There are four official Mario games using the original Super Mario Bros. engine (at least that I know about, and aside from remakes that keep the order of levels the same), which reuse levels from themselves and each other in various ways:
- Super Mario Bros. has eight worlds with four levels each. However, starting with 5-3, some levels are harder versions of previous levels. These harder versions use the same level data in the ROM, but some enemies have a flag set that makes them only appear if the level is at least 5-3, and some things have code to check if the level is at least 5-3 and behave differently if it is (e.g. all moving platforms will be shorter).
- The arcade game VS. Super Mario Bros. is mostly the same as the original, but it moves some levels around and replaces the repeat levels (and 3-2) with new levels.
- The originally Japanese-exclusive Super Mario Bros. 2, which was later released elsewhere as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, is mostly new levels, but it does reuse all of the new levels that were added to the VS. version. In addition to the main 8 worlds, there's an extra world 9, which is accessed by beating every world in the game (no warp zones), and A through D, which are accessed by completing the main game 8 times. While the game mostly doesn't repeat its own levels, C-3 and C-4 are slightly-modified copies of 7-3 and 7-4, though they don't share data in the ROM like Super Mario Bros.'s repeats do.
- There's also All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros., which has the levels from Super Mario Bros. but the graphics and I think game engine from Lost Levels. Like VS., it replaces duplicate levels (and 8-4) with different levels, but does so differently than VS. does (but it doesn't have its own new levels, just reuses ones from VS. and Lost Levels). It also has worlds A through D, like Lost Levels.
The following table shows which levels were reused where:
| SMB | VS. | LL | ANN |
1-1 | SMB 1-1 | SMB 1-1 | LL 1-1 | SMB 1-1 |
1-2 | SMB 1-2 | SMB 1-2 | LL 1-2 | SMB 1-2 |
1-3 | SMB 1-3 | SMB 1-3 | LL 1-3 | SMB 1-3 |
1-4 | SMB 1-4 | VS 1-4 | VS 1-4 | SMB 1-4 |
2-1 | SMB 2-1 | SMB 2-1 | LL 2-1 | SMB 2-1 |
2-2 | SMB 2-2 | SMB 2-2 | VS 3-2 | SMB 2-2 |
2-3 | SMB 2-3 | SMB 2-3 | LL 2-3 | SMB 2-3 |
2-4 | SMB 2-4 | SMB 1-4 | LL 2-4 | SMB 2-4 |
3-1 | SMB 3-1 | SMB 3-1 | LL 3-1 | SMB 3-1 |
3-2 | SMB 3-2 | VS 3-2 | LL 3-2 | SMB 3-2 |
3-3 | SMB 3-3 | SMB 3-3 | LL 3-3 | SMB 3-3 |
3-4 | SMB 3-4 | SMB 3-4 | LL 3-4 | SMB 3-4 |
4-1 | SMB 4-1 | SMB 4-1 | LL 4-1 | SMB 4-1 |
4-2 | SMB 4-2 | SMB 4-2 | LL 4-2 | SMB 4-2 |
4-3 | SMB 4-3 | SMB 4-3 | VS 6-3 | SMB 4-3 |
4-4 | SMB 4-4 | SMB 2-4 | LL 4-4 | SMB 4-4 |
5-1 | SMB 5-1 | SMB 5-1 | LL 5-1 | SMB 5-1 |
5-2 | SMB 5-2 | SMB 5-2 | LL 5-2 | SMB 5-2 |
5-3 | SMB 1-3 | SMB 6-3 | LL 5-3 | VS 6-3 |
5-4 | SMB 2-4 | SMB 4-4 | VS 6-4 | LL 2-4 |
6-1 | SMB 6-1 | SMB 6-1 | LL 6-1 | SMB 6-1 |
6-2 | SMB 6-2 | SMB 6-2 | VS 7-2 | SMB 6-2 |
6-3 | SMB 6-3 | VS 6-3 | VS 7-3 | SMB 6-3 |
6-4 | SMB 1-4 | VS 6-4 | LL 6-4 | LL 4-4 |
7-1 | SMB 7-1 | SMB 7-1 | LL 7-1 | SMB 7-1 |
7-2 | SMB 2-2 | VS 7-2 | LL 7-2 | VS 7-2 |
7-3 | SMB 2-3 | VS 7-3 | LL 7-3 | VS 7-3 |
7-4 | SMB 7-4 | SMB 7-4 | LL 7-4 | SMB 7-4 |
8-1 | SMB 8-1 | SMB 8-1 | LL 8-1 | SMB 8-1 |
8-2 | SMB 8-2 | SMB 8-2 | LL 8-2 | SMB 8-2 |
8-3 | SMB 8-3 | SMB 8-3 | LL 8-3 | SMB 8-3 |
8-4 | SMB 8-4 | SMB 8-4 | LL 8-4 | LL 8-4 |
9-1 | | | LL 9-1 | |
9-2 | | | LL 9-2 | |
9-3 | | | LL 9-3 | |
9-4 | | | LL 9-4 | |
A-1 | | | LL A-1 | LL A-1 |
A-2 | | | LL A-2 | LL A-2 |
A-3 | | | LL A-3 | LL A-3 |
A-4 | | | LL A-4 | LL A-4 |
B-1 | | | LL B-1 | LL 5-1 |
B-2 | | | LL B-2 | LL B-2 |
B-3 | | | LL B-3 | LL 3-3 |
B-4 | | | LL B-4 | LL B-4 |
C-1 | | | LL C-1 | LL C-1 |
C-2 | | | LL C-2 | LL C-2 |
C-3 | | | LL 7-3 | LL 7-3 |
C-4 | | | LL 7-4 | LL 7-4 |
D-1 | | | LL D-1 | LL 8-1 |
D-2 | | | LL D-2 | LL D-2 |
D-3 | | | LL D-3 | LL D-3 |
D-4 | | | LL D-4 | LL D-4 |
You can find more information in this Retro Game Mechanics Explained article, which is my source for this information. I'm mainly posting this to show the chart I made in response to that post, which I posted as a response on Cohost:
Two levels connected = same level reused. Organized by the level number within a world (so all the x-1 levels are together, etc.) because all of the duplicates have that number the same.
A couple other random facts about this:
- SMB1 reuses the end of 1-1 as the flagpole for underground/underwater areas. Lost Levels doesn't do that, probably because 1-1 is overwritten when it loads later levels. The areas happen to look the same, except there are hidden coin blocks after the underground/water levels.
- The only actual difference between 7-3 and C-3 seems to be the Lakitu in the latter. vgmaps.com does show the fourth springboard in the level missing (right after 3 pipes; compare 7-3, C-3), but https://youtu.be/R5918K_4Pq0?t=22 shows the springboard there. Comparing the level data, there is one difference, but it's that C-3 has a "stop frenzy" object that 7-3 doesn't (to get Lakitu to go away); everything else is the same. My suspicion is that maybe that springboard sometimes fails to spawn due to the sprite limit (depending on when exactly Lakitu throws a spiny; 3 plants + Lakitu + spiny = 5 sprites).