Super Mario Bros.: Super Mario Bros. Special - Layout Fix

The original level layout for the "SMB Special for NES" strove to be faithful to the original PC game from Hudsonsoft. It was too faithful. Frantik and Karatorian chose to leave in a few level design flaws that may or may not have been a mistake in the original version. There are 2 spots where the player can become softlocked, and a few other places where some graphical mishaps occur. One flaw in particular, a special room in 4-3 with no exit, was brought up as a bug by almost all of the testers. Once you get to that room, your only option is to run the timer out and die.

This patch aims to preserve the Super Mario Bros. Special experience, but make a few small changes to smooth over some of the rough edges present in the original. It fixes softlock traps in 2-3 and 4-3, and fixes oddities in 3-2, 4-1, 7-3, and 7-4 to make SMBS feel like a true, polished Mario game.

Addendum to:
*http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3281 by TRIFORCE89
*http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1011 by Messatu
*http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/527 by Frantik and Karatorian

Title: Super Mario Bros. Special - Layout Fixes
Author: PowerPanda
Version: 1.0
Addendum to: SMB Special for NES by Frantik and Karatorian
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/527/
SUPER MARIO BROS Special X1 for NES by Messatu
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1011/
Super Mario Bros. Special for NES by TRIFORCE89 (Recommended)
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3281/

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-=Intro and Description=-

Super Mario Bros. Special was a collaboration between Nintendo and Hudsonsoft to
bring Mario to Japanese home computers. Originally released to the NEC PC-8801,
Sharp X1, and Samsung SPC-1500. Rather than just port Super Mario Bros.,
Hudsonsoft chose to make completely new levels for the plumber. The problem was
that the Japanese home computers just weren't up for the challenge. The game was
slow, the music changed tempos, the screen didn't scroll, etc.

Enter RHDN. On the forums, a group of hackers decided to port the level design to
NES. Frantik and Karatorian took on the task, and got all of the levels ported to
a SMB1 romhack. (Later, Messatu and TRIFORCE89 made some graphical updates.) The
hack had to make a few compromises to work with SMB1's engine, but otherwise was
a faithful recreation.

Too faithful, as it turns out. As a design decision, Frantik and Karatorian chose
to leave in a few level design flaws that may or may not have been a mistake in
the original version. There are 2 spots where the player can become softlocked,
and a few other places where some graphical mishaps occur. One flaw in particular,
a special room in 4-3 with no exit, was brought up as a bug by almost all of the
testers. Once you get to that room, your only option is to run the timer out and
die.

This patch aims to preserve the Super Mario Bros. Special experience, but make a
few small changes to smooth over some of the rough edges present in the original.
It fixes softlock traps in 2-3 and 4-3, and fixes oddities in 3-2, 4-1, 7-3, and
7-4, to make SMBS feel like a true Mario game.

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-=Changes=-

TRAP FIXES
Level 2-3
After entering a sideways pipe towards the end of the stage, the player ends up in
a room where they cannot proceed unless they have a mushroom. There is a mushroom
in the room, but there is also a hidden coin block that can block the mushroom from
falling. The hidden coin block has been moved to the other side of the mushroom
block to prevent an unintentional softlock.

Level 4-3
The special room that you access through a vine has been changed so that the exit is
a hole, and not an inaccessible pipe. This will cause Mario to fall back down to the
correct spot in the level below. It is presumed that Mario was supposed to come out
of the pipe on the bottom path, but the SMB engine does not allow that due to the
placement. As such, there was an inaccessible hidden 1-up that has been moved to the
top path. See if you can find it.

ODDITIES FIXED
Level 3-2
At the beginning of the level, there is a line of 4 "coin" blocks. 2 give mushrooms/
flowers, but their close proximity causes the powerup from 1 to disappear if they are
both hit. I have changed the line of 4 to | powerup | 10 coin | coin | 10 coin|.

Level 4-1
Change 1: There is a vine and a mushroom/flower powerup right next to each other.
Hitting one will cause the other to disappear. The mushroom/flower has been moved to
the lower level to reduce the chance that this will happen.
Change 2: Due to how SMB processes backgrounds, a cloud gets cut in half at the end
of the level. The end of the level has been shifted 1 block to the left to prevent
this background tear. It is not noticeable unless you are looking for it.


Level 7-3
At the end of the level are 2 stray coins that seem out of place, and the castle at the
end is a small castle, rather than the standard large castle you see on the 3rd level.
1 coin has been moved to provide a hint to the player about where a hidden block is,
and the other has been repurposed to a background change object, allowing for a large
castle at the end.

Level 7-4
One of the compromises made in the original hack was that castle ceilings needed to be 2
blocks lower. This caused one part towards the end of 7-4 to be inaccessible unless you
were small Mario. While it was possible to clear with a crouch jump, enemy placement made
that near-impossible. Your only other option was to take an intentional hit from the
enemies, which is not in the spirit of SMB. To fix this, I have moved some tile in the
final room so that the hallway is reverted to its original shape, allowing big mario to
pass through.

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-=Compatibility=-

This patch is compatible with anything that uses Frantik and Karatorian's patch
as a base. It has been tested with all 3 versions of SMBS currently on RHDN.
They are:
* SMB Special for NES by Frantik and Karatorian
* SUPER MARIO BROS Special X1 for NES by Messatu
* Super Mario Bros. Special for NES by TRIFORCE89

My personal recommendation goes to TRIFORCE89's hack, as I find this to be the
most aesthetically pleasing.

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-=Patching Instructions=-

Apply this patch AFTER patching Frantik/Karatorian's, Messatu's, or TRIFORCE89's
base patch. It will not function if applied directly to a SMB rom.

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Credits
Hacking
PowerPanda

Program Used
SMBUtil - For viewing Frantik's prototypes and mocking up changes.
HxD - For editing the combined rom to include the changes.

Super Mario Bros
ROM SHA-1: 5AA663E64AA32602C8AE82C0BBD4EA279EF1A346
ROM CRC32: F21AF99C