He's So Unusual - Peculiar Sequels on the NES: Super Mario Bros. 2

Sequels on the NES were often very different from the games that preceded them. When you think about it, this makes sense. Prior to the NES era, video games did not do a great job of story-telling. In most video games from the late 70s and early 80s, the objectives were either destroy every enemy on the screen (Galaga), by pass obstacles and advance to the end or top of the screen (Donkey Kong), or eat all the white dots (Pac-Man). The pattern continued throughout the game with the challenge ramping up. There was no screen scrolling in levels or a proper ending to the game. All levels were self-contained on one screen and you either lost all your lives or glitched the game out when you reached a certain point.

You didn't truly beat the game until a technician had to reset it.

Original games on the NES had a defined end. You even got some closure once you completed the game. So, when it was time for a sequel, there was no real precedent for how a sequel to that type of game should be made. Sure Galaga was actually a sequel to Galaxian and Donkey Kong and Pac-Man both had sequels where you control a different character (Donkey Kong Jr. and Ms. Pac-Man respectively), but the games were basically the same with minor tweaks. Nintendo often decided to go in a different direction for their sequels. In this sequence, I'll outline a few of those famous sequels, note the differences, and see if any of those changes appeared in any later titles in the series. Full disclosure, my gaming days ended in the early 2000s, so by later games in the series, I mean titles on the NES, SNES, and N64.

Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2
Most readers and video game enthusiasts already know that the American version of Super Mario Bros. 2 is a re-skinned version of a Japanese game called Doki-Doki Panic. Plenty of sites on the internet and even a printed book can give you the background into why this decision was made. Long story short: The real Super Mario Bros 2 was too hard for American gamers. And if you ever played the Lost Levels on Super Mario All-Stars you know this is true. So the US got a different Super Mario Bros. game. How exactly was it different?

1. The game does not take place in the Mushroom Kingdom. This game is technically a dream which takes place in the realm of Sub-Con.

2. There is no Bowser. The infamous Mario adversary is nowhere to be found in this game because it is really just a dream. The villain here is a large bi-pedal frog named Wart. Nintendo did stay with a cold-blooded animal as the main baddie, but switched from a reptile to an amphibian.

3. Super Mario Bros. 2 has a super jump. In Super Mario Bros. you could jump farther if you got a running start, but the height of your jump was limited. In Super Mario Bros. 2, if you squatted until your character flashed, you could jump higher than normal. The lesson of course, do your squats on leg day.

4. You can play as multiple characters with different skill sets. Technically, you could play as Luigi in Super Mario Bros., but he was really just a pallet swap your little brother or sister played as when your parents forced you to let them play too. In Super Mario Bros. 2, all the characters have a unique set of skills. Mario is the all-around player, Luigi jumps the highest, Princess Peach can hover when she jumps, and Toad picks up items and enemies the fastest. Speaking of…

5. You no longer stomp on enemies to kill them. With the exception of Bowser, Spinies, and enemies in the water, the go to method of killing bad guys in Super Mario Bros. was to stomp on them. When you first try this in Super Mario Bros. 2, you will find that you just kind of hitch a ride on the bad guys. Pushing the ‘B’ button will allow you to pick them up and toss them at other enemies.

6. There are no projectile power-ups. In Super Mario Bros., you can obtain a fire flower to shoot fireballs at enemies. In Super Mario Bros. 2, you can throw things at enemies, but you have to pull them out of the ground first. Vegetables, bombs, and turtle shells are hidden in clumps of grass. Pluck the grass and you have a temporary weapon to help you out. You will also need to master this mechanic of picking up objects to beat the bosses and mini-bosses. The bosses non-fire projectiles and any objects that just happen to be lying around can be used to defeat them.

7. Super Mario Bros. 2 has new enemies. I already mentioned there was no Bowser, but there are also no Goombas, no Koopa Troopas, and no Lakitus. Shy Guys, Birdo, and Mouser are members of your new rogues gallery.

8. There are no question blocks to punch. Jumping up to hit question blocks in Super Mario Bros. usually revealed coins, but occasionally offered other power-ups. There are no such blocks in Super Mario Bros. 2. Instead, obtaining items involves pulling grass out of the ground.

9. There are no pipes to slide down. The ubiquitous green pipes do not make an appearance in Super Mario Bros. 2. Instead several levels have bottles you can slide into to obtain a key to open a locked door or other power-ups like a one-up.

10. You can take more than two hits before you die. In Super Mario Bros., a mushroom or fire flower granted you a mulligan. Take a hit from an enemy and you didn’t die, but instead shrunk back to your original size with another hit resulting in death. In Super Mario Bros. 2, you begin with a life bar on the left-hand side of the screen. I say bar, but it really is just two red shapes. Take a hit, and you shrink in size (at least here the default is big). However, hidden throughout each stage are two mushrooms. For each mushroom you pick up (and yes you have to pick them up, not simply touch them), you gain an additional hit point. Be warned though, these mushrooms are not in the open. They are hidden in sub-space. And how do you get to sub-space? By picking up a potion from a patch of grass and throwing it on the ground to reveal a door. This door will transport you to sub-space for a limited amount of time. What else is in sub-space?

11. Coins are utilized differently. Any rube can tell you that when you collect 100 coins in Super Mario Bros., you gain an extra life. Coins are much less prevalent in Super Mario Bros. 2. In fact, the only place you can find them is sub-space. If you pick up a patch of grass in sub-space, it becomes a coin. At the end of each area, you have the opportunity to play a somewhat skill based slot machine game to add extra lives to your ledger. Now I know where my predilection for gambling comes from.

The loosest slots in Sub-Con.

And before we dispense with sub-space, here is one more thing to know.

12. Warp Zones are different. In Super Mario Bros., if you want to skip a few levels, you can. Stay on the ceiling or bust some bricks until you find a conspicuous vine and you will find a set of pipes that will take you to the game’s later levels. In Super Mario Bros. 2, the warp zones are, shall we say, more cryptic. As I mentioned earlier, there are a few bottles you can slide into. Take the potion to some of these bottles and slide into them in sub-space and you are moving on in your adventure. However, unlike in the first Super Mario Bros., you are only told where you are headed after you have already committed to sliding down.

13. There are no flag poles in Super Mario Bros. 2. Each level of Super Mario Bros. except for the battles with Bowser ends with an iconic flag pole. Mario jumps on the flag pole, receives some points based on how high jumped and potentially some fireworks and proceeds to the next stage. In Super Mario Bros 2, the player must pick up a white crystal after defeating a boss (occasionally it is just lying around). This crystal opens the mouth of bird statue which the player must enter to advance.

This is perhaps not an exhaustive list, but it is a pretty good rundown of the main differences between Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2. Which, if any of these changes, became series standards going forward?

1. Sub-Con has not been utilized as a setting in any original Mario game since.

2. Wart has not been seen since Super Mario Bros. 2. While Bowser is Mario’s arch-nemesis, he occasionally teams up with the heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom to battle a greater enemy. He also finds time to race and play other sports such as tennis and golf with his sworn enemies. Wart has only appeared in a non-Mario game (Link’s Awakening) in a cameo spot. 

The former supreme ruler of Sub-Con reduced to a choral director.

3. The squat-propelled super jump has similarly gone the way of the buffalo.

4. Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World returned to the formula from Super Mario Bros. with players taking the role of Mario, and Luigi in two –player games, with no noticeable difference in how they handled. The Lost Levels or Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 did give Luigi a better jumping ability than Mario (but also less traction), but that game was actually released before Super Mario Bros. 2. Luigi and Princess Peach did keep their Super Mario Bros. 2 abilities when battling in the Super Smash Bros. series of games.

5. Once again, Nintendo returned to the original formula of stomping on non-spikey enemies. However, in Super Mario World, our hero is able to hitch a ride on a certain green dinosaur. Of course, the player and not the AI does have to control the dinosaur, but this mechanic could conceivably have spawned from Super Mario Bros. 2.

6. Projectile powers return in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. However, in Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario is able to pick up turtle shells from defeated Koopa Troopas, stunned Bob-Ombs, and ice blocks. And in Super Mario World, Mario adds P-Switches to the list of items he is able to carry. Plus, he can now toss those items vertically to take care of air-born threats or hit out of reach question blocks.

7. Most of the enemies from Super Mario Bros. 2 remained in the dream world, but a few like Shy Guys, Birdo, and Bob-Ombs became regulars in Mario games and spin-offs going forward.

8. Question blocks returned in Super Mario Bros. 3 and have been a staple of the series throughout.

9. Befitting Mario’s occupation as a plumber, pipes made a grand return in Super Mario Bros. 3 while the magic bottles have been lost to history.

10. The US release of Super Mario Bros. 3 allowed Mario to be hit up to three times before dying. After collecting a fire flower or leaf (or in rarer instances a frog, hammer bros., or tanooki suit) Mario would become big after one hit, small after a second, and then die after a third. The Japanese release made you small after one hit no matter what power-up you had. Thanks for coddling us American gamers. In Super Mario Word, the formula from the US release of Super Mario Bros. 3 remained intact with a fully powered Mario able to absorb three hits before dying. The game even allowed you to keep a power-up handy once you began a level with a simple press of the ‘Select’ button dropping the item slowly like a care package.

11. The 100 coins = one extra life formula returns in Super Mario Bros. 3 and has remained a staple since.

12. Super Mario Bros. 3 changed the Warp Zone dynamic again, hiding three Zelda-like whistles in the first two worlds which allowed the player to skip certain parts of the game. Mario would need to use the whistle once he got to the Warp Zone itself to be able to skip directly to World 8. Super Mario World introduced multiple exits to certain levels which could lead to shortcuts along the Star Road and a quick showdown with Bowser if you knew what you were doing.

13. Super Mario Bros. 3 used a suspended box of three rotating icons as its exit apparatus. Super Mario World used a vertically rising bar and for the aforementioned secret exits, a key/keyhole combination.

All the elements from Super Mario Bros. 2 did not make it into subsequent Mario games, but a few mechanics did survive and influence the series. This is perhaps even more impressive since this was not technically a ‘real’ Mario game. Super Mario Bros. 2 may seem like an oddball in the series, particularly the side-scrolling series, but for the nascent home video game industry, changing things up a little (or a lot) for the sequel was not necessarily a bad thing.