Super Mario Advance (Game Boy Advance) review on HonestGamers

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Review by Felix Arabia
March 30, 2009

Super Mario Advance always felt more like an obligation to purchase than an obligation to play. Yes, there once was a time when I would buy yesteryear’s classics shamelessly ported to handhelds and more technologically advanced consoles just because it felt right to waste my money on history’s trinkets. The upside to buying Super Mario Advance, I remember telling myself, is that it comes packaged with Super Mario Bros. 2 and the original arcade Mario Bros.. I could now play them on the go, though I still cannot figure out where I would go to play them.

That brings us back to my own indifference when it came to actually playing the damn thing. I already own Super Mario Bros. 2 on the NES, and I also have the refurbished edition that came with Super Mario All-Stars on the SNES. I didn’t need this game, but I told myself that I did. I played it just enough to say that I had beaten it, thereby legitimizing the purchase in my mind. Sorta. For many years, the game has laid dormant on my shelf. Today I decided to revisit it.

What an utterly pointless game this is! Super Mario Advance doesn’t advance Super Mario Bros. 2 in the slightest. It essentially takes the Super Mario All-Stars version and includes a few subtle nuances, such as slightly different character animations, primitive voice-work, and adds in a few large enemies and veggies. If you haven’t played SMB2 in some form by now, allow me to explain that it’s different than typical old-school Mario titles since it subtracts Bowser and the Mushroom Kingdom from the equation and implants a dream-like world inhabited by shy-guys, Birdo, some fat frog king named Wart, and a few other bums. Playing as Mario, Luigi, Toad, or Peach, you are tasked with completing short stages. As one of the four playable characters, you’ll pluck vegetables out of the ground to toss at foes. Sometimes you’ll even make do with the actual enemies. Who knew shy-guys were so light?

Super Mario Bros. 2 on the NES is a great game. As a part of Super Mario All-Stars, it forms a great compilation. Somewhere between the SNES and the GBA, things go wrong.

Super Mario Bros. 2 has always played loosely. The buttery control has been left intact. We can argue that it was left over from Doki Doki Panic’s conversion to the Mario format, but you would think that Nintendo would have put tightened things, especially given the “Advanced” moniker. The actual “advancements” are superfluous and pointless. The voice-work is grating. Birdo, the infamously ribbon-adorned, egg-spewing pink monster thing taunts our poor player every time the two lock eyes. That same poor player, whether it’s Mario, Luigi, Toad, or Peach, sounds off like a chatterbox every time something marginally important occurs over the course of the game. I recommend playing with the sound muted.

The game contains enough inherent quality to play well enough in spite of its sound and control issues, I suppose. SMB2 has always been my least favorite in the series (until Sunshine was released), but there are still some magical moments that manage to nominally legitimize this game’s existence. The fourth world’s whale stage has always been a personal favorite of mine, if only because Mario can implement whales as platforms across frigid bodies of water. And plucking a rocket ship disguised as a vegetable from the ground at the end of the stage has always intrigued me. How, exactly, can a few sprouts hide a rocket ship? There are also a few good boss fights in Mouser, the bomb-tossing mouse and Tri-Clyde, the three-headed cobra. These encounters feel dangerous, just as jumping across any chasm with Luigi feels foolhardy.

Just like in the NES version, each character has his or her own unique jumping abilities. Mario is average, Luigi can jump insanely high, Toad is the stout one of the bunch, and Peach can temporarily float in the air. I have always hated using Luigi because he controls like a kangaroo on springs, oiled for the slip-n-slide. In all the time I’ve spent playing SMB2 and its various apparitions under my ownership, I can say I’ve spent the absolute least amount of time with him. I’d rather just stick with Peach.

She is probably the best character to use on average. Her floating ability can correct over-jumping, and she’s just as powerful as any of the other characters at your disposal. Fans clamored that she star in her own game. Lo and behold, Super Princess Peach came to fruition. I haven’t played it, and I never will. Yet I doubt it can hold a candle to Peach’s jaunt into Mario’s mind. Just because the GBA port is worthless doesn’t mean the original NES version is, too. If you have never played SMB2 it would be a good investment to buy a copy of this version, assuming you have a GBA and emulation is out of the question. But let’s not kid ourselves. Super Mario Advance is the worst rendition of Super Mario Bros. 2 that I have ever played. It’s also the most pointless.

Nintendo would at least do gamers a favor by next porting Super Mario World to the GBA as Super Mario Advance 2. It’s another unnecessary port as far as I’m concerned, but it’s also a much better game than its more primitive counterpart. And it also comes packaged with a copy of arcade Mario Bros.!

Arcade Mario Bros.: no one wants it, everyone’s got it. I think I have about 3 or 4 different renditions of it scattered across various games in my collection. If I ever want to cleanse the sewers of spinies and koopas . . . well, I won’t.

At least one day I can see myself replaying Super Mario Bros. 2. It’ll just be on the original Nintendo, not the Game Boy Advance.

Rating
3	Poor For the most part, there are no redeeming qualities to speak of. This game does some things right, but not enough.
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Staff Score (Avg): 3.0 User Score (Avg): 4.3 Press Score (Avg): N/A
Reviews: 4 Guides: 1 Cheats: 0 Ratings: 4	High Scores: 0 Screenshots: 5 Videos: 0

Title: Super Mario Advance
Genre: Unknown
Developer: Unknown
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