Super Mario Bros.: Definitive

Hack description

Super Mario Bros. Definitive is a modification of the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 (also known as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels) that combines all levels from said game and the original Super Mario Bros. into one ROM hack, allowing all levels from both games to be played back-to-back seamlessly. Levels from the original Super Mario Bros. are played first, with levels from The Lost Levels immediately following the final Super Mario Bros. level.

In addition to including every level from both games, Super Mario Bros. Definitive makes several small tweaks to the levels and game engine, most of which come from Super Mario All-Stars or All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. Definitive uses the MMC3 mapper and is based on the codebase from recent NES conversions of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Below is a list of the most significant changes implemented within this ROM hack:

- A brand-new World 9 has been added for the Super Mario Bros. half, accessible after clearing all 32 Super Mario Bros. levels. The World 9 stages are based on glitch levels present in Super Mario Bros., with the 9-4 maze sharing the same loop pattern as VS. Super Mario Bros.

- Worlds A through D from The Lost Levels have been increased in difficulty by implementing modifications from Super Mario All-Stars. Specifically, Hammer Brothers now always charge the player, enemies gain a speed boost, all Goombas become Buzzy Beetles, all springs in World B are now red instead of green, and all Fake Bowsers now throw hammers. Unlike Super Mario All-Stars, Bowser in World 9 and World D now shoots fire as well.

- A couple bugfixes from All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. have been implemented, resolving an issue that occurred when finishing a castle level with no time remaining and an issue with riding moving platforms to the bottom of the screen.

- Graphical changes have been made to certain levels. 5-1 from Super Mario Bros. and 1-1 from The Lost Levels now start with a big castle for the sake of visual consistency, 3-3 from Super Mario Bros. is now a night-time snow level, all bridge levels now contain pools of water to indicate the presence of flying Cheep-Cheeps, and the water section in 8-4 from Super Mario Bros. now uses the castle palette without the water backdrop.

- As is the case with the European release of Super Mario Bros., the one-block gaps present at the end of all water areas from that game are absent to prevent the player from easily getting stuck until time runs out.

- As in Super Mario All-Stars, the player begins with five lives and receives five lives upon continuing from a Game Over. Additionally, the maximum number of lives has been capped to 128 to prevent an issue with overflowing the life count. The lives display has been modified to properly display the life count.

- Luigi inherits his physics from Super Mario All-Stars, increasing his horizontal acceleration and deceleration and making his control feel less "slippery."

- Luigi now has a distinct palette (lifted from Super Mario Bros. Deluxe).

- Player physics and firework conditions from The Lost Levels apply to levels from both games but enemy speeds and hidden 1-UP requirements are taken from the source game. However, the hidden 1-UP from 1-1 of The Lost Levels is not tied to any coin requirements.

- If you get a game over, you are now able to save the current world you are on and continue at any time by holding A + Start on the title screen.

Contributor	Type of contribution	Description
Simplistic_Memes	Hacking	Assembly & Title Screen
SeraphmIII	Hacking

Reviews

A Couple Issues That Should Be Fixed But Really Good Idea With Almost Perfect Execution	legoboy7107	2024-07-11	Version 1.2
Okay, so I want to get issues out of the way first. First, why is the Game Over theme different? Is this a bug? Because it's objectively worse and there's no reason for it to have been changed. Instead of playing the classic jingle that's in Mario 1 and Lost Levels, it's instead a repeating sequence of four notes in a rising scale?!?! It's just 4 rising notes and it loops repeatedly and sounds grating and annoying on the ears. Why on EARTH was this change made? Is this a bug? If so it should be fixed, if this hack wants to be called the Definitive Version of Mario 1 it needs to have the original theme and not make changes like this, especially when it's such an annoying downgrade because this replacement isn't a good theme. Second, while this is subjective, I'm not sure how I feel about applying all the "Hard Mode" changes to Lost Levels' Worlds A-D, like replacing the Goombas with Buzzy Beetles. Those levels weren't designed for those changes, every official version ever always had those levels use Goombas, and Lost Levels never had Mario 1's "Hard Mode" to begin with so these levels were never meant to have these changes. And also, this is something that isn't a big deal and I don't think can even be altered, so this is less a suggestion and more of a note for anyone playing this: Lost Levels' higher bounce off enemies also applies to all the Mario 1 stages in this hack, which that game wasn't designed for. Meaning some things won't flow the same and it might feel a little awkward in the Mario 1 portion, but that's not a major negative, just something to keep in mind. A couple suggestions that aren't critiques but just ideas, it would be cool to have alternate versions of this hack that include the unused Lakitu Spiny Egg Throwing behavior as well as the fix in 1-2 and 4-2 on scrolling past the exit pipe when you're not on the upper path to the Warp Zones (if anyone doesn't know, it's supposed to normally stop scrolling at the regular exit and only keep scrolling if you're on the top path to the Warp Zone, but this was bugged in the final release). I tried applying the separate Lakitu and Warp Zone patches to this rom but they don't work right and glitch some things, and I straight up can't apply this rom patch to a Mario 1 rom that already has these fixes pre-applied, meaning you can't merge all 3 hacks together. I would gladly edit the changes myself but I don't know how to disassemble this hack to apply the right code changes manually, so having alternate versions of this hack with these other hacks applied would be cool. Otherwise, this is a very good hack that's the full Mario 1 experience in one ROM, as it was probably kinda meant to be. Definitely recommended, but PLEASE at least revert the Game Over music to what it's supposed to be.

Definitely definitive!	Szemigi	2024-05-20	Version 1.2
I've just played this ROM-hack and I say this overwings the entire SMB1-SMB2J original games. Shamelessly and cruelly recommended hack to play! Great job!

It really lives up to what a true definitive version of Super Mario Bros. would be.	Vallenatero2015	2024-03-30	Version 1.1
In fact, I don't know how to describe it. With so many bug fixes that the game had and the way it combined the two games in the Super Mario Bros series for NES (SMB1 and SMB2J), I can really understand that this hack really lives up to what a true definitive version is. I definitely recommend it with 5/5.

I'm surprised no one thought of this sooner.	Chronosplit	2024-03-19	Version 1.1
Not only does this bring you everything in one package, it saves you some frustration with the famicom disk system (or what have you) for SMB2. My only gripe comes from the aesthetics of SMB1 inheriting SMB2's tiles. Most are straight upgrades and I'm not complaining about that, just... the girder platforms becoming mushroom platforms doesn't always seem to match, and maybe I would've kept that one out? But honestly, that being the only weird thing means this is doing everything else right!

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