Considering this is a reskinned version of Doki-Doki Panic, I'm surprised at how many mainstays of the Mario series - Bob-ombs, Shy Guys, Birdo, the 'Toad is Gay' song - originated from here!
The other surprising thing is that despite being a reskin, Super Mario Bros 2 is a perfectly good game! If SMB1 was the pure vanilla platforming experience, SMB2 adds a dash of flavor by adding the ability to throw, and plays around with the mechanic really well. Mario can chuck vegetables (?) at enemies, chuck enemies at each other or just chuck them off ledges like the genocidal maniac he is, and enemies have different movement patterns, different throwing arcs, and are quite intuitive to deal with - it's pretty obvious that trying to pick up a hedgehog will hurt you, for example. The game also has several 'upgrades' over the original, in the form of vertically scrolling sections, slight puzzle elements, variety in boss fights, and functionally-different characters instead of palette-swaps. One thing it has in common with the first game is an extremely forgiving early-game, which helps the player acclimatize to the new mechanics and is a refreshing change from many 80s games which overwhelm you from the start.
I do have to say that not everything sticks the landing; SMB2 is a more interesting flavor but the platforming fundamentals and controls don't quite match up to the original. The momentum and physics generally feel worse than in SMB1, but digging and climbing stand out as feeling particularly bad. The potions - which open a door to a kind of 'mirror world' - are in interesting idea but in practice are a needlessly roundabout way of obtaining powerups, and reliant on trial-and-error.
In the end, this more than stands the test of time - the influence this had on later "pure" Mario games is testament to this. And considering cases such as the West getting FF Mystic Quest while Japan kept FFV to itself, this is probably one of the very rare cases where the international gamers got the better deal.
The other surprising thing is that despite being a reskin, Super Mario Bros 2 is a perfectly good game! If SMB1 was the pure vanilla platforming experience, SMB2 adds a dash of flavor by adding the ability to throw, and plays around with the mechanic really well. Mario can chuck vegetables (?) at enemies, chuck enemies at each other or just chuck them off ledges like the genocidal maniac he is, and enemies have different movement patterns, different throwing arcs, and are quite intuitive to deal with - it's pretty obvious that trying to pick up a hedgehog will hurt you, for example. The game also has several 'upgrades' over the original, in the form of vertically scrolling sections, slight puzzle elements, variety in boss fights, and functionally-different characters instead of palette-swaps. One thing it has in common with the first game is an extremely forgiving early-game, which helps the player acclimatize to the new mechanics and is a refreshing change from many 80s games which overwhelm you from the start.
I do have to say that not everything sticks the landing; SMB2 is a more interesting flavor but the platforming fundamentals and controls don't quite match up to the original. The momentum and physics generally feel worse than in SMB1, but digging and climbing stand out as feeling particularly bad. The potions - which open a door to a kind of 'mirror world' - are in interesting idea but in practice are a needlessly roundabout way of obtaining powerups, and reliant on trial-and-error.
In the end, this more than stands the test of time - the influence this had on later "pure" Mario games is testament to this. And considering cases such as the West getting FF Mystic Quest while Japan kept FFV to itself, this is probably one of the very rare cases where the international gamers got the better deal.
2 Comments
Wow, am I that one-note? I must be as predictable as the plot of Final F... Shit
The_Trash_Enby
1 year ago