hey you guys did you know that super mario bros. 2 is actually a reskin of a japanese-only famicom game called doki doki pan-BANG.

I hesitate to be too harsh on Super Mario Bros. 2. Because as a weird, obscure Famicom game it’s probably pretty alright. But it’s packaged as a Super Mario Bros. game, so that’s what I feel I have to judge it as, and it’s sure as hell what I wanted out of it.

This game wants to convince you so bad that it’s a Mario game with familiar sounds and the occasional familiar theme, but it’s not. It’s Mario’s dream about a game he imported from Japan called Doki Doki Panic.

And I just don’t think it’s very fun, or very Mario. There’s moments of enjoyable platforming, and some cute level gimmicks, but for the most part the level design is just far too obtuse, far too often. Combine that with incredibly slippery movement and its just an absolute chore to get through.

And look, I love trans women, amen Nintendo, but god it’s so fucking exhausting fighting the same one over and over.

It would be disingenuous of me to say that the Mario franchise doesn’t owe a lot of its modern identity to Super Mario Bros. 2. A number of things from this Doki Doki Panic reskin would go on to become series staples, including recurring characters, enemies, some mechanics, and level themes. I can even understand why Nintendo of America thought Western audiences might enjoy something different than Lost Levels. But man, everything that came both before and after just did it better - including Lost Levels itself. This franchise deserves so much better than to owe so much to Super Mario Bros. 2.

Played on the NSO

Doki Doki Panic is a odd type of platformer. It takes what other platformers made at the time and say "NOPE" and adds a different twists to the formula.

Instead of killing enemies by jumping to hit, you have to jump on them, use another button to grab them and go around to throw them away or something.

This type of gameplay is really interesting and leads to some really interesting approaches to puzzles: fight birdo by grabbing their projectile an throwing it back, grab a potion to summon a door to enter the twilight realm of the level, or grab a key to open the path while being chased by masks.

The ability to play as 4 different characters is really nice (even though I feel like not all of them are as safe as Peach or Luigi, I probbly never picked toad ngl). The presentation and creativity adds a lot to the experience and I am glad this gave use classic mario icons like the SHy Guys and Bob Ombs

Actually playing the game can be a kind of unbalanced experience.
You finish the first level and it is all well and dandy... then the second level asks you to take a Pidgit (a enemy you didn't see before), understand that you can steal his carpet, and use that carpet to fly over a bottomless pit without hesitating for even a second. Another time you have to travel the sea by using Birdo's egg as an improvised platform, and while this is really cool as an implementation of the mechanic, I feel that it would not have been that much intuitive if I didn't know about that specific level in advance

Another one asks you destroy a wall with bombs... what happens if aren't precise with you throws because of ythe bounce physics of the bombs and you finish all of your ammunition? You gotta restart the level.

Or one of the dig-dug like sections had a branch path at some point, and I am pretty sure you are kinda stuck if you go on the left.

It is a weird collection of creative and kinda fine ideas, but sometimes the realization is kinda just... not well realized sometimes, unfortunately. Not to mention that I feel the formula of grabbing veggies and items and throw them away is not the most precise strategy in the world, I feel especially some of the bosses can be a bit hard to hit (again it may also just be me not being good at the game, but I dunno)

It's a cool classic that it deserves a shot, but I feel of the classic mario games, it makes sens ewhy it is not as beloved as SMB3 or World. I do really appreciate how unique it is

mario if it took everything fucking enjoyable out of it

It did debut shy guy tho

GooeyScale: 55/100

The black sheep of the Mario platformers. I could give you the usual, trite spiel about the Lost Levels being too hard for westerners so we got a reskinned Doki Doki Panic and blah blah blah. Honestly, I don't think this game is good or interesting enough to warrant that, nor is its supposed "real" Japanese counterpart. Both SMB2s represent a turning point, the videogame equivalent of an awkward, hesitant pause. Unsure of how to follow up such a smash hit as the first Super Mario Bros, Nintendo opted for a bullshit troll level pack for Japan and some reskinned crap for the West.

What's curious is how much of this game has survived in Mario's canon, but in such minor roles. Shy Guys and Birdo haven't gone away, but you can't say they've ever taken the centre stage in a way like this again. There's an air of begrudging duty forcing Nintendo to acknowledge this game, but never to give it any more than that, and perhaps that's for the best. The first and third SMB games are still innovative, fantastic pioneers for the genre, but both versions of the second entry are little more than historical curios. Their legacy will always be an overshared anecdote about the bizarreness of 80s games localisations and little more than that.

Miserable attention-starved losers on the internet:
"WHAAAHHT?!?!?! NERNTERNDO HAS GONE WOOOOKE?!?!?! 😡😡😡😡 AARRRGHHHH!!! HOW COULD THEY?!?! THE OLD NINTENDO WOULD NEVER DO THIS!!!! 😤😤😤

Nintendo in 1988:
"Oh yeah, Birdo is transgender btw."

The decision to not give the initial Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Lost Levels) its own unique identity was a neglectful and hasty one. The immense success of the first title caught Nintendo in an aimless frenzy and what we would get was the best they had to work with. While not developed at first with Mario in mind, Super Mario Bros. 2 USA would have such a profound impact on the Mario franchise nonetheless that it's almost difficult not to view it as an authentic Mario game nowadays.
As you sit down and play it, however, all that background you've probably heard time and again ends up failing to make up for the unreal amount of JANK that is there within. Spawning of enemies for example is a huge problem, where an enemy you're expecting to see either doesn't spawn at all or even respawns a mere inch off screen right after you've already killed them. Collision feels particularly unfair and unforgiving, making it a nightmare to maneuver around its more crowded levels. Topped with awkward movement, I often felt like I was fighting the controls rather than the enemies and bosses themselves.
While not as excruciating as The Lost Levels, it serves not as an exceptional title, but only a historically significant one and little else.

After playing through the full game for the first time, it reminds me more of Super Mario Land 1 than anything. Like that game, and unlike Super Mario Bros. 1, every level has a semi-unique visual theme and gamefeel—as long as you ignore the desert levels, which all pull from the same dreadful bucket of enemies and gimmicks.

The collision is really bad. The shrunken player appears to be about a tile tall but is actually a bit over, even while crouching; maybe a third of the hits I took came from stuff that looked like it should've gone over my head (Birdo eggs, etc.). Also, projectiles that bounce off walls are still quite alive, despite looking dead (and, in other games, being dead). And for some reason, I kept getting wedged into walls. I could just jump out, but it was a bit distracting. Pretty buggy by Mario standards!

Beat with warps and continues (but no cheats, and I beat every level at least once).

While Super Mario Bros. 2 has many of the same NES-related failures as its predecessor, it has a great deal of unique mechanics that set it apart from even modern-day installments in the series, giving players a reason to come back to this fun, well-crafted platformer.

While it may be little more than a reskin of an existing game, this serves it well, in a way, as it has a whole new wealth of options when it comes to movement and combat, distinguishing itself from the series' norms while still staying within the theme of a Mario game. It still plays exactly like Mario, with satisfying jumping and creatively intuitive platforming, but the newly-introduced grabbing mechanic reinvigorated the franchise's gameplay in a big way.

I think this is an underrated game, and is worth playing for any fan of good platformers. I love the game's catchy music, its distinct worlds and environments, and its addicting platforming. I do wish that they had done away with the shoddy save system, but it's much more forgiving in this game. You should only game-over once or twice before you get the hang of things, and by then you can have fun cruising through the rest of the game.

There are still a few drawbacks. I feel that the power-up system is incredibly confusing in this game, and it should have been modified to fit more within the Mario theme. Bland, repetitive health buffs aren't nearly as fun as the Fire Flower from the previous game, or the wealth of fun power-ups in the sequel. The gameplay is fun, so it's somewhat forgivable, but lacking power-ups and having to play with largely the same abilities for the entire game can cause challenges to feel repetitive, with one set way to approach most situations.

Overall, I enjoyed this game. I wish it could have kept the typical Mario power-up system, and removed full-game restarts, but I can say with certainty that it's a solid platformer nonetheless and has aged impressively for being built for NES hardware.

I may have taken a few breaks during my playing of this but as someone who admittedly isn't the best gamer in the world, this was pretty fucking tough. There are some fun quirky bits here and there but it feels like such an outlier in these early Mario games, and yes I know it's basically a different game and all but there are some elements here that found their way into Mario canon and it still feels really alien. Mario wasn't the thing it is now back then I suppose. Either way between the frustration and feeling like a totally different experience to 1 and 3, I have to say it's confidently my least favourite of the group and the one i'd have the least interest in returning to. At the same time, happy I beat it. One of those things you just have to do at some point. Well you don't really have to but still. Bring back Wart.

Super Mario USA! This review might be a bit scatterbrained, as I wasn't really thinking about how I was gonna properly rank this game coming out of it.. it feels like it's one of the first Mario titles where they really heightened the complexity overall and tried to experiment with something more mechanically rich and less straight forward..Literally, considering the fact this is the first title in the series that included both horizontal AND vertical sections. It's a good thing then, that the sense of character control truly starts to resemble something we'd consider 'modern' by today's standards, making these picturesque skyscrapers a breeze to navigate.. well, at least if your character has a high enough jump, that is.

Along with the addition of multiple playable characters comes stats unique to them, as well as a base move set that is a smidge more diverse from the standard run and jump Mario had before this point... sporting a high jump each character can use by holding crouch, or the iconic ability to unearth and toss both vegetables and oncoming enemies! It definitely feels a bit more complex with all the brand new variables to take account of, whether it be your character's stats, or the way enemys interact.. and this isn't an inherently bad change, nor directly preferable to what came before. It's just Different.

The worlds can be a bit of a struggle to survive in with only a handful of lives and continues, especially when you jumped around characters as much as I did, but once you stock up as many coins as you can from the Subspace areas it's not too hard amass a large amount of lives from the Bonus Slots... And even so, the secret warps also help if you don't wanna keep running through the same levels that are whittling away at you.

I honestly struggled with this game a lot until I started abusing the subspace zones. I kept getting my lives drained and having to run through the same levels over and over, but I truly did feel myself improving with each run, learning the best places to get mushrooms, exploit the Subspace zones, etc. The game is never quite unfair, just fairly bare knuckled. The only honest frustrations come from some Old Game Jank™ and some of the early levels feeling a tad repetitive... I dislike the removal of the Save feature from Doki Doki Panic, as well as the fact you do not have unlimited continues upon game over ala Super Mario Bros. and it's sequel for Super Players. The inability to switch characters after losing a life to try a new strategy for certain levels was also a bit of a frustration at times, though I eventually settled on just using Mario as my 'contributor', feeling his balanced stats and lack of any particularly glaring downsides best suited my playstyle.

After I got to grips with my character of choice, I felt this game's creativity and strong design really start to shine in the latter worlds, where it presents fair and interesting challenges for the player... which are also much easier to appreciate when you're a character that is fairly equipped to deal with pretty anything the game throws at them. I found other characters like Toad, Peach and even Luigi far too volatile and undesirable in certain situations due to things like their digging speed, throwing speed, and ESPECIALLY jump height. As they say in Goldilocks, Mario was like the porridge that was "just right!", and I found myself much more successful and less grumpy upon sticking to him.

Some of the highlights of the playthrough for me were how they iterated on each consecutive Birdetta fight... creating a new arena to tussle in each time, and forcing you to wrangle her in a different way than you would normally expect. They get a surprising amount of mileage out of this seemingly simple enemy type.

The final clash with Wart I also found especially cool, as it truly felt like a battle that rewarded bravery and skill with how not only the arena was laid out, but how Wart's bubbles deflect vegetables; making it difficult to hit him from the higher area of the room, which can feel 'safer' when you first start the fight. Rather than slinking away and trying to cheap out Wart from a distance, the best strategy is to weave around his bubbles on the lower stage and hit him where it's hurts. It's a really simple, but well designed encounter!
All in all, I enjoyed my time with Super Mario USA, but early on I felt myself getting a bit frustrated when I was struggling to get to grips with certain quirks of the game. It's also certainly a bit different from it's more standard brethren... but it still has enough of the platforming goodness that Mario is known for that fans of the series shouldn't feel alienated.

For any additional crumbs you might want about this game, check out the Doki Doki Panic review on my profile!

“NOT A BAD GAME, JUST NOTHING I WANTED”

I’ll be honest, I’ve never really given Super Mario Bros. 2 a fair shake. I tried Super Mario Advance and the Mario All Stars version of SMB2 but wrote it off as uninteresting. “This isn’t the real Super Mario Bros. 2, after all,” I told myself.

I’ve never played Super Mario Bros. 2 front to back until now.

The first half of this game is actually pretty good! I think if you can handle that it’s not 1:1 mechanically with the first game you’ll have a good time with it. There was even a point during my playthrough where I considered myself a Super Mario Bros. 2 truther. I mean, my God, I really enjoyed my first hour with it. Maybe Dunkey was right all along.

But then I, uh… quit having fun, I guess?

I started this game in February and played fervently, blasting through the first few worlds with relative ease. And then I just started coming back less and less. Playing through the game at a snail’s pace, piecemeal. Maybe finished a few levels every once in a while. Some days I could only stomach one level at a time. I almost didn’t play at all in April.

Admittedly I think a lot of my displeasure stems from the fact that I am not good at most retro games. And as much as I try to steer clear of abusing save states to progress, I was saving almost every other screen in this one. A lot of the later levels’ tricks and traps were major mood killers.

And like, not to put too fine of a point on it, I feel as though I’m just an outlier at this point? Are we all playing with save states on here or are we really just raw dogging these games without safety nets? Or are we playing the updated All Stars / Advance versions and logging it as the NES one?

This game is absurdly hard. I couldn’t imagine trying to get through all this in one go, even with warp zones.

Sometimes the game just gives you a hit point (heart) back, but there’s no way to get an extra hit point (mushroom) without finding a magic potion first, and even then you have to guess where the mushroom will appear. It’s a pretty unfair guessing game. Also, I think I only won the post-level slot machine for extra lives a few times. It’s maybe the least generous slot machine minigame I’ve played in a long while, and that sucks cause those extra lives would have definitely come in handy later. Instead I was just loading save states constantly.

I don’t know. I’m sorry this is such a negative review. I just didn’t feel great playing this one and I don’t think it’s one I’d come back to anytime soon.