Veteran players all know the classic bug in the original “Super Mario Bros.” in 1985——Minus World, an infinite water loop level entered through 1-2 pipes, has almost become a video game legend. Unexpectedly, the sequel “Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels”/”Super Mario 2”, which was first released on the FC disk drive that year, actually also hides Minus World, but it took players nearly 40 years to dig it out!
This time the discoverer is a speedrunner Kosmic, he unexpectedly found a completely different passage in real life, confirming that the lost Minus World indeed existed.
The process of brushing bugs is extremely complicated
Compared with the original game, the triggering conditions of Minus World in Super Mario 2 are much more complicated. When Kosmic was completing B-7, he found that the level could not be passed, so he had to save and exit and then reopen it. As a result, he entered a completely different layout configuration.
As he continues to challenge these deranged bug levels, eventually entering Minus World in a half-broken pipe in B-9 (with a coin stuck in it), the screen directly sends him back to 1-1, but the game has completely twisted. If you continue running, you can even see B-D and strange menu options, and all kinds of incredible error worlds appear.
Why did it take 40 years to be found?
Kosmic explained in the video that the main reason is that “The Lost Levels” itself is much more difficult than the original game, and the player base is not that large, resulting in these deep-seated bugs that few people have the patience to touch. If it weren’t for this intense research in the speedrunning world, Minus World might have continued to be buried.
The romance of video game archeology
Nintendo actually kept these error worlds intact in the SFC “All-Stars” collection. Now that they have been unearthed by Kosmic, it is like a piece of history coming to light again. For veteran players, this is not just a bug, but the romance of video game archeology.