Remember The Game #52 - Super Mario Bros. 2

Super Mario Bros 2 is the oddball of the NES Mario Bros games. Along with Super Mario Sunshine, it's the oddball of the entire Super Mario series. But you know what? I like oddballs.*

 

*I rewrote that about ten times, and that was the least creepy sounding thing I could come up with...

 

I like Super Mario Bros 2. A lot. I owned Super Mario Bros 1 & 3 as a kid, but never got my hands on the second one. So any chance I had to play it, I jumped all over it. I couldn't wrap my little mind around it! You could pick up bad guys and throw them at each other! (Before picking up Koopa Troopa shells, this was crazy). There were weird potions that took you into an alternate universe, and that's the only place you could find mushrooms. Stars floated up from the bottom of the screen. You could play as Princess Toadstool (old school) and Toad!?!? Where'd this game come from????

 

As we would all later find out, it came from Japan. Because they decided that the kids over in North America that played Nintendo weren't good enough to play the game they originally wanted to release as Super Mario Bros 2. And after playing that original sequel (released everywhere as The Lost Levels years later), there were right. 

 

But this episode isn't about the sequel we didn't get (there's already an episode of the show about that game, The Lost Levels - Episode 26 if you're interested!), it's about the one we did. Super Mario Bros 2 is a beauty of a game. It introduced gameplay mechanics to the Mario Bros series that still exist today, like Birdo, Shy Guys, and the Princess's floating ability. It's still as fun to play in 2019 as it was in 1988, and it's about damned time it got it's own episode of the podcast. 

 

My buddy/fellow comedian/improv king David Rae is my guest this week, and we have a great chat about the Cousin Oliver of the Super Mario Bros series; Super Mario Bros 2. Enjoy!