Hey all and welcome to my latest sort-of-series, The Black Sheep. The idea came to me a few weeks ago and I figured I would give it a try, it gives me a chance to explore some more offbeat titles in more popular series.
Every series seems to have a black sheep, a title that's just different from all of its brethren. Black sheep can be different in many ways, be it conceptually, thematically, aesthetically or mechanically. Sometimes they come about from developers trying to mix up a long running series, other times they come early in a series' life cycle where there isn't a clearly established formula yet (we are going to see a lot of second and third titles in a series here). And that least us to our first black sheep, one of the more famous series outliers in gaming history, Super Mario Bros. 2.
Why it's different:
Those differences are apparent right off the bat, as instead of playing as Mario you are given a choice of four characters; Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach (Princess Toadstool in those days). Each of the characters play differently, which we will cover a little bit later. SMB 2 appears on the surface to be a familiar 2D sidescroller, but players quickly learn that's not the case when they start walking right...only to come out the other side of the screen. Rather than just move to the right until you hit an endpoint, you enter and exit various sections of each level in search of an exit. It's definitely a big departure from SMB 1 and it's far less linear, there weren't a lot of games at the time where you had to, or were even able to, walk to the left. Dispatching enemies is also far different from SMB 1. Everyone knows that Mario defeats enemies by jumping on them. It's how you defeat enemies in SMB 1, SMB 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, you name it. But not in SMB 2. Gamers were shocked when they jumped on enemies, only to find themselves being caried around. You need to pick up enemies and throw them at each other or, failing that, pick up vegetables out of the ground and throw them at enemies.
Speaking of enemies, none of the familiar enemies from the original SMB are here. There are no Goombas, no Koopas, none of those damn flying fish that still haunt my dreams 25 years later. Bowser isn't even in the game. Instead, your enemy is a giant frog called Wart, his sidekick is called Mouser and they are supported by a number of never-before-seen enemies. Some of these enemies have become series staples, like Shy-Guy, Sniffit and of course, Birdo. Others, like Minji, Tweeter and Phanto were never seen again, one-offs just like the aforementioned Wart. There was even an enemy called Beezos, who tries to slow Mario down with an elevator pitch about how he can become a kajilionaire by selling books to people on something called "the internet." Kidding about that last part, but one of the enemies in this game is legit called Beezos. Honestly, I'm surprised more of these enemies didn't become series regulars, I find they have interesting design and most could definitely fit within the confines of a traditional Mario game.
But was it good?
So yeah, SMB 2 is completely unlike its predecessor or any of its successors. It still carries the Mario name though, so there was no way it was going to be critically panned by anyone. But can the game stand on its own? Would we even be discussing this game years later if it had just come out as Doki Doki Panic? Honestly, I think so. I used to find SMB 2 somewhat overrated, but after playing through it again I can see that it's an excellent game and had a few aspects that were borderline revolutionary. It's not without its flaws, but it's an excellent title and would be even without the world's most famous plumber. The graphics are strong, they're colorful, detailed and have a lot of depth for an NES game. The sound is pretty good as well, it doesn't have as many iconic tracks as other Mario games but it's still a good soundtrack. I did have some issue with the controls, I found them to be very slippery and loose. However, a lot of that had to do with individual characters and it wasn't so bad it was game breaking. I kind of liked the more exploratory aspect of the game and seeking out different paths was always fun. The level design is okay, but they did a great job including a variety of secrets and hidden areas, which made testing each path worth it.
I talked earlier about selecting your character, which was relatively uncommon in video games at the time. It isn't just that you can select different characters, it's that they all play differently. Mario is your baseline character, Luigi jumps incredibly high but it difficult to control, the princess has issues picking up items but can float for a full three seconds by holding the jump button and Toad can barely jump but picks up items and enemies almost instantaneously. It's pretty cool and each character has their uses, but I do wish they had balanced it a little more. At the end of the day, SMB is still a platformer, even if it is a nonlinear one. As such, the characters with superior jumping, Luigi and the Princess, are going to be your best bet more often than not. Toad has quite a few levels where he is useful as well, and one or two where I swear it's impossible to beat them without him. But Mario is almost never useful, which is a problem since, ya know, he's the main character. Still, I'd rather have the option to play as different characters, especially in a game from an era where that option wasn't common.
And I can't stress enough what a big deal walking to the left was in the 80's and early 90's. I didn't play it until a few years after it came out, but this was the first game I remember where doing so was a viable way to beat levels. I don't recall off the top of my head if there were any that require doing so, but most of them allow it and many encourage doing so to find secrets or hidden paths. So many platformers were just straightforward, run to the right and jump over stuff games that it was shocking when one of these games asked you to do anything else. I remember renting Super Metroid as a kid and getting horribly immediately because going right led you to a dead end and it never, ever in a million years occurred to me that I was supposed to go to the left. SMB 2 wasn't that non-linear, but compared to its predecessor it may as well have been an open world game.
That's not to say SMB 2 is perfect. As I alluded to before, the biggest issue here is the controls. The original SMB has some of the tightest controls of its era and kind of set the standard for platforming controls. SMB 2 is a step back in that regard, it feels like you are constantly sliding on ice no matter where you are and when you actually make your way to the ice stages it's borderline impossible to control your movement. With all the screen switching, you will sometimes find you get hit by an offscreen enemy, which is always infuriating. You can take at least two hits and as many as four if you find mushroom powerups so it's not the end of the world, but it's still maddening. The bosses in SMB 2 all feel very same-ish, none of them are particularly threatening and most have patterns that are very easy to recognize and dodge. It also gets really old fighting Birdo at the end of every level, even if they do at least try to use the terrain to add some variety. Finally, there are a few levels that present you with a challenge at the beginning which, if you screw up, require you to suicide yourself into spikes before you attempt them again. I never liked that and frankly, that kind of stuff is the reason Lost Levels was deemed too frustrating.
Still, SMB 2 is an excellent game. It may not be one of the best in the Mario series, but that is a very, very high bar to clear. It may be the black sheep of the Mario games, especially compared to the earlier entries in the franchise, but it offered a fun and unique challenge that's still worth taking on today. It's mechanically very different from its SMB 1 and 3, but SMB 2 still bears Nintendo's trademark quality and presentation. This isn't just a lazy re-skin as its origin story might suggest, though I've never played the original Doki Doki Panic and I can't speak to the differences. There were a lot of concepts here that were still relatively new, most of which were well done. SMB 2 is an interesting piece of gaming history and a very worthy playthrough.
Comments
Post a Comment