Anyway you can get it, I recommend everyone interested in classic side scroller play SMB2. Don’t discount it as a reskin, the influence carried over to SMB3, Wario Woods and even Yoshi’s Island.

This game’s description is really apt, really the only additional thoughts I have to add are a brief explanation of “what is new” and some philosophy.


Advance coins - Collect 5 in a stage to get a 1UP.

Mild changes to levels to accomodate for the GBA screen estate and reordering of World bosses, including a new Robotic Birdo.

Lastly, upon beating the game there are Yoshi’s Eggs to collect, these are hidden in similar places as the Mushrooms.

Now the philosophy, and my review I guess.

The Advance collection of Mario games receive a lot of flack, yes they’re ports of previously released games that at the time were meaningful additions to the Game Boy Advance library.

Continuing from Super Mario Deluxe on the Game Boy, this suffers similar flaws of compromised screen real estate as well as some difficulty position your character on the Y-axis as well when using Potion Doors to maximise your coin collecting potential.

The voices are hit and miss, I know some that absolutely love the voice and in terms of demonstrating the capabilities of the GBA their addition makes sense, however purists prefer the All-Stars remaster or the NES original.

I think it’s a fine way to replay the classic with some new additions. Obviously we’re spoiled for options today and the best version is the one you personally enjoy the most… while Nintendo should use their NSO service to highlight a diverse library of games. They also had to drop something after Mario Movie’s launch.

The original Super Mario Bros. 2 may have been a weird game, and probably not as good as Mario 1 or 3, but it was a novel little platformer with some cool ideas, like the vertical level design or multiple playable characters with different attributes. As a launch title for the Game Boy Advance 13 years later however, its just another mediocre platformer that does not compare favorably to Mario's other 2D adventures at all.

In retrospect, many of my gripes with Super Mario Advance come from opportunity cost, as the Game Boy Advance library concluded with no new original 2D Mario games, only follow-up ports/remakes after this one. These other ports are of Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and Yoshi's Island, all far better both in their original form and on the GBA than Mario 2 here.

The elephant in the room is the irritating and distracting voice acting. The GBA speakers were never going to produce quality voices, but Birdo's lines need to be heard go be believed. It doesn't help matters that Birdo is used as a boss over and over and over again. Toad's voice is already hard on the ears even with good audio quality, but the Super Mario Advance nature of characters screaming every time something happens makes playing as him an audio nightmare. Not like the others are much better, if I have to hear Peach's hyper-compressed voice saying "Just what I needed!" one more time I might lose it.

Beyond that, most of the problems with this game are shared with the original Mario 2, but the vertical screen scrolling feels weirder on the GBA. The zoomed-in screen and larger sprites don't help matters in visual clarity, or being able to see above you particularly well when you need to. The classic Mario 2 gameplay of having to actually find your way through a level is still present, often involving taking a key from some far-off dead end and backtracking through the level to a locked door while that creepy mask enemy chases you. Better Mario games have beauty in their simplicity, shown to be better off going left-to-right, and jumping on enemies tends to be preferred to plucking turnips out of the ground and throwing them at shy guys.

There's little else to say that differs from the original Mario 2 other than some small collectables added to existing levels like red coins that don't do much to enhance the experience. It's far from the worst out there, but Super Mario Advance has the unfortunate placement of being smack-dab in the middle of the long drought of new 2D Mario games, both underwhelming on its own, and unable to take credit for the innovations of the NES original.

2.0/5.0

Pros: A touched up Super Mario All-Stars version of SMB2, maybe touched a little too much... up... I do like the improved presentation here and there, the character select screen, the hidden Yoshi eggs, the added effects like large rotating enemies and platforms, it's neat.

Cons: The voices get annoying, and I find it especially strange how Birdo's voice sounds way too much like a middle-aged human woman. Why'd they have to do that? At least put her voice through a filter, like they did in Mario Tennis 64 a year earlier. Anyway, I get it's a showcase for GBA's tech, as this was its premier launch game... What a strange choice, SMB2/USA being the launch showcase game. I guess perhaps this was meant to be a Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on Game Boy Color follow-up, maybe. Also, a little nitpick, but for some reason I got it into my head that after I'd found every Yoshi egg, that, I dunno, I could play as Yoshi?? Is that my fault? Should I not have hoped for that? I feel like the game set me up for that, and with a new version, I hoped for a hefty new addition, like a new playable character... Nah.

What it means to me: My bro and I actually passed on this one at launch, considering we already had the All-Stars version, we thought... why bother? We got it a year or so later for Christmas anyhow, and it was alright. We mostly played the really fun Mario Bros. multiplayer game, a fun little inclusion.