Nintendo is Great is devoted to exploring the world of Nintendo - their games, their consoles, their merchandise - in mostly chronological order, from the NES to the Switch 2.
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Super Mario Bros. 2
PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Nintendo
RELEASE DATE: Oct. 9th, 1988 (US), Apr. 28th, 1989 (EU), Sept. 14th, 1992 (JP)
The original Super Mario Bros. is the influential one, the one that changed the world for the better. Super Mario Bros. 3 is the crowd-pleaser, the one who’s so good at what they do, people can’t help but praise their achievements. Super Mario Bros. 2, by contrast, is the introverted middle child in the NES trilogy, the weird one that doesn’t fit or belong, despite its positive qualities. Some people love Mario 2 with all its quirks and eccentricities. Others look at it sideways and think, what is this pretender doing here next to two of the most acclaimed video games of all time?
She’s A Weird One, Miyamoto-San
Whether you like or loathe Super Mario Bros. 2, we can all agree that it’s… different. It takes place in Subcon, not the Mushroom Kingdom. The veggie-hating Wart is the main villain, not Bowser. The Princess doesn’t need to be rescued at all. In fact, she’s a playable character for the first time ever. And not just the Princess, for that matter. You can also play as Luigi and Toad - alongside Mario, of course. The game is still only one-player (a slight step back from the first Super Mario Bros.’ alternating two-player), but that doesn’t matter. On the NES at least, Super Mario Bros. 2 was the first game to feature four unique playable characters for every level.
All four characters are their own person, warts (ha) and all. Mario is the boring, but reliable fellow; he’s decent at everything with no discernible flaws. Luigi jumps really high, flittering his legs as he goes, but he’s slippery as well; sorta hard to control. Toad moves fast and pulls up vegetables/digs quickly, but he’s short and can’t jump very high. The Princess floats for long distances, but her pulling ability is crap; the latter makes her terrible to use in boss battles.
Rather than a straightforward sequel where Mario runs as fast as he can to the flag post, smashing Goombas and stomping Koopas all the while, SMB2 opts for a more leisurely pace. There is no time limit. The player is encouraged and expected to dig up the grass tufts that litter the ground. Three of the game’s most common enemies, Snifits, Shyguys, and Tweeters, all saunter and hop slowly towards the player, as if they’re not in any rush to hinder your journey.
In one of the biggest differences from the original game, Mario and co. are often forced to ascend or descend in vertical sections. Sometimes they’re climbing up vines or chains, other times they’re digging through sand. Either way, compared to Super Mario Bros.’ straightforward horizontal side-scrolling, SMB2’s vertical sections are slower and more methodically paced.
SMB2 doesn’t have power-ups, at least not in the way the first did. Mushrooms are only found in Subspace (more on that later), they add one hit point to your life bar, and they no longer make you big. Fire flowers are completely absent. Invincibility stars are present but only appear after you’ve collected five cherries. Mario and co. also can’t jump on enemies to kill them. They either need to hit them with the vegetables they find in the ground, pick the enemies up and throw them into each other, or find a POW block and smash it wherever their heart desires.
But let’s get back to the magic potion. The potion creates a door which opens into Subspace, a dark alternate plane where no enemies exist, but where The Four (as I will henceforth call them) can pick up a Mushroom or some coins via grass tufts on the ground. That’s right, coins, a Mario staple, are relegated to Subspace and are only used for the bonus slot machine game at the end of every level. No 100 coins for a 1up here. Instead, you either find 1ups hidden in grass tufts or earn them via the slot machine. Now that I think about it, I was probably first exposed to gambling as a kid via Super Mario Bros. 2. So uh, thanks for that, Nintendo!
SMB2, despite not really fitting alongside other entries in the series, does feature a lot of “firsts.” The first appearance of enemies like Bob-omb, Shyguy, Snifit, Ninji, Pokey, and everyone’s favorite glam queen, Birdo. SMB2’s second world is also a desert, a theme that would be revisited in SMB3 and oh so many Mario games after that. The “play as four different characters” idea would also appear 20+ years later in New Super Mario Bros. Wii and NSMB U, albeit sans the Princess, who was busy being kidnapped. Thankfully, Super Mario 3D World does include the Princess as a playable character, and she wears a cat suit this time which makes everything better.
Put On Your Costumes
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Is Super Mario Bros. 2 a Mario game at all, or is it just Doki Doki Panic wearing a costume?
For those who aren’t aware, Super Mario Bros. 2 is a Mario-themed re-skin of the Famicom Disk System game, Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic (Dream Factory: Heart Pounding Panic). The original Super Mario Bros. 2, released in Japan for the FDS on June 3rd, 1986, was more like the first Super Mario Bros., only considerably more difficult. In fact, Howard Philips, Nintendo of America’s spokesperson at the time, tried to convince his bosses that the Japanese SMB2 would not be well-received by American players. Minoru Arakawa, NoA’s then-President, requested that Nintendo of Japan rework Doki Doki Panic into a Mario game, and somewhat surprisingly, they agreed.
According to Chris Kohler’s 2011 article, “The Secret History of Super Mario Bros. 2,” Kohler writes, “Doki Doki Panic was actually part of a deal with the Fuji corporation, in which Nintendo would produce a tie-in videogame for a media-technology expo called Yume Kojo, or ‘Dream Factory.’ The mascot characters invented for this expo were the stars of the game.” Doki Doki Panic’s mascot characters are an Arabian family named Imajin, Lina, Mama, and Papa. In the Mario 2 re-skin, Imajin became Mario, Lina became Princess, Mama became Luigi (lol), and Papa became Toad. While Fuji TV created their mascot designs, other characters in Doki Doki Panic were original Nintendo creations.
When Nintendo changed Doki Doki Panic into Super Mario Bros. 2 for the West, they made lots of little changes to make the game feel slightly more Mario-like. For example: the stackable mushroom blocks were originally terrifying face masks, Koopa shells replaced blackface heads (excellent call), and the mushroom that gives The Four an extra hit point was originally a heart. Items like coins and POW blocks were, interestingly, already programmed into Doki Doki Panic, so no changes were needed there.
I’m Conflicted
At some point, I’d love to play and review Doki Doki Panic on its own merits, to see if it holds up as its own game. Super Mario Bros. 2 is a very professional re-skin, but it is a re-skin, nonetheless. Both in 1988 and today, SMB2 doesn’t really feel like a game designed for the ground up to feature Mario. Now, that said, I still consider it a Mario game. Too many elements and characters from SMB2 have made their way to various other Mario games over the years for me to write it off or disregard it. But it’s my least favorite game in the Mario NES trilogy by a wide margin.
I know that last sentence probably irritated some folks, so let me start off with some positives. I absolutely love the one-of-a-kind vibes Super Mario Bros. 2. emanates throughout. The whole game feels like a surreal lucid dream (probably why Nintendo chose to frame the story as Mario’s dream). While Nintendo did excise some of Doki Doki Panic’s exotic flavor, they wisely kept some in, like the Phanto mask that chases you when you get a key, the ornate pots that act like pipes from other Mario games, and the Japanese Karura mask you enter at the end of every level. I love the whales and their waterspouts in World 4, I love riding on the Albatrosses in Worlds 6 and 7, and I love pulling up the rocket ship from a grass tuft in Worlds 4 and 7. Little touches like these have that arresting Nintendo magic that’s impossible not to appreciate.
Unfortunately, Super Mario Bros. 2 itself just… isn’t very fun. That’s a weird sentence for me to type, honestly. I’ve sunk hours into this game throughout my many decades on this planet. I grew up playing it, enjoyed it on the Super Mario All-Stars collection in the 90s, and have revisited it intermittently into my 20s and 30s. Yet despite the nostalgia that consumes my being every time I replay it, I must face facts and admit that the gameplay just doesn’t provide the same fulfillment as the other Mario NES entries. It lacks the seemingly limitless secrets and creativity that Super Mario Bros. 3 provides, and it also lacks the incredible running-based rhythm from the original Super Mario Bros. SMB 2 has personality and style to spare, but its main mechanic/gimmick – picking things up and throwing them - satisfies less and less over the course of 20 levels and 7 worlds.
I may not love Super Mario Bros. 2, but I appreciate its role within the Mario canon at large. It brought us beloved icons, like Birdo, and paved the way for simultaneous four-player multiplayer in later Mario entries. Its very existence is a reminder that Nintendo of Japan was, at one time, a small company that could be persuaded by their American branch to make a different Mario game for Western audiences. An event like Super Mario Bros. 2 will never happen again, and that, more than its gameplay, is why it’s so special.
B
If you’re interested in more Super Mario Bros. 2 info, please check out these excellent articles!
“There’s Super Mario DNA in Doki Doki Panic” by Drew Mackie
“The History of Super Mario Bros.” by Rus McLaughlin
“The Secret History of Super Mario Bros. 2” by Chris Kohler
Mario Madness! I like Super Mario Bros. 2, although its reappraisal in recent years is understandable. I do wonder what would’ve happened if the original Super Mario Bros. 2 (aka The Lost Levels) would’ve been released here instead. Would Mario’s brand have taken a hit from players who bought what is essentially a really difficult expansion of the original game? Whatever the case, the version we got sold like hotcakes and was really hard to find for a while, due to the alleged chip shortage of the late 1980s.
At the very least we got a localization of Doki Doki Panic. It’s a quality game in its own right, hampered by the fact it got sandwiched in between two instant classics in SMB 1 and 3.
I think Mario Odyssey took that title over. Not many people seem to talk about how surreal or odd it is.