Mario Marathon Part 2: Super Mario Bros 2

Oh, boy, this is definitely one of the weirdest Mario games of all time. It's like if they took Zelda and made it a sidescrolling action RPG. Oh wait, they...they did do that. Awkward.

Now, this game is weird for many reasons. One of the most notable is the fact that this didn't start out as a Mario game. The true second Mario game, now known as Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels in the west, was deemed too hard for western audiences at the time and so Nintendo made the bizarre decision to reskin a completely different game called Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic with Mario characters and thus the western Super Mario Bros 2 was born.

Super Mario Bros 2 also plays very differently from the first Super Mario Bros. For one thing, jumping on the heads of enemies does nothing. The main gimmick of this game is that you now pick up and throw enemies or objects at other enemies to defeat them, which probably confused a lot of players who had familiarized themselves with the original game. It doesn't help that this type of combat is very precise and very frustrating to pull off, especially regarding bosses, which require you to throw various objects at exactly the right time and place to have any effect. The worst is Mouser, where you have to throw timed bombs at him, but he moves very fast compared to how long it takes for the bombs to go off.

The story is still quite simple, as Mario isn't usually known for grand stories. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad are tasked with saving the world of Subcon from an evil frog named Wart. That leads into my next point, which is that this game has multiple playable characters, which are the four I just mentioned. Each of the have their own special abilities during play, which makes for unique playthroughs from each person. Mario is generally a balanced character, Peach can float in the air for a limited time, Luigi can jump high, and Toad can pick things up the fastest. The only character I find to be finicky is Luigi, because his jump can be really awkward to land, and he's very floaty, so that makes him not as fun to control.

Overall, this game was a baffling decision by Nintendo for the west. It has terrible controls, finicky mechanics, and is more frustrating than fun in the later levels. I'm not saying Lost Levels is any easier or fun despite staying more true to the original game, but what the west got was not the answer at all in my personal opinion.

Next time, we will be looking at a Mario game widely considered to be one of the best in the series and a return to form for the franchise after the first sequel debacle. Keep an eye open for Super Mario Bros 3!

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