Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES) review "I suppose it's useful to them that it was just a dream, after all."

How common were sequels in second generation of console games? Don't answer that. Not common, except when game publishers had tapped the public sales well, which, naturally, Nintendo had with its many-million-seller smash hit, Super Mario Bros. There's something to be said for being first to the afterparty. The sequel wasn't at all what we expected, but somehow it all still worked.

We have learned in the interleaving days that it was a reskin of a television product, and perhaps it wouldn't have been so well received had we known. Atari certainly dug its grave with low effort branded tie-ins. By all accounts, though, this was not one of those. A reskin, yes, but not low effort.

The game does not attempt to mislead you that it is anything like its title sharing cousin. Booting up the game brings you to an entirely new type of screen. Along the top is the title and the four characters you'll have access to, Mario, Green Mario Luigi, Princess Peach and Toad. Not knowing what to expect, you'll choose your favourite, or perhaps your new favourite, and then be shoved unceremoniously through a red door.

Right into the open air. You don't have far to fall, though, landing on a rather tall hill layered like a green cake. You'll immediately walk, or jump, down to the next level and meet a Snifit walking near an animated sprig of grass. Animation in Super Mario Bros games usually means interactable, so even if you haven't read the manual, you're drawn toward it.

This opening scene might not seem like much, but it is in truth standard Nintendo holistic tutorial fare. You'll learn the basic mechanics right there. You might take damage, in which case you'll learn that you can take a few before you lose a life. You might also discover that you don't turn into a small character until you're down to one hit point. You start with three.

The boppy-happy music encourages you along, more care free compared to the deliberate pacing of the original Super Mario Bros theme. There's a chance by this point that you've put the controller down, uncomfortable with all of the changes. Where's my cookie cutout sequel? Nintendo decided that it was too difficult for their newly founded Western audience, and whether or not they were right, this divergence set an important precedent for the Super Mario series.

Where would we be now without Nintendo's experimentation and our willingness to give their ventures a chance? Would we have Sunshine? Galaxy? Wario? Some things were certain, but perhaps we wouldn't have gotten the beloved Yoshi if not for this shift in game style. It's not just character interactions that have changed in Super Mario Bros 2.

Each character has different behaviours that enable new approaches to our tried-and-true platforming. It was here that Luigi was first distinguished from his brother in movement style and performance. You see, unlike the Bros' prior outing, we don't take damage touching enemies, this time. We also don't defeat them with a determined feet-first collision. Yessir, we can stand on their heads.

Okay, why? To pick them up and throw them, of course! This is the defining interaction of the game. You'll be uprooting vegetables, coins, keys, bombs and much more in your adventure. Oh yes, and the confusion issue of hearts. Don't worry, it will make sense, even if it takes some time to get used to. Once you learn, though, this is another game that lends itself to your style of play.

Back to mechanics, because learning the system is secondary to who you choose as your player. As mentioned, each of our heroes has different performance characteristics. Mario is the all-rounder. He's not the fastest or slowest, and is a terrific character to play if you're new to all of this. Luigi jumps high and far, kicking his legs all the way (Yoshi learned from him, perhaps), and is slower lifting than his brother. Peach lifts the slowest but can float for roughly ten seconds or so. I haven't counted. Toad, meanwhile, has had his Wheaties and does nearly everything like a maniac, twice as fast as anyone else. Note that all characters share run speed and charged jump.

Yes indeed! Hold down long enough and your hero will glow, after which they'll leap quite a bit higher than usual. This will be essential for ledges out of reach of your running jump, though having to charge the move stationary means you have to keep track of foes heading your way. Some of them will damage you on contact, but in a logical way. Anything with spines, for instance.

Remember the three hit life meter? Bar? Anyway, it is possible to expand that bar by finding mushrooms, but it's not at all what you expect and a strange treasure hunt, as well. Occasionally, when unearthing things you'll pull up a beaker. Throwing it will create a door, not back home, but to a dimension in silhouette. Anything you unearth here will become a coin, and if you drop the beaker at the right location, you'll find a mushroom that will expand your life bar to four points.

This marks the first time that it is possible to miss beneficial powerups in a Mario series title, since you're reset back to three hits between levels. It was possible to keep powerups between worlds and levels, but...since we put up with that, it won't be the last time they play around with their approach.

While we're on the subject of strangeness, SMB2 has a host of unfamiliar ideas for us to wrestle with. It was this game that introduced us to Birdo, the egg spitting menace, for the first time. Defeating them means we'll find a pearl that lets us hop into animal faced door for access to the next level.

It's not that Super Mario Bros wasn't strange. It was. This was just, stranger. Nintendo hasn't revisited this world except in remakes and ports, but they have cherry picked (get it?) some ideas for inclusion into canon. Luigi doesn't usually sport his unique mechanics all that often, though neither do the others when they appear in platform style games.

I suppose it's useful to them that it was just a dream, after all.

Tweet

Community review by hastypixels (October 14, 2025) Retro, and moreso all the time.