Exploring The Lost Levels!

The video game 'The Lost Levels' is basically a harder version of Super Mario Bros on NES. It is a somewhat unknown Mario title because of the story surrounding it. It's an interesting story, but basically to summarize it:

The Lost Levels is in fact actually the real Super Mario Bros 2, but released only in Japan.

After Super Mario Bros release, the U.S. got Super Mario Bros. 2. You know, the one where in addition to being Mario, you could be Luigi, Toad, or Princess Peach. Peach was clearly the best character with the ability to float for a short period of time. The game could have easily been called 'Princess Peach's Crazy Adventure,' but instead they decided to call it Super Mario Bros. 2.

Japan thought the game was too challenging and would fail in the United States, so they decided to entirely transform a completely unrelated video game into what we now know as Super Mario Bros. 2. It was always the oddball game, and many people still don't realize that this is the reason why it's so different from every other Mario game.

Eventually, the real Super Mario Bros. 2 made it to the U.S in a Super Nintendo game called Super Mario All-Stars. This game actually contains four remade Mario games: Super Mario Bros 1, 2, 3, and of course the real Super Mario Bros 2 (known to the U.S. as The Lost Levels). 

Now, I'm exploring The Lost Levels again. Well, I'm doing more than exploring it, I'm speedrunning it. I'm trying to beat all 52 stages of the real Super Mario Bros. 2 in record time. The time to beat? 36 minutes and 31 seconds by Japanese player 'Hotarubi'. Hotarubi is a very well known and respected speedrunner who has demolished  tons of video game world records. His times are good. Here is the current leaderboard for the The Lost Levels:

I've got the 3rd best time to date. A few months back, I started doing some speedruns for this game, but never got a chance to finish. So now I'm back on the attack and I'm hoping to finish what I started and best Hotarubi's time. This is going to take great skill, knowledge, and practice to get this.

Wish me luck!