Uploaded June 2012 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's a glitch that works in any level in World 9 (except World 9-3, since it's on land) in Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels (i.e. the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2). This is actually two glitches in one: The first glitch involves walking through blocks and the second involves getting stuck at the flagpole.
First, in order to walk through walls, you have to swim up and to the right, and touch the top-left corner of a block/wall. As soon as you touch the corner of a block, press LEFT and you will get sucked in to the right. Don't ask me why you get pulled in the opposite direction, but, anyway... this actually isn't too hard to do; it takes a few tries to pull it off. It's easier than wall jumping, at least. This glitch also works in SMB, by the way.
Now, as soon as you get sucked into the wall, Mario slides to the right -- which is the same thing that occurs when you crouch and slide under a narrow gap on land, and get "stuck". Now, notice that when Mario moves to the right while inside the staircase, the screen doesn't scroll, so Mario ends up being all the way to the right of the screen. This makes the flagpole glitch possible.
And as you can see, as Mario (or alternately, Luigi) touches the flagpole, there is no room for him to get off the base of the flagpole and move right. So he gets stuck there. If I made the screen scroll a few more pixels, he would try to walk, but he still wouldn't be able to make it down there due to lack of room.
Since you can't pause after touching the flagpole in the SNES version, you're stuck and have to reset. So beware when doing this glitch -- make sure you've saved ahead of time! This glitch also works in the 8-bit versions (FDS, GBA, and Wii VC versions) -- you CAN pause after the flagpole, but this is irrelevant since you can't save the same way you can in the SNES version, so likewise, you have to reset.
I imagine this glitch works in other levels (including ones in SMB) where you can make Mario/Luigi move to the right without the screen scrolling, but I don't know of any other levels. (That doesn't mean there aren't any.) There are various ways to make this happen:
- Duck and slide under a narrow 1-block-tall gap, so that Mario/Luigi slides without the screen scrolling.
- If you just barely touch the bottom-right part of a block, it pushes Mario/Luigi very slightly to the right, but the screen doesn't scroll. While it doesn't make much of a difference, doing this with multiple blocks can probably help...
Here's a glitch that works in any level in World 9 (except World 9-3, since it's on land) in Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels (i.e. the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2). This is actually two glitches in one: The first glitch involves walking through blocks and the second involves getting stuck at the flagpole.
First, in order to walk through walls, you have to swim up and to the right, and touch the top-left corner of a block/wall. As soon as you touch the corner of a block, press LEFT and you will get sucked in to the right. Don't ask me why you get pulled in the opposite direction, but, anyway... this actually isn't too hard to do; it takes a few tries to pull it off. It's easier than wall jumping, at least. This glitch also works in SMB, by the way.
Now, as soon as you get sucked into the wall, Mario slides to the right -- which is the same thing that occurs when you crouch and slide under a narrow gap on land, and get "stuck". Now, notice that when Mario moves to the right while inside the staircase, the screen doesn't scroll, so Mario ends up being all the way to the right of the screen. This makes the flagpole glitch possible.
And as you can see, as Mario (or alternately, Luigi) touches the flagpole, there is no room for him to get off the base of the flagpole and move right. So he gets stuck there. If I made the screen scroll a few more pixels, he would try to walk, but he still wouldn't be able to make it down there due to lack of room.
Since you can't pause after touching the flagpole in the SNES version, you're stuck and have to reset. So beware when doing this glitch -- make sure you've saved ahead of time! This glitch also works in the 8-bit versions (FDS, GBA, and Wii VC versions) -- you CAN pause after the flagpole, but this is irrelevant since you can't save the same way you can in the SNES version, so likewise, you have to reset.
I imagine this glitch works in other levels (including ones in SMB) where you can make Mario/Luigi move to the right without the screen scrolling, but I don't know of any other levels. (That doesn't mean there aren't any.) There are various ways to make this happen:
- Duck and slide under a narrow 1-block-tall gap, so that Mario/Luigi slides without the screen scrolling.
- If you just barely touch the bottom-right part of a block, it pushes Mario/Luigi very slightly to the right, but the screen doesn't scroll. While it doesn't make much of a difference, doing this with multiple blocks can probably help...
