Super Mario Bros. Deluxe

The Original Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros. Deluxe is nearly identical to the original Super Mario Bros. experience on the NES. None of the levels were modified in any way from the original set, at least when played through the first time. New to this version, you can save anytime onto one of three separate accounts and there are simple overworld maps depicting each of the eight worlds. As a new feature, the Photo album is comparable to a modern Achievements system, awarding small pictures or vignettes that can be printed on a Game Boy Printer. Also, the game now includes a battery pack powered leaderboard, making the points system from the original game matter. The Gameboy Color's screen is not as wide as that of the original NES's display, so developers compensated for this by allowing the player to go back a short distance, press up or down to look around or press Select to recenter camera. Those points aside, the game is a dead ringer.

Star Mode

When you finish the original game the first time, a new star designation goes beside your save account and the game starts over with some variations to make the game more difficult. For example, in star mode, all of the Goombas are replaced with Buzzy Beetles and all floating platforms are considerably shortened. The effects of this mode do not consistently increase the difficulty (unchanged enemies pose no more a threat than before) but completion does prove much more challenging for platforming-intensive stages. When you beat the game on Star Mode, the game lets you choose which level to play and on what mode in the account selection screen.

Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels

Other than the main game, the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 (aka The Lost Levels) is in this release, named Super Mario Bros. For Super Players. To access the levels, you have to beat the default high score in the leaderboards that are held by Luigi in the main game. The format of Lost Levels is nearly identical to the original Mario Bros mechanically and graphically but it is designed to be far more difficult than its predecessor (it's also much more difficult than Star Mode). In addition to demanding better timing and greater levels of finesse, the game actively tries to trick the player with bogus secrets and red herrings, the most notorious of which is a warp zone that takes the player back to World 1 from later Worlds. Lost Levels is also the relatively obscure debut of the Poison Mushroom which will harm Mario when touched. As with the Super Nintendo version, the game removes the final 9th and A to D worlds, and differences in gameplay between Mario and Luigi.

Challenge Mode

One of the new modes is a challenge mode where each of the original 32 levels have special items hidden in them for Mario to find. The player can choose any level they have beaten on a save in the original game. Challenge Mode has three goals for each level: finding five special red coins, finding the Yoshi egg, and achieving a score by the end (determined by the development team). There is only one Challenge Mode account and it can be reset if desired.

You vs. Boo

Another new mode is a versus mode either against Luigi or Boo in a race to the flag. This can be done either as a singleplayer to two-player game with a link cable. The objective is to dodge a level full of obstacles, traps, and hazards to beat your opponent to the flag. There are eight levels to choose from and though they are graphically similar to the original game, none of the level designs are taken from the original. Each map has a series of buttons that players can hit to change the status of certain blocks, altering their existence or spikiness. There are two states the buttons toggle and one is beneficial to each contestant, striking a balance between making sure the layout is ideal and just gunning for the flag.

Boo is your opponent when playing against the computer and he simply floats by at a constant rate in the background instead of being blocked by obstacles, making these much more of a race against the clock than the multiplayer version. However, the computer will switch the state of the blocks in the level at a fairly constant rate, so this danger is not averted.

Toad's Toy Box

Every time the player makes significant progress in a mode or in the original game, things open up in Toad's Toy Box. The calendar, is just a basic calendar showing the current date, but goes on from 1 AD to 3000 AD, and has some filled out dates such as the original Japanese release date for Super Mario Bros. The fortune teller just shows a random item and a small fortune text like a fortune cookie, and occasionally a Super Fortune, awarding 5 extra lives in all games. The "?" room gets filled with Toads as you rescue them in the game, playing out little animations and unlocking more pictures printable via the GameBoy Printer. The last ones open up a simple music creator similar to Mario Paint, and you can redo the iconic opening music. "Where's Yoshi?" section is a randomized hint machine that will choose random levels and show the approximate location of the Yoshi Egg in them for Challenge Mode.

Secrets

Start a game with 10 lives instead of 5

To start a game with 10 lives (new file), go to the toy box, and select the fortune teller option. Now pick a card. Keep on picking until you get an "Extremely Lucky" card, and you should see a 5-Up on the card.

now you can start a game with 10 instead of 5 lives.