Where Did The Difficulty Go, Mario?

Look at this old motherfucker right here.  Whenever someone mentions video games, Mario is that one character that absolutely 100% of people will be able to recognise.  It doesn't matter if you're the hardest of core, super turbo nerd game enthusiast or the kind of person who doesn't know which way on a controller is up, you know this fucking  guy.

So yesterday, in a fit of absolute boredom I decided to fire up a bit of Super Mario Bros and play it through without using any of the warp zones, because I always use the damn things and I've forgotten what most of the game looks like.

Now I've not played any old school Mario game for a long long time.  Hell, the last Mario game I played a great deal of was Galaxy 2, but my memory of recent Mario games has been that they are all fun, but not exactly challenging.  Basically everything after Sunshine has had the challenge stripped from it in order to appeal to a wider audience, which is fine for a series like this with broad appeal, but Jesus Christ the old ones especially don't fuck around.

The first few stages are an absolute cakewalk, but once you hit world 3 or 4, the stages actually get pretty tricky with precise jumps, fiendish enemy placement and game overs that mean that you have to start over from 1-1 meaning that beating Mario Bros is no easy feat.

Let's not forget Super Mario Bros 2 as well, and no, not fucking Doki Doki Panic, real Mario 2.  Real Mario 2 was so fucking hard that they didn't even bother to release that shit overseas, they just re skinned an easier game and gave that to the west.  There are parts in Mario 3 and World that would make even veteran players groan at it's difficulty and I'm sure there is plenty of other shit in the older games that would make me lose a few continues even now.

The new Mario games are all good and fun and whatnot, but like I said before, the series hasn't seen a real challenge since Sunshine.  I don't blame Nintendo for wanting to get Mario in the hands of as many people as possible, but they should make a game sometime with that old school level of challenge.  I'm not just talking about bits that might have one tricky jump or something, I mean proper, full on, challenge out the arse Lost Levels type of difficulty.

Make it happen Nintendo, gimme some New Super Mario Bros EX Masters Edition or something, I'll even fund it for you.