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
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