"game don't age" mfers when I make them play the original Street Fighter

yeah no surprise here, this is complete and utter garbage. everything feels like complete shit, it's ugly as hell, it's impossible to do special moves even when you know that it uses negative edge, the music sounds like it's being played on an dying Mega Drive, the computer AI is the cheapest motherfucker imaginable, the roster is filled with uninspired characters. this is like one degree above a Tiger Electronics game and I mean that. the attacks have no visual or auditory impact and they seem to do random amounts of damage.

the only reason I'm giving Street Fighter any sort of leeway is because it was made in 1987 and is basically the very first fighting game ever, so naturally it's extremely primitive. but even then, you still had games that controlled well and actually felt like video games and not advanced calculators. I gave up after 10 minutes. you'd have more fun smashing your head against a wall than playing this game.

now that I beat it with no save states or rewind, I am now thoroughly convinced that The Lost Levels haters just suck at video games.

are there evil traps? yes, absolutely. the poison mushroom obviously, but also warp zones that send you to a previous world, bonus areas that lead you to one of these warp zones or just to an earlier point in the level, invisible blocks placed to make you directly hit an enemy, pipes that just lead you to the beginning of the stage, obtuse solutions, etc. but that's only 10% of the game. the rest of The Lost Levels is just really precise jumps and tricky enemy/obstacle placement, which is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. the way people talk about it, you'd think they played Cat Mario or Kaizo Mario but no it's just a challenging but often fair level pack that I had a surprising amount of fun with. plus, since All-Stars doesn't send you back to the beginning of a world with each game over and you have 5 lives by default instead of 3, this is easily the definitive version of The Lost Levels. y'all just need to get good lmao.

however, as a sequel, this is creatively bankrupt. it's only more levels. there's nothing new here apart from that, and the concept of wind pushing you. it's completely devoid of innovation, which I'd argue is the most important aspect of a sequel, and something that even games in the early 80s understood. just look at Donkey Kong Jr. plus, even if I like the new levels, they're difficult as shit, and the original Famicom version booted you to the beginning of the world with every game over, making it even harder. as a result, this only appeals to a niche public, and I completely understand why NoA scrapped it in favor of improving on Doki Doki Panic, which had a way bigger impact on the Super Mario series. meanwhile this game's only legacy is its high difficulty and being one of the few official hard map packs for a video game, alongside Plutonia Experiment for Doom 2 and Extreme Rise of the Triad. even if I enjoyed it, I honestly wouldn't blame you for skipping The Lost Levels because you aren't missing much.

a virtually perfect remake of Super Mario Bros. tbh. I don't think it could ever replace the original but you could make a strong case for it. the backgrounds add so much charm and variety, alongside the new snow theme. they really help make every level more distinct, and they look very good. I didn't use save states this time, but I did the infinite lives exploit on 3-1, and let me tell you that makes this game a lot more enjoyable when you don't have to worry about lives.

at the end of the day, it's still Super Mario Bros., with no changes to physics or level design, so it's still the same enjoyable game.