Super Mario Replay

Super Mario Replay: Super Mario Bros 2

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I started and lost a version of this blog post and I don’t really feel much like rewriting it. Especially since I’ve already said just about all I have to say about the game in my 25 Years of NES entry on it. So this one is going to be short; just a few observations from my recent play through of the All-Stars version of the game.

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Super Mario Bros. 2 is a still great, and the All-Stars version just makes it better. It is already a game notable for being bright and colorful, this version just adds to that. There is just something so inviting about this game. It doesn’t have the game changing importance of the first game or Super Mario 64, nor is it as virtuosic a display of game design as Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World or Super Mario Galaxy, but Super Mario Bros 2 is one of the most pleasant games in the series to play. With the Mario series that is really saying something. Nearly all the games are pleasant, but this one stands out in that regard.

That’s it. Shortly it will be time for Super Mario Bros. 3, which might turn out to be as short as this one. It depends on how much I have to add to what I’ve already written about that game.

Super Mario Replay: Super Mario Land 2

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Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is not especially good. This really hurts to admit; it was one of the few worthwhile Gameboy games I owned for the first few years that I owned that machine. Playing it now, it is hard to deny that it is only passable because most Gameboy platformers are simply crap. It does improve on a lot of things from its predecessor, but many of those improvements come with drawbacks that make it hard to definitively say that it is the better game.

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Super Mario Land 2 is certainly a better looking game than its predecessor. Mario looks more like the Mario from Super Mario World, which came out the year before, and each of the games six worlds is bursting with personality. It is also a bigger game than the first Gameboy outing, with 32 stages compared to the firsts 12. And all of those stages are platform stages, no weird shooter segments this time. There is more of that genuine Mario feel, with everything being on model, fire flowers instead of superball and no exploding koopas.

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It does suffer in how it plays, though. The bigger, better looking Mario takes up a lot more of the screen real estate, meaning that the player can see less of the level. It is a problem common to Gameboy platformers, leading to too many blind jumps and cheap hits. The game also feels a little floaty. The edges of enemies and platforms are not particularly clear, again leading to cheap hits. It might be the worst playing Mario game that Nintendo ever made.

The game did give the Mario series Wario, the perfect secondary antagonist for the series. It isn’t like Evil Mario is the most original idea ever, but Wario as he evolved after this game is great. He was good enough here that he promptly took over the Gameboy series from Mario. The next game was Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. Though it is called Super Mario Land 3, I am considering it a Wario game and including it in my Super Mario Replay.

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Super Mario Land 2 is a game that means a whole lot to me. I played it so many times on cross country trips, as my family drove from western Missouri to Indiana every summer to visit relatives. I know the ins and outs of this game like no other game in the Mario series. Still, playing it now, with fresh eyes, it is hard not to notice its shortcomings. It is certainly an ambitious game, there are few Gameboy games that look better. But like most GB games of its ilk, it is a pale shadow of the home console games of the same time. It is trying its hardest to be portable Super Mario World, but that just isn’t possible on the Game Boy. I can’t say that it isn’t a worthwhile addition to the series, but it certainly isn’t the best.

Super Mario Replay: Super Mario Land

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For a nearly 30 year old Gameboy game, Super Mario Land remains remarkably playable. It is a fine game made within the constraints of the time and situation of its creation. Judged solely on the merits of how fun it is to play in 2017, it is unfortunately lacking.

Super Mario Land is one of only two actually worthwhile Gameboy launch titles, along with Tetris. It hit shortly before Super Mario Bros 3 and played and looked mostly like the first Super Mario Bros. Much like the other game that looks and plays the most like Super Mario Bros, The Lost Levels, Super Mario Land is a distinct step back from that seminal game in just about every way.

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Being a step back in the graphics department is understandable; it is on less powerful hardware that comes with its own bad screen. Unfortunately, it is also a step back in the controls and length. Super Mario Land plays surprisingly sloppily. The edges of platforms are inconsistent, jumps are kind of twitchy and everything just feels a little off. It isn’t enough to really ruin the game, but it never feels quite right. It is still a good sight better than most GameBoy platform games, mostly because the stripped down graphics actually play to the systems strengths. It is easy to see where you are going, no blind jumps because the screen doesn’t cover enough real estate for you to see where you’re jumping.

The short length is probably the biggest problem with the game. SMB had 32 levels, SML has 12. And they are not particularly long or difficult levels. The game can be beaten start to finish in about 45 minutes. The game consists of four worlds of three stages each. Even with just 12 stages, 2 of them are not normal stages but scrolling shooter stages. Honestly, with the floaty controls and shooter levels, it is no surprise to learn that this game was not developed by Mario creator Miyamoto’s team but by the crew responsible for Metroid and Kid Icarus. It feels more like a Kid Icarus follow up than a Mario one.

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I would call out the world of Super Mario Land as being weird, but that is a moving goalpost with the Mario series, especially in the third entry America had seen, with each one being quite different than the last. Still, Mario 1 laid out the basics and Mario 2 added a ton of recurring enemies and characters as well as establishing character differences that have stuck since, very little of Mario Land has been follow up on. Princess Daisy is a mainstay of the various ancillary sports titles, but little else from this game’s Egypt and Ancient China episodes have been seen again. At this point, the setting feels very un-Mario-like. It doesn’t help that familiar elements are a little different as well. There is no fire flower in this game, instead of fire balls Mario tosses bouncing super balls. Instead of kicking turtle shells, they explode. They are traditional Mario elements that don’t work the same way they do in any other Mario game.

Super Mario Land is available on 3DS for less than $5 and that feels about right. It is still mostly enjoyable to play these days, but it is impossible to forget that this is a GameBoy game.

Super Mario Replay: The Lost Levels

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When I made my list of Mario games to play/replay it never occurred to me to put The Lost Levels on the list. It was mostly just an oversight, but The Lost Levels is an entirely unnecessary addition to the series. I’ve dabbled with it in the past, but quickly came to the absolutely correct conclusion that the Super Mario Bros 2 we got in America was the better game and the more important addition to the series. Still, when I decided that I would freshen up my replays of the NES games by playing the Super Mario All-Stars version of the games, I realized that there was fourth game on that cart and needed to play The Lost Levels to really do this thing right.

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Everything good about the The Lost Levels can be found in the original Super Mario Bros. Almost everything new it adds is strictly worse than what came before it. Like the poison mushroom. It is the opposite of the power up mushroom, but the game is already full of ways to take that power up from the player, it didn’t need one more to just make things even more difficult. Difficult this game is; it is very much Super Mario Bros for super players, a category of people that I do not fall in. All of this is not to say that The Lost Levels is without its charms; it is more Super Mario Bros which is never a bad thing. It may be harder in some generally unfun ways, but the core game is still that same Mario goodness and no amount of poison mushrooms or invisible blocks can destroy that completely.

The good news is that Nintendo seems to have learned the right lessons from this game. None of the Mario games after this, even those that are definitely sequels, rely on bullshit difficulty like this game. It is a one off for the series, a dead end that is honestly better left forgotten or as just a footnote to the proper Super Mario Bros series.  This post comes off as an afterthought because it is.  I’m sorry for not engaging more fully with this game, but there is little here I enjoy; I’d rather just move on to good Mario games, like every other game in the series but this one.

Super Mario Replay: Super Mario Bros

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My big project here this year is going to be a replay of the Super Mario series, mainline games only. That means no spin-offs or sports titles. Like previous projects like 25 Years of NES, the Wheel of Time Reread, Second Quest and 25 Years of SNES, I expect this year long project to take me at least 15 months and become a hateful chore by the end of it. Right now though, I am hoping the ending of this will coincide with the release of Super Mario Odyssey and I can play that game with the character’s history in mind. No promises, though.

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So we start with Super Mario Bros. Not the 1985 NES game, though; this time I am playing the Super Mario All-Star version on the Wii through the 25th Anniversary Edition. I decided to play it, and the other NES games, in this format because it gives me something else to say about them. There really isn’t much left to say about Super Mario Bros. I’ve already written about it once.  The All-Stars version gives me at least two things to talk about. One is the newly added save system. I am in favor of saving my progress and not being forced to complete a game in one sitting. Super Mario Bros is not designed with this in mind. In fact, it is designed to facilitate playing through quickly. I am avoiding warping so I can see more of the game than I usually do, but all the different hidden Warp Zones that were built into this game are a thing of beauty. Assuming you know what you are doing you can get to just about any stage in a matter of minutes. Saving robs the game of most of its challenge. You still have to get through without dying, but you can take it one World at a time and methodically take this game apart even if you aren’t any good at it.

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The other thing is interesting thing about the All-Stars version are the new graphics. It makes the characters look like SMB3 characters, but with SMW detail and color depth and fancy backgrounds. The original version of Super Mario Bros looks good in a primitive, familiar way. You’ve seen this game and those sprites for 30 years; that is what they are supposed to look like, the lack of detail notwithstanding. The All-Star graphics take some getting used to, but they actually look really good. It does create some dissonance with a game that looks like a SNES game but definitely plays like an NES game.

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As for the game itself, I don’t know what to say about it. I don’t think a game exists that has been more thoroughly discussed and dissected that Super Mario Bros. I’ve already written about it once. It is the ur video game, its primordial essence is a building block for nearly every game that came after it. Honestly, even all these years later it is still a lot of fun to play. It is perfect in its simplicity. Everyone should play it.