Retronauts Episode 161: Super Mario Bros. 2

Oh man this game. It holds a special place in my heart (and remains my favorite) because it was the first time I'd seen a game completed before my eyes. My uncle fired it up when we were gathered for Christmas and he used those level warps to blast through to the end in a relatively short playthrough. That and the fact that the game was a huge leap in art design over the first game meant I could actually enjoy it. That said, I played all three NES Super Mario Bros. games recently and I could see why SMB3 was better than this one, except they kept the green clone of Mario as Luigi's sprite! We'd already seen an improved take on Luigi in SMB2 and to regress to the palette swap was a huge bummer to me as a kid. It's not until Super Mario All-Stars that I could play through these games and enjoy them.

Victor Romero

Covered it briefly on the podcast, but the gameplay loop between Doki Doki Panic and SMB2/USA is changed. In order to fully beat DDP you have to play through all 20 stages as each character, which obviously can be viewed as padding to inflate the length of the game but acutally because each character does play differently, there are areas of the stages that are only accessable to certain characters, making each run through the game (at least to some degree) different with different difficulty challenges in different places, this is mostly lost in SMB2/USA since you can just pick whoever you want for each stage, so its entirely up to you as the player to choose your difficulty for each individual stage, you're never going to have to revisit it with a different character the way you do with DDP. I'd kinda like to see the next time Nintendo does a remake of the game that they make some kind of "all characters" mode to fully complete the game with each character.

Phillip

I have some thoughts about SMB2 (Japan) and think its related to the timing and marketing angles. The NES was still rolling out the summer of 1986 and marketing wise NOA was still very concerned with selling the NES to skeptical parents still fearful that this would be another passing fad. From that angle it put NOA in a hard spot where they were selling the NES, with Super Mario Bros. packed it, so how were they supposed to sell SMB2? As a separate game for $30? That would have angered people thinking they're just trying to scam gullible kids for more of the same (and even moreso with the overall quality of the game design in SMB2), were they supposed to start packing it in with new systems sold, just make it a double cart? Then what about anyone who already bought an NES would feel like they're getting screwed over. The timing was bad for the US market and NOA didn't really have any good options for releasing the game. Packing it in with All Stars really was the first opportunity they had to release the game in the US, it just wasn't really feasable before that with how fragile NOA viewed the market and wanted to be extra conservative in their approach to game releases and not push things too far too fast.

Phillip

I absolutely forgot how nostalgic the music to this game is. Takes me right back to when I was 6. Still remember wanting the game so badly, my parents refusing to get it... and then coming home from school one day to my dad playing it. I was one stoked kid.

Kevin Bunch

Gotta say it is still my favorite too. So darn good!

Mark Lentz

Special shout-out to SMB2 for having the best ice level in Mario, nay, all of gaming.

RAY!!!

Will Oliver

Oh! My actual fav!

Diamond Feit