"The Game That Surpassed Super Mario" Is Available In The West For The First Time

Atlantis no Nazo recently joined Nintendo Switch Online

by Damien McFerran 6d ago

"The Game That Surpassed Super Mario" Is Available In The West For The First Time 1 — *Image: Sunsoft*

Nintendo recently updated its Nintendo Switch Online library with a handful of new titles, one of which is making its Western debut for the first time ever.

Released alongside Urban Champion, Golf, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Mach Rider, Solar Jetman and Cobra Triangle is Atlantis no Nazo (The Mystery of Atlantis), a Sunsoft platformer released in Japan in 1986.

Launched in the wake of Super Mario Bros., Atlantis no Nazo was famously compared to Nintendo's game in Japan, although there's some confusion as to whether or not Sunsoft actually included the cheeky line "Ano Super Mario wo koeta!!" ("The game that surpassed Super Mario!!") in its promotional material. It seems that it might have originated from a guide in a 1986 issue of Japanese magazine Famimaga.

This boast was apparently based not on the game's overall quality but the fact that it had more levels than Super Mario Bros. – a rather underhanded claim, but one that was factually correct, at least. Over the years, Atlantis no Nazo has been labelled "kusoge" ("crap game") by some sectors of the gaming community.

Despite this, Atlantis no Nazo is still held in moderate esteem in Japan and was included on the Classic Mini: Family Computer micro-console (the Japanese version of the NES Classic) in 2016. At one point, the game almost became part of the Pitfall series when Activision began localisation work, but Super Pitfall II (as it would have been named) never saw release.

Damien has been writing professionally about tech and video games since 2007 and oversees all of Hookshot Media's sites from an editorial perspective. He's also the editor of Time Extension, the network's newest site, which – paradoxically – is all about gaming's past glories.

1
RetroGames
6d ago

Some cheeky marketing right there. Lol

Did it help with sales of the game?

But then again, this claim includes single screen zones and black holes.

Anyway, I played it a bit and I can see why Japanese like it despite it being a kusoge. Had it been released in the west, it probably would've been AVGN material at most.

But… I mean…. Sonic 2 surpassed Mario. There hasn’t been a better 2D platformer since 1992.

@RadioHedgeFund I could list like 5,000 2d platformers better than sonic 2 off the top of my head especially with the nosedive in quality it takes after mystic cave zone LMAO.

5
RetroGames
6d ago

@RadioHedgeFund Sure, bud.

Now, let's go check literally every single Best Games of all Time list and see where Sonic the Hedgehog 2 appears compared to the likes of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, etc. . . .

And let's compare the sales of Sonic the The Hedgehog 2 to all those games too. . . .

But, I understand, YOU think it's better.

@RetroGames It's called an opinion, and it's okay.

7
Bonggon5
5d ago

First time I tried this game a bird immediately killed me with its poo. Kuso indeed.

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RetroGames
5d ago

@no_donatello Yup, pretty much what I said, just with a few examples pointing to what would be evidence of other people's contrary opinions. And I also mentioned sales figures as well, which are just numbers. Opinions and numbers. It's all okay.

@PinballBuzzbro what?! Metropolis zone alone has the best soundtrack!

(But none of them would be Mario games)

@RetroGames I do. 3D Mario games are great. I’ve never played a 2D one I actually enjoyed. For pure platforming (not Metroidvanias and the like) Sonic 2 is still where it’s at.

If ever I just want to blast through a game I can put it on and have it done in an hour. It’s the purity and immediacy of it. No faffing around with items, abilities or map screens. For that hour I’m 9 years old again and nothing else matters. There aren’t many games you can just put on and almost autopilot for an hour. It’s like Outrun distilled into a platform game.

Sure there might be more advanced games and if we’re talking RPGs then Symphony of the Night is the pinnacle of 2D gaming, period. But sometimes you just want to forget about all that faff and go for a drive.

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RetroGames
5d ago

@RadioHedgeFund And I'm sure some other people think like you too.

But, funnily enough, I think the 2D Mario games are actually better for just blasting through than Sonic personally, because I can easily avoid all the other stuff and just run through the levels cleanly from start to finish, and the levels in the 2D Mario games are generally brilliantly designed around that. But with the 2D Sonic games I'm always accidentally running into enemies and spikes and such, because there's not enough time to see them coming on-screen and the idea is to always go as fast as you can--it is literally the defining aspect of Sonic games. I guess once you've practiced multiple times and remembered the exact level layouts and enemy placements in Sonic games then you can do that more so, but I actually find remembering the layout of those typically labyrinthian Sonic levels and where all the enemies and spikes and such are pretty impossible most of the time, especially when I just gotta go fast.

If you simply wanna run through a Mario game in less than an hour:

https://youtu.be/hDitYMLZ1QU?si=Idc73afFcqYlc0mm

Horses for courses.