70%NES

Item throwing simulator.

Good
- grabbing and throwing items is fun.
- being able to scroll the screen back made the world feel bigger, and the inclusion of finding keys for unlocking doors
- having four characters to choose from with different abilities is fun
- some of the enemies made the platforming very challenging, like the flying masks.

Bad
- not being able stomp enemies to kill them kind of sucks. Being able to stomp some enemies would have been fun.

70%Super Nintendo

It's interesting. Way harder than I was expecting, and not in a good way, but it's different and the All-Stars port is great outside of some control jank.

40%Super Nintendo

Where's the spirit of the Mario games?
Nerede Mario oyunlarının ruhu?

50%NES

Significant step down from Doki Doki Panic in several ways. Yes, there are a few 'improvements' here and there, but several are actually downgrades, and it's an overall dumbed down experience relative to the Famicom Disk System original. Hate to see the interesting Arabian setting and theming turned into something as generic as mushrooms.

And don't get me started on how the extra Mario additions like running completely disregard the natural flow of the game. On top of the easier difficulty, running just blows the doors off of so much of the complexity. Like Super Mario Bros. 1, it just becomes a game of "How fast can I play and how much can I skip" vs. the original.

And very little incentive to play the game over again with a different character - the lack of a save option and the removal of the character and level select option did a number on this.

80%Nintendo Switch

This is a good one. SOOP-ah Mario Bruddas 2. Not only good, but impactful to the Mario franchise. Super fun. Pretty easy, though.

80%PC

i really like the gameplay and artstyle even if (GAME FACTS) its just a reskin of Doki Doki Panic!

80%NES

8/10: Pretty Fun! I thought the game was extremely unique in Mario's wider catalogue and I love how they made each character unique this time around as they wouldn't be doing that again for a bit. Overall, very solid.

80%NES

8.5/10

40%Nintendo Switch

IT'S SUPAH MARIO BROTHARS 2 BABYYYY

Now, seriously... wow. This was awful. You see everything this game has to offer in the very first level. Probably just once or twice I was surprised with a twist of the picking up/throwing mechanic, which I'd say wasn't explored to its fullest.

And I'm somewhat grateful for that, as this buggy, illogical hitbox, repetitive mess of a game was begging me to stop playing it. Almost every single level has a mini boss fight, and almost always it's against Birdo, or as this game's credits call... them, Ostro? That's kinda funny.

But this game certainly isn't. So many design flaws, of its time I guess. Yet there is so much influence of the title in the Super Mario series. Probably every single element from this game has returned somehow, somewhere, in the Super Mario series, except for its main gimmick. It's kind of a shame, yet probably for the best to keep the Doki Doki Panic essence away from the series.

I made use of the rewind feature shamelessly as there were many, many cheap deaths and unpredictable behavior all over the place.

For many years I played the first level or two, when I was younger, with so much joy. Now I wish I had left this title in the mystical realm of the unknown so I'd respect it a little more. At least I can say I finished it.

Go play Onion Assault. That's actually good.

Played for 3 hours and 4 minutes through Nintendo Switch Online.

60%Wii

This game doesn't compare to SMB 1 or especially to 3, but it's still worth playing. Maybe do the first couple stages and then watch someone fight the bosses idk.

80%NES

Super Mario Bros. 2 diverges slightly from the traditional Mario formula. I don't think that's a bad thing. It stands up in its own right. The level design goes high, wide and varied compared to the first game. Each world has its own thing going on. I enjoyed being able to take the game at my own pace rather than rushing to beat the clock. Each character brings a different flavour to each level - pick the right one and you get a chocolate-coated peanut, but sometimes it's like chocolate and cheese. The depth and variety of this game stands head and shoulders above the original. The individual bosses are fun. For the most part, the challenge felt genuine and skill-dependent rather than cheap, although enemies are quick to respawn, particularly the annoying Snifits and Pokeys. I feel as though a lot of the bad rep this game gets is "because different" or "because Doki-Doki Panic reskin", neither of which should really matter as long as the game is good. If that would bother you, just pretend it's not Mario. The game is great fun and you should play it.

65%NES

So this one was supposed to be an easier alternative for Americans? I finished it on my NES mini with heavy use of savestates and even though I do like creative setting and gameplay ideas (hoping on an enemy projectile to traverse from one land to another is very clever), I thought the level design was quite boring, unfair and irritating most of the time, while the controls didn't feel great at all and felt slippery and floaty. However, you just can't deny how much this game brought to the Mario as a franchise in a gameplay (with 4 different characters, pow blocks) and lore (shy guys, bob ombs) department

100%NES

No matter its background, the so-called "Mario USA" is the 'true' Super Mario Bros. 2, if not a real sequel to the original SMB. I think it's well admitted now, even by Nintendo (after years of denial).

Actually, I think it might be the most important game in the series : because of its twisted (but pretty fun) background, SMB2 is the game that established that a Mario game could be and do anything, anytime, as long as it respects a very simple rule : being about jumping. SMB2 is fun, colorful, magic and a bit strange... as the whole franchise, but before it was one. I'm definitely sure video games wouldn't be the same if we have had The Lost Levels as SMB2 instead of this wonderful game.

65%NES

Technically, I completed this via "Super Mario All-Stars", but I wanted to rate this individual game and not that collection as a whole. There was a point where this was one of my favorite Mario games. I thought it was cool because it was so weird and different. Then I played through the whole thing. It's so repetitive, and while I appreciate how weird it is, and I still love the soundtrack, as a whole it feels like a step backwards from the first game. So, at this point I would actually put it in the bottom half of Mario games.

80%NES

Gameplay 3/5 it's a very bare bones platformer, which makes sense considering it's from the NES. The levels don't offer many interesting challenges and yet sometimes offer annoying moments. Overall it's certainly a fun game to play since I enjoy platformers. Unique enough to be worth playing
Visuals 2/2 the variety of locations and enemies for the short game it is. Works pretty well.
Audio 2/2 the music is fun and enjoyable. There's enough variety for a short game.
Story 1/1 it's servicable. The little plot provided is silly and fun

Reccomend completing

70%Emulated

Super Mario Bros. 2 is bizarre
It's got a wild background story and released just 2 weeks before SMB3 did in Japan. And it's incredibly quirky. There are some really nice platforming ideas here, and the quirks of lifting up enemies and digging up the plants can be very fun. The difficulty sneaks up on you really fast though, and the game is too fond of using the same challenges over and over, like the phanto with locked doors, and ultimately every level has a boss that needs to be defeated by just throwing something back.

Precise Score: 7.2/10
Full Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha8oxpfkaKc

25%NES

This game wasn't impressive at all. It didn't even feel like a Mario game. I didn't like it at all. It looked okay and controlled well enough which is why I didn't give it a lower rating than I did.

80%Nintendo Switch

Cool game, not really much else to say

70%NES

Nouvelle aventure dans l'univers de super mario bros, cet épisode propose un gameplay différent du précédent opus et proposant de ne pas sauver peach mais Daisy pour la première fois.
Ce jeu est plus intéressant et a mieux vieilli que l'épisode précédent.

85%Nintendo Switch

Odd gameplay due to it being a reskin of Doki Doki Panic.

75%Emulated

Decent enough not-so-mario game

65%Super Nintendo

This game introduces some iconic characters for the Mario franchise, as well as the grabbing mechanic. The physics are also much improved over the original Mario Bros. This game is pretty unique, and there hasn't been anything like it in the Mario series since, for those the game is decent. What I didn't enjoy was the difficulty, like many other NES games, this game suffers from being overly difficult to make the game last longer, which by today's standards is not a good thing. The save feature for the SNES is pretty nice but having to restart world 7 during the final boss was extremely frustrating as it lost me 30 minutes of progress. Having frequent checkpoints throughout levels was nice at the very least. Overall, a decent game, bogged down by the issues that plague a lot of older games.

90%Super Nintendo

See the Mario 3 review. It's a nearly perfect game, it just doesn't blow me away enough to hit a 10.

60%NES

Mediocre level design, repetitive boss fights

70%NES

better than super mario bros, but still frustrating wtf are those last levels

60%Super Nintendo

Yes, we know that this Super Mario 2 is a recolor of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic; and I also know that it was because of the high difficulty of "Lost Levels" (genuine sequel), but hey, this game is almost as difficult as its predecessors, luckily in the All Stars version it allows "save game" but this does not prevent me from using " savestates" in the most difficult and extensive levels.

In any case, this game has its place in the Olympus of classic retro games, and its great legacy in the Super Mario franchise is undeniable, contributing from mechanics such as grabbing objects/enemies, it also introduced iconic characters (Bob-omb, shy guys , etc). Without forgetting that the abilities of Luigi, Peach and Toad were created for this game.

This game really is a classic, maybe it will be a bit shocking for being so different from the previous ones, but the more you play you get used to all the new mechanics. The bosses are much better than in the previous games, each one with different abilities, even having Birdo as a sub-boss is a great success of both YYDDP and this game. And each one has a considerable difficulty, in fact it reminded me a bit of Megaman because of the difficulty of, for example, having two bosses in a row sometimes. The music is also good and the All Stars version is even more enjoyable.
If you haven't played this game yet I recommend you do, it's obviously not at the technical level of its sequel SMB3, but it's still a fresh new experience.

Precisely the comparison with its sequel makes me not give it a higher grade, but I think it is correct for what this game contributed to the future of Super Mario Bros.

40%Emulated

Dark Souls 2 от мира игр про «Марио». Появилась пара интересных механик, но в остальном — утомительно и скучно. Первая часть до сих пор играется очень бодро, а тут совсем всё печально. Хорошо, что в конце всё оказалось сном. Жаль, что в финале Dark Souls 2 весь пройденный кривой пиздец не оказывается сном какого-нибудь усатого красавчика.

65%Emulated

Yeah this game exists lol it's fine, only a few levels are memorable.

90%Super Nintendo

The remake is great on SNES.

45%Super Nintendo

This doesn't feel like a mario game at all

50%NES

I didn't enjoy this game

60%NES

As most retro gamers know, this wasn't really intended to be a Mario game at first. It was originally it's own game called Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic. The way that it became a Mario game is interesting. Mario Bros 1 was a huge hit in the US, and Nintendo of Japan was busy working on a sequel. The problem was that they made it too similar to Mario Bros 1. Most people will know the Japanese version of Mario Bros 2 when it was released later as Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels on the Super Mario All-Stars release on the SNES. They still had to come up with something for the US audience, but didn't have time to build a whole new game from the ground up. So they took a Japanese exclusive and reskinned it and change a few things to give it a little wider appeal. Most notably, there was no character select screen in the original. There were preset characters for each level.

So if you've thought this didn't really feel like a Mario game, it's because it really isn't. But that isn't to say that it hasn't had long lasting effects on the series. Characters like Birdo and the Shy guys were first seen here. The music is good and the pixel art is memorable.

Modern players are probably not going to like the gameplay mechanic of picking things up and throwing them though. And that's almost the whole game. I used Peach for the whole game. She can float which can save you in lots of areas and even allow you to just skip large sections of the game. But her lifting speed is very slow. There are some invincibility frames while lifting but they can be pretty hard to get when Birdo has you in a corner and is pegging you with eggs and fireballs. And you will have to fight Birdo a lot. Probably 20 times or more.

Some people might not realize it, but there are warp pipes. You have to get a potion near one of those large snake baskets. Then you go into the "sub-space" and go down the basket. There's at least 2 of these warps that I could find, but I didn't use them for this review.

The other characters do have benefits though. Luigi has a super high jump and is pretty floaty on the way down. It does make him harder to control though. Toad has faster lifting speed and Mario is decent at everything. This variety in characters allows for different types of playthroughs, while still keeping it fresh.

60%Emulated

What a weird game. Everybody knows this game is a reskin, so of course I didn't expect it to be exactly like the NES original. But wow, this was way more difficult than the original! Powerups (hearts, in this game) are so infrequent that I probably died a hundred times. I can't imagine how frustrating this must've been without save states or rewind. The core gameplay is pretty good and very original, and it's something we really ahven't seen since this game. But it's muddied by reptitve challenges and enemies and, as I mentioned earlier, infrequent hearts. The idea of four different characters is great, and I like the additions to the Mario series this game brought. Graphic are also a huge improvement, with a fun new artstyle. Overall, this game has some great mechanics, but I wouldn't reccomend playing it to completion these days.

50%Nintendo Switch

Pros:
- Plenty of interesting mechanics: pick-up ability, high jump, vertical scrolling, bombs, doors, slot minigame, search for keys, digging, sub-world, conveyor belts - you name it!
- Four playable heros with distinctive abilities
- Music is okay

Cons:
- Not a Mario game! It misses tempo, logic and vibe of classic Mario titles
- Plenty of slow-pace wandering
- Few secrets without any valuable reward
- Overal boring, difficult and frustrating game

It was fun to find out that some famous enemies and mechanics of Mario series take start in Mario Madness. But playing it was not a big fun.

80%NES

Another classic Mario game. A super weird concept but very fun nonetheless. I know originally it was a different game, but I like that they tried something different and boy is this game different. I still had a ton of fun with this one. Not a perfect game or masterpiece , but a solid game nonetheless.

100%Nintendo Switch

Aunque no sea un juego pensado originalmente de la saga de Mario, si que va a servir como inspiración de otras mecanicas y para inspirar en la creación del mundo del fontanero.

50%Wii

literally not even a mario game and still an improvement over the first game (and probably the lost levels as well idk didn't play it)

80%Game Boy Advance

Good music. Levels get a bit tricky later on, forcing you to hunt for heart extenders.overall pretty fun.

60%Emulated

The platforming is solid and the picking up and throwing mechanics are fun. At first I thought the controls were pretty bad, but it turns out I was just playing as Luigi and he's really slippery. I switched to Mario in World 6 and never looked back.
The game could have used a few more music tracks, and it didn't feel like there was a ton of level variety. The final boss was also pretty obnoxious, and having to restart the entire world if you game over would have been pretty infuriating if I hadn't used save states.
Still, for it's age, it's a decent Mario game.

70%Nintendo Switch

so unique!

70%Nintendo Switch

Fun game another good and fun platformer of the super mario series,super different to the first game doesnt make it bad but makes it seem misplaced in the series

80%NES

I love SMB2. I don't get the distaste for it It feels different from the rest of the Mario titles, sure, but it sitll feels iconic in its design. The levels, the enemies, the soundtrack, the formula changes (picking up enemies), the extra characters, the puzzles, the bosses -- it's all lovely.

This may actually be the first time I've beaten the NES version of this having grown up with All-Stars.

50%Nintendo Switch

Super Mario Bros. 2 may be unique and it may have given us many staple Mario elements, but it may also not be up to par with the rest of the series.

90%Nintendo Switch

I'll be honest - I played on Switch using the rewind feature. Still an odd entry in the Mario series even after all these years

70%Super Nintendo

un buen juego pero legalmente no es un super mario solo que pensaron que el mario bros 2 era demasiado dificil para todo aquel que no fuera japones

40%Super Nintendo

Worlds 1 and 2 are fun, and then 3-3 brings pixel-perfect precision into the mix, with enemies firing shots in random patterns, in the only corridor you have to travel down, with nowhere to either duck or jump. Meaning you absolutely have to endure hits despite no health. They only way to get by them is to already have enough health to endure a hit, which to do that means you either avoided all damage, or have previous knowledge of where to obtain another heart container in the portal to the dark realm). Other levels in world 3 had this as well, but not to this degree.

The thing is, I've played the GBA version of this game too, and remember getting farther than this. Some of these levels may have been outright altered because the developers knew how unfair they were. I don't remember some of the more troublesome levels at all, so that must be the reason why. The GBA version also had additional collectables as well, on top of more ways to get health (chaining enemy combos, pow blocks, and turtle shells).

If I attempt this game again, it'll be a newer version. To be fair, this wasn't even originally a Mario game, which may explain why it feels a tad off. Idk.

I'm just finding it a tad funny that I can complete the very first Super Mario Bros. on NES, but everything else I've played in recent years (64, Sunshine, and this) have all given me trouble. And I still adore other platformers, both 2D and 3D, on top of the first Mario, so maybe these games just aren't as good as people remember them being?? Again, idk. But it feels like I'm starting to develop somewhat of a weird rivalry with this series.

Worth noting too that I got the (better) GBA version of this game around the same time as Wario Land 4, and loved Wario infinitely more (and still do). Just for comparison's sake in case anyone tries to blame me for something dumb like "hating Nintendo platformers", because they can't fathom other people having different preferences.

30%NES

Это ни хрена не Марио, это какая-то другая игра, на которую Нинтендо натянуло скины Марио. Игра вообще не имеет ничего общего с Марио, я не ебу почему она такая популярная и высоко оценена, каждый враг раздражает, тупая система с поднятием врагов, душный платформинг, так игра еще и длинная.
Сложность: нет
Управление: Контроллер SNES
Язык: Английский

60%NES

[MEINE WERTUNG]: 6/10 Pkt.

60%NES

One weird concept and confusing but decent enough.

80%NES

Alright but not great as the GBA version.