Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels – Poison Mushrooms
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, otherwise known as Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan, was created by Nintendo after witnessing the huge success of Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was meant for seasoned players of the original title, those who had mastered the ins and outs of the game’s intricacies, thus turning a lot of things they had learned on its head. This logic was applied to the game’s healing items, mushrooms, birthing the existence of a new menace known as the poison mushroom as a consequence.
The poison mushroom trolled fans well in that it looked virtually identical to the regular mushroom. Instead of supplying Mario with additional health, the fungus’ poisonous counterpart either made him smaller, took away his fire power-up, or outright killed him. Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels provides a challenge for fans even today, as most people don’t associate mushrooms as having detrimental effects, at least when it comes to video games. Nintendo deemed the game unsuitable for immediate localization in North America due to its difficulty, and the poison mushroom serves as great evidence to back their reasoning.
