whole point of a prank is that apart from the surprise when it happens, no one gets hurt. if the result of the prank is injury, property damage, damage to reputation then it is no longer a prank but a mean spirited sadistic act.

when Haydn surprise happen in his symphony you get the surprise amd shock but then move on and that’s why it’s funny

The surprise in Lost levels is akin to a orank leading to injury like someone slip and fall and broke a bone and had to take to hospital

in gaming terms, a death that cost the life amd a game over and have to start at the beginning is wasting the player time. in entertainment terms in ant media the worst thing you could do is waste a person time and this is somewhat equivalent of a prank going overboard

that’s part of the reason in my opening post that I alternate between calling the game sadistic and the AVGN analogy of demonic with the game being a joke. the game is deliberately trying to provoke the AVGN rage response amd hence it is mean spirited even if the intention is it is a joke

the joke only lands when you remove the consequences which is the save state, rewind feature, level select etc

i mean i think the creators recognise this in the all star version by removing the completing the game 8 times requiremejt and allowing people to select levels instead of beginning at world 1-1

this made the game more of a harmless Haydn-esque joke rather than a sadistic cruel game

if the creators saw this as a fault that they corrected. do you think the creators sold out or made a mistake with the concession they made in the all-star versiom?

my criticism is predominantly with the original famicon version and probablt is fixed with the all star game