Happy Friday, everyone. To end the semester, I thought it was only appropriate I talk about a game from the Big N. We shall look at one of their most notorious titles: Super Mario Bros. 2.
Developed and published by Nintendo, Super Mario Bros. 2 was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988 as a follow-up to the immensely popular NES game, which went on to sell over 40 million units! Super Mario Bros. 2 gained notoriety as being completely different from the average Mario game, given the fact that it was a reskin of a completely unrelated title… wait, this isn’t the right game.
Grabbed the wrong game off my shelf. Today, I’m going to talk about the Super Mario Bros. 2 the Japanese is most familiar with. This game was a launch title for the add-on to Nintendo’s Family Computer, the Famicom Disk System. It is the direct sequel to the legendary Super Mario Bros., released in 1985 for the Famicom and the NES. The game is actually based off the arcade game Vs. Super Mario Bros., which was a redesign of the NES game with new, more difficult levels. It was released for the FDS in 1986 and became the system’s best-selling game, with 2.5 million copies sold during its lifespan. So how did the sequel to the most popular game on the NES fare?
When you first turn on the game, you’ll notice the menu screen looks extremely similar to the first game. You have a choice of two characters: Mario and Luigi, the latter of which was only a Player 2 character in the first game. In fact, this game has no 2-player mode. What’s the difference between the two characters? Mario has good traction but is an average jumper. Luigi has very poor traction (almost like he’s on ice) but can jump a lot higher than Mario.
So, the menu looks very similar to the first game, but that’s just the beginning. The two games look almost identical, with a few minor changes. The clouds in the background now have eyes, the metal platforms are now made of mushrooms, and there’s more background pieces, such as trees and mushrooms. As for the music, it is identical. Same ground theme, same underground theme, same castle theme, same bonus level theme, same-same-same. Mario, Luigi, Toad, Bowser, Princess Toadstool (or Peach, as she was always known in Japan), and all the enemies remain untouched as well. There’s also the same objectives and almost the same number of worlds, but more on that later.
So the game is near-unchanged visually and completely unchanged auditorily. This led people to criticize Super Mario Bros. 2 for being a ROM hack or an expansion pack to the first game, rather than a true sequel. I can definitely see where they’re coming from, as you would expect a sequel to at least have some new mechanics or characters. So what makes this game any different from its predecessor, minus a few minor graphical adjustments?
The answer: the difficulty. This game is very hard, to put it mildly. The most infamous example of its difficulty has to be the Poison Mushroom. Players legitimately thought that it was a power-up back when Super Mario Bros. 2 was first released. Nope, it’s a purple mushroom that will make you smaller if you’re Super Mario and kill you if you’re Small Mario. So if you hit a block and one of those pops out, get as far away from it as you can.
But that’s just the beginning. There are now red Piranha Plants that will not hide in their pipes if you’re close by, Hammer Bros. that are far more aggressive, more difficult castle mazes, and counterproductive Warp Zones. I found a Warp Zone in World 5 that would only lead back to World 1. There are also extremely cryptic methods of progressing through levels. Example being World 2-2, where you can only progress by hitting two invisible blocks and then jumping onto a pipe hanging over a chasm. In some levels, there’s wind that can make traversing large gaps incredibly harrowing. If you don’t time your jump correctly with the wind, it can result in death.
So the game is extremely difficult, but it’s fair. How? Because every time you lose all your lives you are given the option to continue just by hitting “Continue”. No A and Start needed, unlimited retries! But like the first game, it sends you back to the beginning of the world, not the level. Unfortunately, you still have to beat the game in one sitting, as while the FDS does have battery backup, it does not support saving for this game. Beating a game this difficult in one sitting is just insane to think about.
There are more worlds in this game, including World 9 and A-D. The Famicom Disk System was known for being able to contain more memory than the average Famicom cart, so I guess adding more worlds to the sequel was a no-brainer. World 9 is accessed if a player makes it through the game without using any Warp Zones. Fair enough, but then there’s Worlds A-D. These worlds can only be accessed if the player goes through the game eight times. You read that correctly: eight times, in one sitting. What?! Talk about brutal. There’s no save feature, so if you want to get those worlds, you’d better grab a few cans of Pepsi and prepare yourself for some punishing hours of gameplay.
So that’s Super Mario Bros. 2. Why didn’t this game come out in North America? It was supposed to, but when Nintendo of America received the game and complained of its grueling difficulty, Nintendo decided to keep it local to avoid making players angry, which would result in the game not selling well. It’s not like Nintendo didn’t know the game was hard when they released it in Japan, though. When they released the Famicom Disk System, they also put out a few ads for games like The Legend of Zelda, and of course Super Mario Bros. 2. The ad featured two children playing the game, Mario getting killed and coming out with bruises, and one of the children screaming at the TV. That’s a dead giveaway.
However, Super Mario Bros. 2 did see re-release in North America and Europe. In fact, nearly all re-releases were international. Western players likely know this game as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, as their first taste of the game was with the Super Mario All-Stars compilation on SNES, which contained all three NES Super Mario Bros. games and the Famicom Disk System’s Super Mario Bros. 2 remastered in 16-bit. However, the game was made a little easier, as a save feature was included. The game was also made available as a bonus feature in Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on Game Boy Color, a downloadable title on Wii, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console, and the Wii re-release of Super Mario All-Stars.
It’s often debated: which is the true sequel to Super Mario Bros.: the Japanese or Western Super Mario Bros. 2? Well, that requires an analysis of its own, which we will save for another time. I think the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 is fine for what it is: a follow-up to the original with more levels and challenges. As I said, it plays exactly the same, so with the exception of maybe the grueling difficulty and the required tasks to unlike Worlds A-D, I can’t really complain about anything. If you want to give this game a shot, your best options are to buy Super Mario All-Stars on Wii or SNES or download the game on the Nintendo eShop. However, if you want to play it the authentic way, import the Famicom Disk System. I don’t recommend going in cold, however; play the first game a few times, and then give this one a shot. You’ll thank me later. Good luck with finals, and have a Merry Christmas.
Rating: 9/10
Featured Image art by Kaio Scott