Machina said:
The early Nintendo home consoles were never that popular in Europe; neither I nor any of my friends owned any of them up until the N64 (and that was rare - my first Nintendo home console was the Wii for example). I didn't even know Mario platformers existed until I saw someone playing what must have been Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on a GBC during a school trip. |
Wow! I knew the early Nintendo systems didn't catch on in Europe, but it still surprises me that one wouldn't have played any version of it before in 2023. I mean the Wii had it on its Virtual Console, there was a Super Mario Bros. All-Stars re-release on the Wii, and there are streaming versions of both games on the Switch's online service now and all. Well I guess when there's no tradition there to begin with, perhaps it sparks less curiosity.
Anyway, the hook of Super Mario Bros. 2 that distinguishes it from other entries in the mainline Super Mario titles is its emphasis on vertical scrolling: climbing uphill toward or into the sky, digging deep underground, this sort of thing, in addition to the usual side-scrolling. You pick up and toss vegetables and many enemy characters and have four selectable protagonists to choose from (Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Princess Toadstood (as she was still called back then)), each with their own distinctive skill sets. There was no two-player mode though, or a save feature in the original version. It was an especially unique entry in the franchise owing mostly to the fact that it was actually just a version of another, rather unique game (Doki Doki Panic) that had been altered to use the Mario cast.
