1 | Glitched B-2 |
| B-K | Glitched 7-1 | |
| B-L | Glitched 9-1 | Glitched B-2 |
| B-M | Glitched 7-1 |
If there's no third entry, either the level is impossible or crashes upon completion.
The Framerule System
This games uses a global timer which counts down from 20 to 0 and loops back to 20 for a length of 21 frames. The value of this timer decrement by 1 for every frame after console power on with the exception of powerups, damage, textboxes or menu. The level transition works by counting down 6 framerules after fanfare by an enemy called the star flag. Because the global timer could be anywhere from 0 to 20 when the level transition starts, it creates the 21 frame rule system. Therefore, Mario can only gain or lose time in multiples or 21 frames (excluding lag frames) in every level. However, the framerule system doesn't apply to warpzones as the black screen after levels are a fixed length. This system creates opportunities for entertainment.
Entertainment
- Mario can face backwards and fire fireballs every 10 frames for the fireballs to perfectly synchronize while leaving only 2 on screen.
- Mario can do a left wiggle or crouch for 1 frame without losing speed.
- Mario tries to kill as many enemies with fireballs as possible.
- And more!
Routing
In order to access the glitched worlds, Mario need to get to B-4 first. The fastest way to beat 8-4 is used (1-1, 1-2, World 4 5-1, 5-2, World 8). Then Mario warp to World B from A-2. (The reason why Mario don't warp to World C from A-3 and then Save + Quit to B-4 is because the levels past B-4 only appears when you have never visited world C). Mario completes B-4 and do the warpzone glitch to get to B-7 (which is impossible because the springs are red in world B). Mario then load B-7 from the menu and gets to B-9. Now there are 2 routes:
- B-9 (Save + Quit), B-9 (Menu), B-A, B-B, B-C (Save + Quit).
- B-9 (Warpzone Glitch), B-A, B-B, B-C (Save + Quit).
I tested both routes and the second one is faster! After that, Mario reach B-D and do the warpzone glitch, the Save + Quit in B-F. B-F from the menu is B-1, so Mario can reach B-I which is B-4 and do the warpzone glitch again, unlocking 3 more levels. Finally, Mario Save + Quit in B-L and selects B-L from the menu, which is when the fireworks happens. The furthest Mario can go is B-M, since the alternative (B-M from menu) also lead to a crash upon completion.
If I had a nickel for every time I have to Save + Quit, I'd have four nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened four times, right?
Improvements
- The Wrong Warp trick is used four times.
- The routing from B-9 to B-C changed with the addition of the Wrong Warp for more time save.
(Most of the TAS stayed the same)
Credits
- HUGE thanks to Kosmic who discovered this! In fact, most parts of his explaination is included right here!
- Thanks to HappyLee and DaSmileKat for their work on this very game.
Suggested Screenshot
(Frame 86534)
Challenger: Claiming for judging.
Challenger: This year becomes a real masterpiece scene! Some months ago TASVideos saw the FDS version of the first game achieving the "game end glitch" breakthrough, now we have the original second game aiming for a brand new objective which requires confusing the game's logic into warpzone pipes and taking advantage of the fact you can Save + Quit the game in order to keep the progress working as long as possible through B-4 until B-M through different level layouts that weren't supposed to be possible at first!
Next, once reaching the latest two stages, the mission turns out another one but the game advances until the end of B-M because...
It corrupted so bad that the game surprisingly managed to keep working as farther as possible before decides to die. This is one of most unique objectives I've seen in 2026, and the feedback is also very positive!
The ending looks like a game crash but hey for the other side the "Lost Levels" subtitle for the SNES port now makes sense. In addition, because of the entire different and unusual nature of the brand new goal, this run definitely fits into Alternative class.
Accepting for publication.
For encoder and publisher: be careful in the last minute due to Photosensitivity issues, including the true ending point.
despoa: Processing...