Coming out way back in 1988 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Mario Bros. 2 (Mario Mania?) is considered an odd outlier for the series. It introduces new enemies, gives you the option to play as Peach or Toad, makes you hop on enemies and then throw them to kill them. Heck, the bad guy isn’t even Bowser, it’s some noob named Wart, and to be honest, he seems way more competent than ol’ King Koopa. I mean, he employs a bomb-throwing mouse instead of throwing his kids in Mario’s path.
Maybe it is because of all these weird, new additions that people consider this entry the odd man out. Some people, including some of us here at TheGamer, believe that this is one of the best entries in the series, being vastly superior to Super Mario Bros. 3. Despite being the much-maligned black sheep of the family, there is a ton of backstory, trivia and just flat out absurdity hiding within the story of how Super Mario Bros. 3 came to be. A perfect storm, if you will, of scenarios, artistic choices, trends and corporate shenanigans that led to an entry that gave us such series mainstays as Birdo, Shy-Guy, Phanto, and The Bob-omb. So let’s delve right into the wacky world that made this game the beautiful trainwreck we know it to be.
18 Birdo Is A Little Different, And That’s Ok
Birdo is a girl, right? She’s solid pink, she wears a ribbon in her bird/lizard hair(?), and her name is Birdo. In the straightforward, what you see is what you get in the world of video games, that means she’s a girl, right? Oh ye of little faith, it’s like you don’t know that Kirby is pink and Samus is a girl. In the magical world of Nintendo characters, nothing is what it seems.
While nothing in the game seems to indicate Birdo is anything other than the gender she seems, the instruction manual that accompanies the game says a little differently, stating that “he thinks he is a girl.” Good on you, Birdo, breaking through gender stereotypes way before it was a trend.
17 Saturday Morning Goodness
Despite being labeled weird and new, people instantly clicked with the characters and premise of this newly fleshed out Super Mario universe. With a large pantheon of core characters like Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad, with a wider range of supporting characters thanks to the sequel, the people at Viacom and DiC Animation thought that this premise was definitely enough to warrant a kid’s show.
Thus was born the Super Mario Bros. Super Show! and it was everything we ever wanted. We got both a live action Mario and Luigi (played by Captain Lou Albano and Danny Wells, respectively) and an awesome animated show. While the inspiration for the show claims to be from Super Mario Bros. 1 & 2, we can easily assume that 2 was the major influencer, since the very first episode centers on Toad being kidnapped by the aforementioned Birdo. If you have never heard of the show, check it out, but I’ll admit right now it is very dated, but it’s always cool to see the 90s in full glorious action with a Super Mario Rap.
16 Everybody Is Good At Something
Remember when the first Super Mario came out, and the only thing Luigi had going for him was being green? He was mostly relegated to the control of someone’s younger sibling, because nobody wanted to be that goof Luigi. Heck, most of us didn’t even know Luigi had a separate name and we just called him “Green Mario.”
Then Super Mario Bros. 2 came out and upset everything. Luigi had that frantic little run thing he could do in mid-air that made him jump just a little bit more. In fact, there was a whole system of power, high jump, and speed, with different characters excelling at different things, a system that would be largely abandoned in later games. This new system made Luigi…still not that great, but at least he could jump. In fact, there’s a good reason why the characters all seem so different in power in the game, but more on that later…
15 Difficult Time To Be A Mario Brother
So earlier we mentioned that Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in 1988. Do any eagle-eyed readers note that year, and what it is fairly close to? That’s right, the Video Game Crash of 1983. Also known as The Atari Shock in Japan, the crash was felt during the mid-90s due to oversaturation of the market, not to mention the loss of publishing control which resulted in terrible games at full prices. During this time, game company revenues fell 97%, going from as high as $3.2 billion down to only $100 million.
After this horrific crash, the video game market recovered largely due to how amazing the Nintendo Entertainment System was. These were difficult times for video games, so Nintendo had to make some serious strategic calls about Mario, it’s flagship series. It was due to these unstable waters that Nintendo of America crafted this sequel in such a bold yet familiar design.
14 Marios Always Welcome In Japan
Earlier we mentioned the Video Game Crash of 1983. So while this was a tough time for Mario & Luigi in North America, in Japan, it was a completely different story. For a multitude of reasons, not least of which was a standardized version of arcade games accepting a single dollar for playing, the video game market in Japan remained stable.
This unrivaled stability led to two things: Nintendo of America having to make autonomous decisions outside of the rest of the Nintendo empire, and control of the console market moving away from North America towards Japan. This control led Nintendo to double down on the Mario franchise, which had proven to be widely popular with the first installment. Nintendo of North America wanted Mario to be in every kid’s television, but they didn’t want kids to be too flabbergasted so…
13 What Do You Mean It’s Too Hard?
So Nintendo had a game lined up as a sequel to their 1985 success, and that game was a lot closer to the original game than what North American Audiences got. It featured the same controls as last time, and even looked mostly the same, aside from a few key differences. The was no two player, with Luigi and Mario acting independently, each with their own benefits, with Luigi being able to jump higher but also handling more slippery. There’s also one key difference from the original: it’s almost impossible.
With a steep incline in difficulty, plus the introduction of Poison Mushroom Power-Ups (downs?), Warp Pipes that take you backwards, and the introduction of hindering weather, the game is a real challenge, even by today’s standards. With the Video Game Crash looming over everyone’s head in North America, Nintendo worried that Western audiences would reject a game so frustrating, a risk they were not willing to take on their golden meal ticket. So if they didn’t publish this game in the West, what game did we get? Keep reading…
12 Fortune Favors The Bold
So everyone can agree that Super Mario Bros. 2 is possibly the weirdest entry in the series. It was a serious departure from what we knew, with multiple players with multiple powers, different enemies, and almost completely different controls. It was as if this was a completely different game (foreshadowing). Well, what can we say, weirdness pays off?
Despite feeling new and strange, Super Mario Bros. 2 sold over 100 million copies worldwide. A financial and critical success, this sequel paved the way for the rest of the series. It’s hard to imagine that if this game had tanked, it would have killed the series. Imagine a world without Super Mario?
11 Lost But Not Forgotten
Some of you may think you are video game dynamos and are demanding “Where can I play those harder Mario levels that Japan made?” Well, worry not, irate reader, since they have definitely been made available to North Americans. Released under the title Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, this game was shown to eager Westerners as far back as 1993 when it was released with Super Mario All-Stars.
Anyone who doesn’t have their old console, or was born a little after that time, thereby making this author feel tremendously old, can still play it on the Game Boy, Nintendo 3DS, Wii or Wii-U.
10 If It Ain’t Broke
So across the sea, Super Mario Bros. 2 was receiving huge success with North American audiences, and in Japan, the OTHER Super Mario Bros. 2 was receiving…also a huge success. What was deemed too hard for other audiences became a fan favorite of Japanese gamers.
The Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 was the top of the charts according to the video game magazine Famicom Tsushin with many praising its’ steep increase in difficulty. Despite the hard gameplay, it even sold 2.5 Million units on the Famicom Disk System, on which it was initially released.
9 The More The Merrier
So while it may not be as difficult as its Japanese counterpart, it did have a huge upscale in enemies. With the original game only clocking in a scant 15 enemies (generously counting the fire bars, cannons and jumping lava balls as enemies) and a single repeating boss, the first game didn’t have all that variety in the way of enemies. Nobody is taking issue with this gameplay, considering what a groundbreaking entry the first game is, but the second game took notice and really upped the ante.
Introducing a huge pantheon on 20 enemies, none of which are environmental hazards (which there were plenty of outside of these baddies) plus an eclectic mix of 7 different bosses. The visually distinct look of Birdo, Mouser, Tryclyde, Fryguy, Clawgrip, The Mask Gates and Wart himself, plus the distinct fighting styles of each boss battle helped cement this sequel as the highly stylized success it was.
8 A More Robust Mario
Quite possibly the best improvement on the first game, Super Mario Bros. 2 introduced something that drastically increased the enjoyability of the game, even if it meant a slight sacrifice in difficulty. This is, of course, the health meter, something that if it were absent might have made the game near impossible, especially with the ever looming presence of that creep Phanto.
Players might forget that the system before, and bizarrely afterward, was far less complex. You get big, which grants you the option of taking two hits instead of one. With the sequel, you start off with two bits of health, but through a series of skillful acquisitions, that can be increased to four, along with your size. This was an improvement that, for whatever reason, number 3 did away with.
7 Like The Final Season Of Roseanne
Nothing, and I mean nothing, is a cheaper ploy in writing than making things a dream sequence. All it ever does is make the viewer feel cheated for ever being invested in the outcome of the events they just witnessed. Why bother making everything a dream? Too afraid to commit to the consequences of the events of the dream?
The only logical reason I can think of for making everything in Super Mario Bros. 2 a dream is so that Nintendo could explain away why everything was so weird. The people of Subcon, hitting people with Turnips or whatever, three-headed snakes, the whole thing is dream logic. Except, many of the people that first appear in the dream later appear in the series. So was it not a dream? What is the point of the ambiguity? Does this mean that Mario dreamt up Birdo, and changed their gender? Maybe Mario is a more complex character than we first realized.
6 Going The Extra Mile
It’s hard to imagine it today, when major retailers always have a fresh stock of AAA titles for games, but way back in the 80s and 90s, video games weren’t on sure footing. Stores were reluctant to buy too many of a certain game, especially after the crash showed them that there had been such a huge influx of titles nobody wanted.
So when Super Mario Bros. 2 came out, and everyone was talking about it, it was understandable that kids asked their parents for this particular game, no matter what. With a huge throng of parents buying up every last copy, many shelves stood empty, not foreseeing the huge popularity of the game. It was because of this that there are numerous stories of parents having to drive miles, even across state borders, just to find a copy of this popular sequel.
5 Clothes Make The Plumber
When you picture Mario and Luigi, what do you picture them wearing? Red and Green shirt with blue overalls, right? Or is it a blue shirt with Red or Green overalls? Is this like that stupid gold and white dress meme? No, it’s totally ok if you picture both Mario Bros. uniforms as being correct.
You see, the official artwork For Super Mario Bros. 2 depicted the titular brothers as having the inverse color scheme as what appeared in the game. This game artwork would mark the last time the brothers were shown in this version of the costume, a move that I’m not sure I support, since Luigi looks pretty dope in those green jeans.
4 Where Do I Know That Song From?
Nintendo has a long history of peppering their own franchises within other franchises, from Bowser being on Talon’s tie (in Ocarina of Time) to the Fairy Fountain theme song actually being from Super Mario Bros. 3 Ocean Side level. It’s a fun and cute way to weave your worlds together, not to mention it also totally cuts down on creative costs to just reuse the same stuff.
So whether it was frugality or playfulness, many players may have noticed something familiar about the title screen of Super Mario Bros. 2. That’s because the underwater music from the first game, with a few tweaks. Go ahead and look it up for yourselves if you don’t believe us.
3 Birdo. No Ostro! Dang it!
Man, poor Birdo can’t catch a break. Being regularly thwarted by the Mario Bros., having everyone call you Birdo when you prefer being called Birdette, then being confused with another bird named Ostro!
In the end credits, and in some manuals, Birdo and Ostro have their names switched, for whatever reason. It seems like a weird oversight, considering Ostro is a beast of burden often employed by the Shy-Guys and Birdo is something of a final boss. Jokes on Ostro, though, he was never invited back to play tennis with the Mario gang. Give it time — we’re confident everyone will get into Mario’s sick parties at some point.
2 One Hit Wonder
So Mario hates Bowser, and Bowser hates Mario. Sometimes Mario hates King Boo, or other baddies that come in and out of his life like a revolving door of evil-doers. So where’s Wart? Lauded as the supreme bad guy in Super Mario Bros. 2, Wart was the ringleader of a pretty intense bunch of miscreants, like Mouser, Fry-Guy, and Tryclyde.
In fact, Wart is one of the few enemies that Mario has encountered that seems to never appear again. Shy-Guy pops up, heck, Birdo even starts dating Yoshi, so where the heck is Wart? His disappearance from the game seems to imply he really IS a dream figment of Mario’s imagination, or at least only a villain while Mario is in dreamworld. Here’s hoping this slimy scoundrel gives Mario another adventure somewhere down the road.
Here’s an interesting little tidbit: while Wart doesn’t appear again in the Mario series, he does make a brief appearance in another game, Link’s awakening, under the name Mamu. You know what these games have in common? They’re both dreams!
1 The Game You Know Is a Lie
So as we mentioned before, Japan made their own Super Mario Bros. 2 game that was massively difficult. We also mentioned that North America was recovering from a Video Game Crash, and that Nintendo of America didn’t feel like releasing a game that was beyond difficult as the next installment of the Mario franchise was a good financial decision. Which resulted in the creation of the Western version of Super Mario Bros. 2. How you may ask?
Easy. It’s another game. That’s right, as hard as it is to hear, what you know as the second installment in the Mario series is actually a reskinned version of a Japanese game called Yumi Kojo: Doki Doki Panic. It was this reskinning that actually gave birth to a lot of the things we take for granted today, such as Peach floating, Luigi jumping higher, picking things up to throw them, Wart and tonnes of others. By putting the Mario skin on a game that already seemed immensely fun and endlessly playable, Nintendo of America hedged their bets on continuing their franchise with very little risk, a gambit which very much paid off.
