Game:

Super Mario Bros. Special (1986)

Duration: 7:23

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First things first check out Satoshi Matrix. He does some great "hidden gem" videos for all the retro consoles and if not for him I wouldn't even have known about this.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SatoshiMatrix1

Super Mario Bros Special was developed by Hudson Soft (licensed by Nintendo) and released in 1986 for the Japanese NEC-PC8801 and Sharp X1 8-bit home computers. It's the first licensed Mario game to be released after the original Super Mario Bros (released before Lost Levels) making it the first true sequel to SMB! But the gameplay was NOT the same as SMB on the FC/NES as it lacked full scrolling levels and the physics (the way Mario jumps, looses momentum when changing direction etc) were different thus making the controls handle differently. Also some of the enemies were different and there was no 2-player (Luigi) options. Therefore this is NOT a direct port of the Japanese computer game but rather a hack of the original SMB FC/NES game using the level design (and color pallet) only. In other words this is still SMB but with the levels of SMB Special.

Because this is a hack of the original SMB you will need to patch your own ROM file to play it. Here are the links to all the required files EXCEPT the original Super Mario Bros ROM. That you will need to find on your own.


First you're going to need a clean ROM of Super Mario Bros.

Second you're going to need one of the IPS Patch (hack) files.

This one is the one shown here with the original Japanese PC color pallet. Click "download" under the links section half way down the page.

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1011/

This one is an older patch that uses the NES color pallet. Click "download" under the links section half way down the page.

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/527/

Third you will need an IPS patching utility like Lunar IPS.

http://www.zophar.net/download_file/14069

Finally you will need a means to play the ROM file you create. I used the FCEUX emulator but any NES emulator should work.

http://www.zophar.net/download_file/22753

Save all the files into one directory for easy tracking. Load up Lunar IPS and will ask for the original ROM file that you want to patch (Super Mario Bros), next it will ask for the IPS file so just pick the one you want and finally it will make a new ROM file that you can save and name however you want. You can of course do this twice with both IPS files to make two ROMS if you want to try both versions. Just remember to name them accordingly so you can remember what one is what.

Enjoy!

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