This was originally intended to be a palette restoration for Messatu’s X1 hack. It is a combination of how Levi “Karatorian” Aho and frantik’s hack genuinely looked like a NES game, along with the delightful additional minor features and stunning title screen that Messatu added. After the color palettes and flash effect cycles were brought back to their previous state, the sprites were next on the list to be brought back, along with a few minor adjustments.
It is important that SMB Special be… special. Therefore, All Night Nippon SMB served as a source of inspiration. This game featured a variety of tiles from Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2j. Therefore, the same principle applies here. As a direct consequence of this, some of the tiles in this level are derived from SMB2j, but not all of them. The goal was to provide the impression that Super Mario Bros. Special is an in-between-quel for Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2j, and this looked like a solution.
The identical beta ground tile that was utilized in Super Mario Bros. 2j is also used here for the same purpose.
