After Nintendo saved the gaming industry by making Super Mario Bros, they decided they needed to make a sequel. In Japan, this sequel is what's known in North America today as Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels. However, Nintendo of America felt that The Lost Levels would be too difficult for American audiences to handle. (I'll admit though, it's an extremely tough game) So, Nintendo of America decided to do their own sequel, which involved getting rid of the 4 playable characters from the Japanese game Doki Doki Panic and replacing them with Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad and calling it Super Mario Bros 2. The result of this was what's in my opinion the worst Mario platforming game of all time. Why do I feel this way? Well, I'll explain my reasoning with this review.

Graphics: 6/10 If there's one good thing that came from Super Mario Bros 2, it's the character models, aside from Birdo. That thing looks Mario almost looks as good as he does in Super Mario World for the SNES, which is very impressive seeing that this game is 8 bit and Super Mario World was 16 bit. Luigi and Toad look impressive as well, but Peach still looks terrible with her brown hair. I was glad when she finally got remade. Anyway, While the characters look good for the most part, a lot of the levels don't look very impressive at all. The desert levels are the only ones that caught my attention. All the other levels are very generic. The graphics for Super Mario Bros 2 are mediocre, but most of the character designs are really good other than Birdo, so I'm giving the graphics a 6.

Sound: 5/10 The soundtrack for Super Mario Bros 2 is nowhere near as catchy or memorable as the original Super Mario Bros. Also the music gets very repetitive as well. The main theme doesn't even come close to comparing to the classic main theme from the original. The boss theme in this game is extremely short and repetitive, and I can't even remember the rest of the soundtrack because it's so bland. Because of how unmemorable and bland this game's soundtrack is, I'm giving the sound a 5.

Addictiveness: 1/10 Normally, this is the category where Mario games shine the most. Unfortunately for Super Mario Bros 2, the severe and unnecessary changes to the gameplay make Super Mario Bros 2 one of the most unenjoyable games in the entire series. Instead of beating enemies by bouncing on their heads and getting powerups to pwn your enemies, Super Mario Bros 2 has you picking up vegetables and throwing them at your enemies. It's either that or jump on top of an enemy, pick it up, and throw it at another enemy to kill 2 enemies at once. I really don't like this formula because it's tedious, it's nowhere near as satisfying or fun as squashing goombas by jumping on them or knocking koopas out of their shells by jumping on them. Another thing that makes this game so repetitive is the ridiculous amount of times you have to fight Birdo. That thing appears way too often. It seems like at the end of almost every level, you have to fight it again in different color variations. The fight isn't even that entertaining to begin with. All you do is throw her eggs or something else at it and boom, it's dead. If there's one good thing about this game, it's that there are more playable characters than just Mario. There's also Luigi, Peach, and Toad. The repetitive boss battles combined with the unnecessary changes to the gameplay make Super Mario Bros 2 one of the most unenjoyable platforming games I've ever played. If it hadn't been for there being 4 playable characters, I would've given the addictiveness a 1. Instead, I have to give it a 2.

Story: 3/10 Super Mario Bros 2 has Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad travel across a dreamworld to defeat the evil frog named Wart. The story isn't all that compelling or memorable, and the fact that Wart is the villain and Bowser doesn't even appear in this game makes Super Mario Bros 2 even less enjoyable than it already is. Also the fact that this game introduced Birdo is very disurbing. Overall, I say that this game doesn't have a good story or a good cast of villains, but there are worse storylines out there so I'm giving the story a 3.

Depth: 5/10 Super Mario Bros 2 has a decent amount of levels to play thorugh, and the can take awhile to beat, meaning that you'll be playing this game for awhile. It also has a decent amount of enemies to fight, even though the gameplay itself isn't very good. The game suffers from a lack of diverse bosses and the game doesn't provide a big challenge either. Overall though, Super Mario Bros 2 does provide some depth, so I'm giving this category a 5.

Difficulty: 3/10 A lot of NES games provide a major challenge. Super Mario Bros 2 is NOT one of those games. The boss fights are very predictable and they aren't difficult at all, and the levels themselves aren't very difficult either. This is one NES game that I never got a game over on. There are easier games out there, but I'm going to have to give the difficulty a low score of 3.

Overall Score: 3.5/10 Super Mario Bros 2 is not only my least favorite Mario platformer, but it's also one my least favorite platforming games of all time. With revamped gameplay in the worst possible way, a throwaway story and poor cast of villains, Super Mario Bros 2 is nothing compared to it's predecessor. I'm giving Super Mario Bros 2 an overall score of 3.5 out of 10.

Nice review! I agree with the character models...anyway, overall, your review was AMAZING! Keep it going!

My question is this. If you were actually reviewing Doki Doki Panic, would your ratings be the same? The reason why I ask is that in quite a few categories, you mentioned 'Super Mario Bros this, Super Mario Bros that". Everything was a side by side comparison to Super Mario Bros. If you completely took out other Super Mario Bros games from your mind, put the Doki Doki Panic characters back in instead of Mario characters, and judged this game completely as an individual, would your opinion still be the same?

I can understand not enjoying it much, but SMB2 is undeniably a very good game. I didn't even enjoy it as a kid, but I can see that it's a good game. If we're gonna compare it to other Mario games and say it's the worst, I'll argue that it's definitely better than Super Mario Land. Personally, I think it's better than the original Super Mario Bros. as well.

Linkums : This game suffers the same thing as Zelda II. Very different from all other games in the franchise, so people hate it.

Although I disagree with your critic - I didn't think it was THAT terrible - I have to salute your well-written review. You provide very clear points of why you hate the game so much. I give you that the overworld theme isn't as catchy as Mario 1

I personally love this argument. Honestly I feel like the US SMB2 was a great game. "Lost Levels" Is nothing but a SMB clone game with different levels. I can tell you as kid I loved the improved visuals/enemies and adventure in SMB2. Why would I want to spend 40$-60$ of my hard earned allowance and birthday money on the same game, when I can get a TOTALLY different game?

We didn't realize that Doki Doki panic existed. People knowing about it after the fact just lets them play revisionist history like somehow Nintendo did something wrong with re-branding a game that no one cared about.

Jordanv78 : That's a well-put argument. Indeed, why play a clone of the first game when you can have something completely different? Plus it was an improvement from that game since the track loops were longer

rcarter2 : to be perfectly honest, I never would've played the game if it had been Doki Doki Panic, though if I had played it, I would've gone easier on certain aspects of the review, such as the story. I was not happy to see Bowser absent and having to see Birdo constantly was not fun at all... If this had been a Doki Doki Panic game, Birdo would be nowhere to be seen and Bowser wouldn't have any reason to appear.

Wow sweet review. I also thought this game was missing the Mario magic. This game came up short for me also. As far as I can tell everything you wrote is dead on.

Nice work on this review: it's clean and nicely done. Keep working on your style.

My opinions of the game:
I personally disagree with the ratings: this is one of my favorite Mario games prior to the N64. I would rate all of the Gameboy Mario titles far worse than this one, and even put this one well above the first SMB.

Also I would like to point out the irony here:
-Most people that review Mario games complain that it's the same old story all the time: Bowser kidnaps Peach and you need to rescue her and defeat him. You actually criticized this game's story because it DIDN'T do that.

-The main complaint lodged against SMB aside from the story is how simillar the gameplay always is. You criticized it for doing things differently.

I'm not saying these are bad things, rather that you prove a good point: people complain when things don't change in a series, but in reality we don't really want them to change: hence why this game is so hated by so many. Well that and the internet telling us all about Doki Doki Panic. Also herein lies the reason so many games have long standing series despite always being the same.

And the music...I LOVE SMB 2's music. Really this game is a gem to me. And the game is more than just a sprite swap as there are some additional features added that Doki Doki Panic did not have.


Still, this is your review, and you talked about how YOU felt about the game, and that's good. After all, reviewing should always be a persin sharing their own opinion on the game. I like that you did. Good job.

gamerforlifeforever2 : Then I guess you are a "true" Mario player; you need certain elements otherwise the game isn't worthy of your attention.

Eirinn : I'm glad you think I did a good job with this review, even though we have completely different views on Super Mario Bros 2. As far as the gameplay is concerned, I see that some people would like to see the formula changed for a change, but if it involves picking up vegetables and throwing them at enemies, then I feel like the formula should not be changed at all. As far as the story goes, I guess I should've been a little more specific when I complained about Bowser not being in the game. I would've been fine if Bowser would've been in Wart's place and Peach would still be a main character. Meaning she wouldn't be kidnapped this time around. That would've been a good way to change up the story, because now for once you could beat Bowser using Peach instead of her being the damsel in distress, similar to what Nintendo did in Super Mario 3D World.

gamerforlifeforever2 : What do you mean Birdo would be nowhere to be seen? Birdo was not originally a Mario Bros character. Birdo was in Doki Doki Panic. And sorry, but you didn't really answer my question. You said stuff like "If this had been a DOki Doki Panic game....", but that makes no sense. That is what it actually was. There is no "if it had been". Then you said if it were, Bowser would not have a reason... My question specifically was if you think you would have hated this game so much if you didn't know Super Mario Bros 2 existed. If you played Doki first, and never knew about the Mario Bros version where they replaced the hero characters and some of the items, is it still such a horrible game? I'm not asking about how it would affect the Mario aspect of it. Take Mario completely out of the equation. The real only difference between the 2 games is one was the original, the other replaced a few characters. Is this a horrible game if you don't even think about the Mario aspect?

This might have sounded upset on my part or attacking. That isn't what I intend. I am just trying to make my question as clear as possible because you didn't really understand my question before.

rcarter2 : Fine, I see I misunderstood the question. If I had played Doki Doki Panic first and I never knew about the Mario Bros version, I probably wouldn't have been as hard on it, though I would've still given it a low score. I don't like beating enemies by throwing vegetables at them, and I still would've hated on Birdo. There, did I answer your question?

gamerforlifeforever2 : Yup. Thanks. Few people ever can tell why they hate the game other than comparing it to Mario. At least you had other reasons.