ash's stash

super mario bros. 2 (usa) - 5/10

who'd have known, the black sheep of the bunch is forgotten for a reason?

please note: this is a game i have reviewed multiple times! the prior versions of this review will be included below. enjoy!

amusingly, unlike my replay of super mario bros., which found me developing a newfound appreciation for the original that i previously did not have, this game getting it's chance to shine again has only depreciated the minor value that i held it with (see earlier review). i will say; i do genuinely enjoy the way that mario moves in this game significantly more than the first game, it's leaps and bounds better. as is the theming, it's significantly more creative and vibrant and just generally willing to experiment with where you are than its predecessor, to the point that this is arguably the introduction of the mario staples of grass land, desert land, ice land, and hell, just having those differentiation between world aesthetics beyond above ground or not.

the levels around these factors, however, are very much mediocre, sometimes downright perplexing. too often there's an obfuscated way forward, like going into one specific pot in a room of about twenty, or going all the way left in a level by jumping on a flying enemy that was previously being used to dispatch bombs on you, which in my head suggested maybe stay away from them, but that admittedly might be on me. and where they're not being evasive, they're just being obnoxious; too many fucking times, this game asks you to dig through its nefarious sand level, and it's just a pain in the tits. it's annoying to just have to mash b, but it's made all the more obnoxious when enemies are mixed in, and if you wish to avoid them, you can quite easily void your progress, or alternatively fuck up in such a way that enemies will pester you more. it's really shitty. on top of that, there are several situations where you can just outright get softlocked if you throw something in the wrong place, and i'm all for encouraging the player to experiment and learn, but not even a kill pit in some of those situations is a little bit much.

it's funny, really, a lot of things in this game would go on to be mario series icons, such as shy guys, ninjis, birdo, and so on, but the levels themselves hold only the legacy that a lot of the same things that annoy me in this game have now been recycled by countless people into the worst smb2 mushroom levels in super mario maker. except for one, and it's a huge sticking point, because the game is in love with it: vertical scrolling.

now, forgive me if i'm wrong but i thought that the whole appeal of super mario bros. was that it was one of the first smooth side-scrollers, that there was no screen transition, there was no awkward pause, and you would just proceed forward as-is. at least, that's why i see it as something to be held in reverence, on a technical level, of the time. of course, this isn't the original intended mario 2, as everyone and their goldfish is aware, but why adapt mario into this when it's sort of antithetical to the appeal of the prior game? at least in my eyes, anyway. the scroll-based screens often result in stodgy, slow gameplay, often made worse when you get knocked back down by an enemy, and you try to hit up again to go straight back up, and the screen's going all over the bloody place and you haven't moved an inch and the world has been in stasis for about three seconds solid - it destroys any flow present. especially when the only way up is on a vine that an enemy is on, doubly so if your only present place on the screen is due to another vine that another enemy is on and you need to make a timely movement. there's a lot of sections in this that feel like they were either required to be cycle-perfect and otherwise get fucked, or just outright designed with the concept of damage boosting in mind. which i suppose could make the health system better on the face of it!

unfortunately, i did not enjoy my time spent with super mario bros. 2 this go around, on account of its flaws presenting themselves rather clearly and frankly getting on my tits far too much. maybe it's one i'll have to come back to at a later date, as it was with mario 1, but... eh, i don't really have a reason to. it's not as short and snacky as mario 1, nor as iconic and creative as world. it's just sort of there, as a black sheep. what a roundabout way for me to come to the conclusion that I, Too, Think The Non-Mario Game Of The Mario Series Is A Bit Weird