Super Mario Bros 2 - Nintendo NES

Super Mario Bros. 2 for Nintendo NES

Super Mario Bros. 2 for Nintendo NES takes place in Subcon, where Wart threatens the inhabitants. At the start of a level, you choose Mario, Luigi, Toad or the princess. Mario has balanced abilities, Luigi jumps high, Toad lifts quickly and the princess can float briefly through the air. The seven worlds contain twenty levels in total. You travel through deserts, across ice and alongside waterfalls, exploring upwards and downwards rather than simply walking right.

You usually defeat enemies by throwing something at them. Pull a vegetable from the ground, pick up an opponent or catch an egg to throw it back. You can stand on many enemies without immediately defeating them. Bombs break open certain walls and keys unlock doors, although Phanto guards such keys. A potion temporarily creates a door to Sub-space, where the right spot yields coins and a mushroom.

This is a single-player adventure using a standard NES controller. After a level, you can choose a character again and adapt your approach to the next obstacles. The original cartridge has no saving feature or passwords. Your progress is therefore not retained when you switch the console off. The life meter shows how much damage you can still withstand; extra lives and limited continues determine how long you can keep an attempt going.

Region and language

Our Nintendo NES games are PAL editions, unless stated otherwise. This product contains a loose cartridge for the European market. A box is only included if explicitly stated in the product details. We note any different region in the product details. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.

Manual

With Super Mario Bros. 2 for Nintendo NES, you receive a loose cartridge. A box and manual are not included unless we explicitly state otherwise in the product details. This is the standard way we supply this copy.

The history of Super Mario Bros. 2

Nintendo released this Super Mario Bros. 2 in North America in 1988; Europe followed in 1989. The game has a different origin from Japan's 1986 Super Mario Bros. 2. That Japanese title continued the first Mario adventure and became known outside Japan as The Lost Levels. The western NES sequel grew out of Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic for the Famicom Disk System, which featured a different group of playable heroes.

For the Mario release, the original main characters were replaced by Mario, Luigi, Toad and the princess. Lifting and throwing, vertical sections and each character's different abilities remained central to the game. This also gave two characters previously associated mainly with the story an active leading role. The princess did not need rescuing here, but could float over gaps and throw enemies back herself on the journey to Wart.

Koji Kondo adapted the music to the NES's different sound capabilities compared with the Disk System. In a Nintendo interview, he described reworking the arrangements for this purpose. In 1992, the adventure also appeared in Japan as Super Mario USA. The original NES version remains a single-player game without permanent saving; later Super Nintendo and Game Boy Advance adaptations received their own presentation and additional features that are not part of this cartridge.

Similar games for Nintendo NES

Super Mario Bros. shares the platform journey, hidden passages and enemies with recognisable movement patterns. In that first game, you jump on opponents or use fireballs, while the second mainly revolves around lifting and throwing. Mario's mushroom changes his size there; here, the life meter shows your remaining health. The second game also lets you choose between four characters. The first allows two players to take turns, whereas this adventure is exclusively single-player.

Super Mario Bros. 3 returns to jumping on enemies and adds costumes and a world map. As in the second game, special abilities change where you can move: floating with the princess versus flying as Raccoon Mario. The second game ties these properties to your chosen character, not a costume you find. You visit levels without the third game's route map and throw vegetables or enemies instead of managing an inventory of map items.

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers shares picking up and throwing as its main attack. There, you carry boxes or other objects above your head and can travel through levels simultaneously with a second player. Super Mario Bros. 2 is single-player and also uses enemies as projectiles. Its four characters differ in jumping and lifting, whereas Rescue Rangers builds cooperation around two similar heroes who can help or hinder one another.

Kirby's Adventure also offers vertical exploration and different ways to use enemies. Kirby swallows them and sometimes copies their attack; in Super Mario Bros. 2, you lift an enemy to throw it away. Kirby can inflate himself and stay airborne more freely. Here, you must account for Luigi's high jump or the princess's brief floating time. Kirby's cartridge also saves progress, whereas Mario's journey through Subcon starts again after switching off.

DuckTales shares the search for hidden rooms and the alternation between horizontal and vertical platform sections. Scrooge reaches high places with his pogo attack and collects treasure in areas visited from a selection screen. Super Mario Bros. 2 uses four characters to offer different jumps and lifting abilities. You pull vegetables from the ground and use a potion to open a temporary passage to Sub-space, rather than bouncing on enemies and obstacles with a cane.