Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is a 1986 platform game developed by Nintendo R&D4 and published by Nintendo. A sequel to Super Mario Bros. (1985), the game was originally released in Japan for the Family Computer Disk System as Super Mario Bros. 2 on June 3, 1986. Nintendo of America deemed it too difficult for its North American audience and instead released an alternative sequel, also titled Super Mario Bros. 2, in 1988. The game was renamed The Lost Levels and first released internationally in the 1993 Super Nintendo Entertainment System compilation Super Mario All-Stars. The game has since been ported to the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance, along with being re-released through emulation for the Wii, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo Switch.
Japanese cover art
The Lost Levels was the ninth game released for the Famicom Disk System (attached below the Famicom, as pictured).
Image: Takashi Tezuka 2015 (cropped)
Image: Shigeru Miyamoto 2015 (cropped)
Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development
Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development Division, commonly abbreviated as Nintendo EAD and formerly known as Nintendo Research & Development No.4 Department, was the largest software development division within the Japanese video game company Nintendo. It was preceded by the Creative Department, a team of designers with backgrounds in art responsible for many different tasks, to which Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka originally belonged. Both served as managers of the EARD studios and were credited in every game developed by the division, with varying degrees of involvement. Nintendo EAD was best known for its work on games in the Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, F-Zero, Star Fox, Animal Crossing, Pikmin, and Wii series.
Exterior of the Nintendo Central Office in Kyoto, where the division was housed for most of its existence
The success of Shigeru Miyamoto's Donkey Kong arcade game was a deciding factor in the creation of Nintendo R&D4.
Katsuya Eguchi, Deputy General Manager of the Nintendo EAD division in Kyoto
Yoshiaki Koizumi became manager of a second department of the Nintendo EAD division in Tokyo after 2007.