When you’ve appeared in as many games as Mario has, they’re not all going to be great. Purely by law of averages, some games have to be of lesser quality than others. When it comes to official titles for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Mario Bros. 2 seems to get the short end of the stick. This reputation is understandable considering how different the game is from the others on the NES. It’s also a bit unfair to the title, and I want to go into the reasons why.
A lot of the criticism thrown at Super Mario Bros. 2 stems from how it wasn’t originally designed as a Mario game. That’s not really a fair argument, though. It’s almost like saying a child isn’t part of a family because they were adopted. Or if we want to keep the comparison in the realm of media, it’s like saying Die Hard with a Vengeance isn’t actually a Die Hard movie because it wasn’t originally written as a sequel.
True fact, by the way. Virtually all the Die Hard films were actually written as other stories and reworked into the Die Hard franchise. Another story for another time, though.
The Doki Doki Panic Issue
In the case of Super Mario Bros. 2, yes, the gameplay mechanics are different because of this. Doki Doki Panic is a completely different world from that of Mario’s. Several elements of the game have become Mario canon since its release.
This is the title of the codified Luigi’s flutter jump, for example. Yes, he did jump higher in the original Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan. The feel and look of Luigi’s jump that we know today came from the American version of the title. The Princess’s hover jump? That came from SMB 2. We also have Shy Guys, Bob-ombs, and Birdo because of the game. If anything, it’s become more canon than other Mario games that were designed as Mario titles.
Need an example?
When was the last time you saw any enemies from the Game Boy Super Mario Land title pop up in a game? What about that superball attack Mario had in that game? We don’t see that dominating his arsenal today. We did get Princess Daisy from that title, though. Still, if you had no knowledge about how the games were made and went back and played both of them, Super Mario Land seems way more bizarre and foreign than Super Mario Bros. 2. And while it’s a little different that Mario has to pick up and throw enemies and vegetables to take out enemies here, future games would make this a part of his repertoire.
Super Mario Bros. 2 also continues the spirit of exploration and platforming excellence that started with the original Super Mario Bros. The game rewards players who are willing to experiment by giving them the chance to find warp zones, extra health, and level shortcuts. The greater emphasis on vertical scrolling seen here was being developed for a potential Mario title anyway. That is to say, this game was not developed to specifically be Doki Doki Panic. If anything, the Super Mario Bros. 2 that we got in the United States could’ve been similar to a Mario game we would’ve received even if Doki Doki Panic hadn’t happened at all.
What the Game Does Well
Let’s also take a moment to look at what this game does really well, regardless of which version it is, though I’ll continue to refer to it as Super Mario Bros. 2. The aforementioned way that you deal with enemies by picking them up, throwing them, or throwing other things at them is viscerally rewarding. Throw a vegetable into a Shy Guy, watch him get knocked out, and tell me that didn’t feel good. Compare it to another game with pick-up and throw mechanics, Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers. That game is also great, but when you throw a crate at an enemy, it doesn’t have the same impact. It just flies across the screen, bounces off the enemy at a 45-degree angle, and that’s that.
The character selection option of SMB 2 is also fantastic in how it allows you to play the game in a way that gives you a degree of choice in how difficult it is. Playing through the entire game as Mario is going to be much different and more difficult than doing so as Peach or Luigi. So, if you really wanted to challenge yourself, you could eschew the maneuverability benefits of using Peach’s hover jump and deal with Toad’s lamentable jumping prowess.
The Soundtrack
Finally, there’s an amazing soundtrack to this game. Koji Kondo composed a number of intensely memorable songs for this game. The character select music alone is way better than it has to be. He also does something similar to his work on Super Mario Bros. by generally having a brighter, happier sound for open areas, with darker tones used for indoor and underground regions. The boss music has an anxious, repetitive feeling to it that ratchets up the danger, while the jingle that plays if you best these enemies is suitably triumphant and rewarding.
Super Mario Bros. 2 Deserves More Respect
Even though Super Mario Bros. 2 plays vastly differently from what preceded and succeeded it, that’s exactly what makes it so special and fun. Hopefully, Nintendo will revisit this game in a new way and dive back into the world of Subcon in which it’s set. We need to see how characters like Mouser and Wart are holding up after all these years. Many of us still need to go back to play it again so we can confront our fears of Phanto, the killer mask. Maybe one day it’ll happen again, but until then, let’s give Super Mario Bros. 2 the credit it deserves.
