"It's-a us, Mario and friends!"

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

In honor of the release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, I thought I would take a look back at my favorite of the 8-bit Mario games, Super Mario Bros. 2.

Super Mario Bros. 2 is the very first video game I ever remember there being any kind of mass anticipation for. There were a lot of other kids on the playground that were NES fanatics at my school, and we were all talking about the impending SMB2.

Information was pretty scarce back then, but some of us had friends that were receiving Nintendo Power, which featured SMB2 on the cover of their very first issue. We were blown away. We didn’t know there was a different Super Mario Bros. 2 already out in Japan (later to be called The Lost Levels in North America), and we certainly had never heard of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, the game that was re-purposed to become the North American release of SMB2.

My oldest brother, Jeremy, had just won an art contest in the Nintendo Fun Club, and even though SMB2 wasn’t out yet, they let him choose it as one of the two games he received as prizes. Sure, we still had to wait for it to come out, but we would have it right from the get go; or so we though. It still took the requisite six to eight weeks after release for delivery.

Once we finally got our copy, we commenced with being blown away. Everything we loved about the first game was there, but in a completely new context. There was still amazing platforming, creative levels, and exploration to find secret areas. You were no longer stuck only moving forward, allowing for much crazier levels.

But this time, you could choose Mario, Luigi, Toad, or Princess Peach. They each had their own abilities. Toad was quick but jumps the lowest, Peach can float but it takes her longer to pick things up, Luigi jumps high but is hard to control, and Mario is the good old average of all attributes.

There was the new mechanic where instead of stomping heads, you could land on enemies and pick them up, then throw them as projectiles. You had hit points which you could expand on a per-level basis, and an all-new set of enemies . It’s a shame they never see the light of day outside of cameos in Mario’s “other” franchises, like the sports and racing games. I guess that’s what happens when a fake sequel is made by a different team.

If something like this were to happen in the modern era, gamers would cry foul and assume the game was the worst thing ever created. It turned out, we were all pretty impressed with what Super Mario Bros. 2 brought to the table.

Why did I pick this game?

As I’m sure you can tell, this game holds a very special place in my heart. It was one of those game that really sucked me in a made me feel invested in this whole other world. It helped define who the core Mario Bros. characters are, and carried over some of the ideas about their personalities into future iterations. This makes me wonder if at least some folks on Team Mario in Japan have a soft spot for this black sheep.

How does it hold up?

Super Mario Bros. 2 is an easy recommendation for me to make. The platforming is as solid as ever, the levels are fun and interesting, and the ability to change your character gives the game a lot of replay value. It is a fairly short game, and can be finished in a few hours.

It is currently available on Virtual Console (Wii) and even came out as a GBA release under the title Super Mario Advance, complete with horrifying voice acting.

Way back when, in the early days of the NES, before they even had Nintendo Power Magazine, there was the Nintendo fun club. It is the very one that Doc Lewis recommends that you join.

As some of you know, I also write a comic book with my brother Jeremy. Our comic is not the first time that his art skills have come in handy.

The assignment was simple. Draw a scene from Metroid. This was the original Metroid, back when most people hadn’t even reached the secret ending and found out that Samus Aran is actually a woman. Remember when that was an Easter egg?

Jeremy had been drawing comics for the local newspaper, as one of his best friend’s dad was the owner, so he had been drawing pretty regularly at the time. He was a pretty avid gamer back then as well, as I mentioned in my Scene It review, and decided that he would throw his hat into the ring. Metroid was one of his favorite games at the time, so all the pieces were in place.

He sent in his entry, and a few months later we saw this:

Click to Enlarge

The prize was the NES Advantage and two games of his choice. He ended up picking R.C. Pro-Am (a fun little racing game by Rare), and even though it wasn’t out yet, they let him choose Super Mario 2 as his second game. We were hoping that meant we would get it early, but no dice.

Once we finally did get that copy of Mario 2, we dug right into it. It was such a weird departure from the original, primary because it was actually a reworking of Doki Doki Panic, but it didn’t matter. It was one of those games that, while fairly easy, especially by 1980′s standards, was just fun. We spent a lot of time finding all the hidden shortcuts and mushrooms hidden throughout.

Who knew that one drawing of a bounty hunter fighting a giant dinasaur-lizard would turn into quality gaming time within the Gregory Clan? So I guess the real point of this article is to say “thank you” to Jeremy for picking awesome games for his prizes and for being cool about letting his younger brothers play too.