The reskinning of Doki Doki Panic as Mario 2 accidentally established some parameters for divergent game sequels

Turnips, clouds, Birdos, magic doors. The noise introduced by the original game's surrealist/orientalist theme ungrounded the franchise permanently, and the airy images fit the new character abilities: Luigi's horrible flutter jump and Peach's powerful air control

Oddly paced in its introduction of new elements and repetition of old ones, but its moments of challenge are fun to work through (e.g. Spark platforming section in the final level), and it finishes strong with the veggie-lobbing dream machine spat with Wart, which feels like a fitting endpoint to the game's emphasis on avoidance and tossing

Holds up well on replay, even better with a controller. The movement is not as good in comparison to other Mario games from the NES, which makes sense since 95% of this game is from a different IP, but outside of that, the non-japanese SMB2 is a pretty clever and fun evolution of the platforming genre.
The level design is pretty good and the colors are great, the music is catchy and atmospheric. There is a decent variety of settings, enemies and bosses, which makes progressing through this title much more interesting than SMB1.
There are plenty annoying and unfair sections, so I found myself either skipping parts of this game by using Luigi (game breaker) or by abusing some wall-glitches, and I guess that makes this game not as fun as others from the franchise.
I enjoyed the verticality of the game, and the new gimmicks it would often try out. Wasn't a fan of the life system, and that includes the cherries, the hearts and the coin system. The potion is a cool concept but it should have been used in better ways I think.
The bastard child of the NES Mario trilogy is a creative, aesthetically pleasing adventure that was responsible for a large amount of ideas that are still present within the franchise. The difficulty and clunkiness are annoying, but it's very charming from top to bottom.

Kudos to Howard Phillips recognizing that what would eventually be known as The Lost Levels wasn't going to work well as a sequel in the US. Getting a reskinned Doki Doki Panic ended up being the best thing that could have happened to Mario because of how novel everything felt for the second time in a row.

The theme music here is just as memorable as in the original game as far as I'm concerned, and this game probably had the best controls out of any platformer to have come out at the time of its release. The visuals were colorful, had some great new enemies, nice animations, and little flourishes like stealing the magic carpet and being attacked by one of the bird doors towards the end of the game. I do think it overstays its welcome a bit, as the last third of the game starts feeling a bit repetitive, and I also wish they had done more with the Subcon world behind the magic doors. While this wasn't what they initially intended for the sequel, what they ended up with ended up working out far better.

IT'S SUPAH MARIO BROTHARS 2 BABYYYY

Now, seriously... wow. This was awful. You see everything this game has to offer in the very first level. Probably just once or twice I was surprised with a twist of the picking up/throwing mechanic, which I'd say wasn't explored to its fullest.

And I'm somewhat grateful for that, as this buggy, illogical hitbox, repetitive mess of a game was begging me to stop playing it. Almost every single level has a mini boss fight, and almost always it's against Birdo, or as this game's credits call... them, Ostro? That's kinda funny.

But this game certainly isn't. So many design flaws, of its time I guess. Yet there is so much influence of the title in the Super Mario series. Probably every single element from this game has returned somehow, somewhere, in the Super Mario series, except for its main gimmick. It's kind of a shame, yet probably for the best to keep the Doki Doki Panic essence away from the series.

I made use of the rewind feature shamelessly as there were many, many cheap deaths and unpredictable behavior all over the place.

For many years I played the first level or two, when I was younger, with so much joy. Now I wish I had left this title in the mystical realm of the unknown so I'd respect it a little more. At least I can say I finished it.

Go play Onion Assault. That's actually good.

Played for 3 hours and 4 minutes through Nintendo Switch Online.

I know that nowadays the fact that this is a reskin of Doki Doki Panic is common knowledge in the gaming community, but that wasn't always the case so I wonder what people back in the day thought about this game. 🤔

It's interesting that the main mechanic in this game is picking up and throwing things. You do it quite a bit, probably about as much as you do platforming.

Having four playable characters instead of just Mario and Green Mario is a nice change of pace. It's funny that I never played as Mario in this Mario game, but I played as every other character. Peach makes platforming a lot easier, even the harder segments.

The bosses are pretty lackluster, especially Birdo. The normal enemies all have pretty neat designs, I like Shy Guy.

The story of this game has been documented by a lot of people, starting originally as a prototype for a new Mario game with vertical levels and simultaneous multiplayer, to becoming Doki-Doki Panic in Japan, to becoming an actual Mario game in the West, because The Lost Levels was bullshit hard.
In hindsight, it's weird that Nintendo of America didn't allow Lost Levels to come over because of its difficulty, but allowed stuff like Zelda 2, but I digress.

Super Mario Bros. 2 plays very differently to the 1st game.
Instead of jumping on enemies, you pick up vegetables and throw them at the enemies.
Instead of saving Peach from Bowser, she's a playable character alongside Mario, Luigi & Toad, and you fight against a new villain called Wart.
Instead of defeating Goombas, Koopas and Lakitus, you defeat Shy Guys, Ostros, and Pokeys.

Of course, a lot of these changes come from its Doki-Doki Panic origin, but what I find so interesting is not only does this game expand the Mario universe ten-fold (even if this game is a dream, some of these elements carried over for future games), this game is a joy-ride from beginning to end!

I may be a bit alone on this, but I actually prefer this game over the original.
I have fun with both, and I do have some criticisms with this installment, but I just really like a lot of the stuff that Mario 2 offers.

While it may be a bit overdone nowadays, this title introduced the level themes we would see in future Mario games, like the Desert World, the Water World, the Ice World, you get it.

The characters all have their own unique attributes, and are really fun to play around with, and also add some extra replay value, and offer playstyles for either beginner players or more hardcore ones.

Yes, always fighting Birdo at the end of most levels can get tiring, and yes, some of the levels can get a bit long, but I had a lot of fun with this entry, and I'm really glad that it became a Mario game, even with many of its changes to the Mario formula.

Super Mario Bros. 2 is a good game, and I had a lot of fun with it! :D