NintendoLand Article - The Sub-Con generation

The Sub-Con generation
By: Toasty

Unless Nintendo's twisted sense of delay-based humour rears it's ugly head again, we should get our hands on the Game Boy Advance quite soon. Among the machine's launch games is one title that stands out as a historical curiosity; Super Mario Advance, which is in fact a spruced-up version of the old Super Mario Bros 2. But the original SMB2 already holds a rather different place in Mario history than most other games, and with it's imminent comeback, the game deserves to have it's unusual career looked at a bit more thoroughly.

Every Mario follower worth his salt knows about SMB2's shadowy origins. They know very well that it is in fact a different game, topped up with some Mario sprites to be sold to gullible Western consumers. But there are always some nippers around who have never played a Mario game before Super Mario 64, and perhaps a few ancient tribes in the Paraguyan rainforest who don't know the details of this matter, so for them, I see myself forced to explain this bit of old news (while there are already eighty million texts explaining this very same matter out there, but oh well).

The Super Mario Bros 2 we know doesn't exist in Japan. In Nintendo's homeland, a sequel to the first Super Mario Bros was released on the Famicom (NES to us) in 1986. The Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 had a similiar game engine and set of graphics to the first SMB game, with a few new elements thrown in, and a fiendishly difficult set of levels. In their questionable wisdom, Nintendo deemed this game too difficult for us stupid Europeans (and for the Yanks as well, but let's not go into a debate about their levels of intelligence) See, they even -literally- insult us when they don't indirectly insult us with scandalous non-release schedules. So, they turned to their favorite solution; they didn't release the game here. But since Mario was still good for making some money, they decided to give us a different game instead. The Japanese platformer Doki Doki Panic, starring a campy Arabian family was duly picked up and fiddled with so that it could be released in the occident as...Super Mario Bros 2. The chubby Alladin-wannabes from Doki Doki Panic were replaced with Mario and co, and some other minuscule tweaks were made. Come 1988, this instant-Mario game was ready for release and would fool Marioholics for a good few years.

The whole scam was blown wide open in 1993, when Super Mario All-Stars for the Super NES appeared, which contained both the "proper" Japanese SMB2 (re-baptised The Lost Levels) and the SMB2 we were familiar with from the NES days. For the record, this also meant the Japanese got their first glimpse of the occidental SMB2, renamed into "Super Mario USA" for their market, which is just another piece of evidence that Europe is as good as non-existent to Ninty's cruel eyes.

Suddenly, it was brought out in the open that SMB2 was not a real Mario game. This, of course, dealt a blow to SMB2's reputation. Gradually, it was brought down to the status of a paria, an imposter who didn't belong in the Mario timeline good and proper. The most fierce would even state that SMB2 is inferior to the proper, Miyamoto-designed Mario games and doesn't deserve to figure in the Mario timeline along with the first and third SMB games. SMB2 has never quite recovered from the negative image that has been slowly forced onto it. It's still being considered as a sideways step, whereas Super Mario Bros 3 and later Super Mario World formed the real steps forward in the evolution of Mario games (and of gaming in general since Mario defines the face of gaming, more or less).

The sort of bad rep SMB2 recieved strikes me as uncalled for and altogether unfair. It is, however, possible to understand why purists might want to denigrate SMB2. When looking over the grand total of Mario's game career, SMB2 stands out as being very a-typical. There are no brick blocks to bash coins out of, Goombas to be killed by hopping on their heads and green Pirahna Plant-infested pipes to travel down. Hardly any of the gameplay elements one would associate with a typical Mario game are to be found in SMB2. Chucking around vegetables and riding flying carpets may seem like a very un-Mario kind of thing to do in a game. This is further underlined by the different locations and characters that SMB2 presents us with. Then there is also the storyline behind SMB2; the adventure takes place in Mario's dream, so one could almost state that it literally never really happened and isn't part of the Mario saga good and proper. All in all, SMB2's image as a side story in the grand scheme of all things Mario isn't entirely unjustified.

What is unjustified is the tendency some may have to turn their noses up at this "fake" Mario game for what it is. That way, people might even think SMB2 is a bad game. Nothing could be further from the truth. Granted, SMB2 is in fact a non-Mario platformer that just happens to have our favorite overweight plumber slapped onto it for marketing purposes. But it was a very fine non-Mario platform game to begin with. Although this sort of thing ultimately just comes down to a matter of taste, one would have to admire the quality design that went into the game. The vast levels often contain a selection of different paths to take, each full of surprises. The system of picking up vegetables, nasties or other objects and throw them around as weaponry is quite inspired as well. While it may seem like a sketchy idea, the careful design of SMB2's levels ensures that it always works well in practise and admirable novelty use of the base concept is made on several occasions. If a concept's success can be measured by how often it's copied, then SMB2 was definitely a hit; these "pick up and throw things" type of platformers are ten a penny by now. All in all, SMB2 is one of the few games that, even well over a decade after it's first release still remains fun and fresh to play, regardless of how graphics have progressed since then. A game wouldn't stand the test of time so well if it wasn't good to begin with.

Anyone who knows their games will have to realise that SMB2 is an excellently crafted piece of platforming. That's the technical element to SMB2's merits. There's an emotional one as well. For the risk of sounding like a misty-eyed old fart; I remember very clearly when SMB2 was all the rage. It used to be the game that everyone was talking about and that massively attracted drooling kiddies to the NES. "The second level has this bit with a flying carpet!" was a phrase that could make the mouths of small children water. Of course, it was different to the first SMB. Not knowing any better, we poor youngsters drew the conclusion that it was so different because it was more advanced than SMB1. It was the next step in the evolution of Mario gaming, for all we knew, so of course it was different. In fact, when news of the earth-shattering SMB3 began to leak through, quite a few Marioholics that were raised on a solid diet of SMB2 felt a bit disappointed that SMB3 didn't stick to the SMB2 formula they knew and loved. Wart and his cohorts didn't return, and Mario went "back" to fighting Bowser and his hordes of Goombas and Koopa Troopas. In short, Nintendo had us completely fooled with their little scheme

On a side note, the horribly poor Super Mario Bros. Super Show TV series probably played a role in installing SMB2 in our hearts so firmly. After all, Mouser was a prominent character as well as several other nasties from SMB2. Mario and his chums went around chucking vegetables, all with the music and sound effects from the game itself to accompany this. The foot-fethishism and kinky implications that the Mario cartoons are so fond of did strike Marioholic viewers as something that never happened in the games. And it struck concerned parents as deeply unsuitable for young children, but that's another story.

The colourful bestiaire of SMB2 has also contributed to it's success. With their amusing looks, and the often inventive way the player has to deal with them, they rapidly became popular. Mouser's eyes bulging out from under his shades when he gets hit is a touch that springs to mind, as well as the way Pokey keeps the same gormless grin on his face after you pluck his head off several times. Note that some of the more illustrious Mario enemies made their first appearance in SMB2. Bob-ombs and Shyguys are clear examples, as they have shown up in later Mario games, gradually becoming "Mario regulars". And Mario Tennis also featured a brief comeback Birdo/Ostro, who deserves kudos for being the only transvestite in the Mario games (check your old SMB2 manuals), even if Nintendo is now trying to cover it up due to sickening "political correctness" (which sounds a bit dodgy; cross-dressers are politically incorrect, but discriminating against them is correct?).

So there is no doubt that SMB2 is a quality game as well as a beloved game. There's a reason why it's NES box has the words "Mario madness!" proudly stamped across it, after all. It's a shame that, due to it's origins as not a "real" Mario game, SMB2 has sort of been the ugly duckling of the Super Mario Bros saga. One can only hope that the arrival of Super Mario Advance will help to re-instate this misunderstood little beauty of videogaming. The promised enhancements and new elements that Super Mario Advance will bring to the SMB2 we know, and in many cases still love offer rich possibilities. One who has been there during the NES years, when SMB2 had it's big day in the sun can only be thrilled to see this beloved game making a comeback.

So, all things considered, what is the last word here? "SMB2 RULZ! DONT DIS SMB2!", perhaps? Maybe, only that's a bit too plain. Videogaming-wise, there is nothing superior to playing a "proper" Mario game, created from the mastermind of Miyamoto, I won't argue with that. Transforming into Fireball Mario while Para-Koopas swoop between the platforms you are bravely hopping over to cross a bottomless pit is a joy I am but too familiar with. But it's not a reason to turn down a game that does things a little differently, and with just as much style. Variety is the spice of life, or so they tend to say. And when variety goes hand in hand with quality, there's no reason to complain about it.


	The Sub-Con generation By: Toasty Unless Nintendo's twisted sense of delay-based humour rears it's ugly head again, we should get our hands on the Game Boy Advance quite soon. Among the machine's launch games is one title that stands out as a historical curiosity; Super Mario Advance, which is in fact a spruced-up version of the old Super Mario Bros 2. But the original SMB2 already holds a rather different place in Mario history than most other games, and with it's imminent comeback, the game deserves to have it's unusual career looked at a bit more thoroughly. Every Mario follower worth his salt knows about SMB2's shadowy origins. They know very well that it is in fact a different game, topped up with some Mario sprites to be sold to gullible Western consumers. But there are always some nippers around who have never played a Mario game before Super Mario 64, and perhaps a few ancient tribes in the Paraguyan rainforest who don't know the details of this matter, so for them, I see myself forced to explain this bit of old news (while there are already eighty million texts explaining this very same matter out there, but oh well). The Super Mario Bros 2 we know doesn't exist in Japan. In Nintendo's homeland, a sequel to the first Super Mario Bros was released on the Famicom (NES to us) in 1986. The Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 had a similiar game engine and set of graphics to the first SMB game, with a few new elements thrown in, and a fiendishly difficult set of levels. In their questionable wisdom, Nintendo deemed this game too difficult for us stupid Europeans (and for the Yanks as well, but let's not go into a debate about their levels of intelligence) See, they even -literally- insult us when they don't indirectly insult us with scandalous non-release schedules. So, they turned to their favorite solution; they didn't release the game here. But since Mario was still good for making some money, they decided to give us a different game instead. The Japanese platformer Doki Doki Panic, starring a campy Arabian family was duly picked up and fiddled with so that it could be released in the occident as...Super Mario Bros 2. The chubby Alladin-wannabes from Doki Doki Panic were replaced with Mario and co, and some other minuscule tweaks were made. Come 1988, this instant-Mario game was ready for release and would fool Marioholics for a good few years. The whole scam was blown wide open in 1993, when Super Mario All-Stars for the Super NES appeared, which contained both the "proper" Japanese SMB2 (re-baptised The Lost Levels) and the SMB2 we were familiar with from the NES days. For the record, this also meant the Japanese got their first glimpse of the occidental SMB2, renamed into "Super Mario USA" for their market, which is just another piece of evidence that Europe is as good as non-existent to Ninty's cruel eyes. Suddenly, it was brought out in the open that SMB2 was not a real Mario game. This, of course, dealt a blow to SMB2's reputation. Gradually, it was brought down to the status of a paria, an imposter who didn't belong in the Mario timeline good and proper. The most fierce would even state that SMB2 is inferior to the proper, Miyamoto-designed Mario games and doesn't deserve to figure in the Mario timeline along with the first and third SMB games. SMB2 has never quite recovered from the negative image that has been slowly forced onto it. It's still being considered as a sideways step, whereas Super Mario Bros 3 and later Super Mario World formed the real steps forward in the evolution of Mario games (and of gaming in general since Mario defines the face of gaming, more or less). The sort of bad rep SMB2 recieved strikes me as uncalled for and altogether unfair. It is, however, possible to understand why purists might want to denigrate SMB2. When looking over the grand total of Mario's game career, SMB2 stands out as being very a-typical. There are no brick blocks to bash coins out of, Goombas to be killed by hopping on their heads and green Pirahna Plant-infested pipes to travel down. Hardly any of the gameplay elements one would associate with a typical Mario game are to be found in SMB2. Chucking around vegetables and riding flying carpets may seem like a very un-Mario kind of thing to do in a game. This is further underlined by the different locations and characters that SMB2 presents us with. Then there is also the storyline behind SMB2; the adventure takes place in Mario's dream, so one could almost state that it literally never really happened and isn't part of the Mario saga good and proper. All in all, SMB2's image as a side story in the grand scheme of all things Mario isn't entirely unjustified. What is unjustified is the tendency some may have to turn their noses up at this "fake" Mario game for what it is. That way, people might even think SMB2 is a bad game. Nothing could be further from the truth. Granted, SMB2 is in fact a non-Mario platformer that just happens to have our favorite overweight plumber slapped onto it for marketing purposes. But it was a very fine non-Mario platform game to begin with. Although this sort of thing ultimately just comes down to a matter of taste, one would have to admire the quality design that went into the game. The vast levels often contain a selection of different paths to take, each full of surprises. The system of picking up vegetables, nasties or other objects and throw them around as weaponry is quite inspired as well. While it may seem like a sketchy idea, the careful design of SMB2's levels ensures that it always works well in practise and admirable novelty use of the base concept is made on several occasions. If a concept's success can be measured by how often it's copied, then SMB2 was definitely a hit; these "pick up and throw things" type of platformers are ten a penny by now. All in all, SMB2 is one of the few games that, even well over a decade after it's first release still remains fun and fresh to play, regardless of how graphics have progressed since then. A game wouldn't stand the test of time so well if it wasn't good to begin with. Anyone who knows their games will have to realise that SMB2 is an excellently crafted piece of platforming. That's the technical element to SMB2's merits. There's an emotional one as well. For the risk of sounding like a misty-eyed old fart; I remember very clearly when SMB2 was all the rage. It used to be the game that everyone was talking about and that massively attracted drooling kiddies to the NES. "The second level has this bit with a flying carpet!" was a phrase that could make the mouths of small children water. Of course, it was different to the first SMB. Not knowing any better, we poor youngsters drew the conclusion that it was so different because it was more advanced than SMB1. It was the next step in the evolution of Mario gaming, for all we knew, so of course it was different. In fact, when news of the earth-shattering SMB3 began to leak through, quite a few Marioholics that were raised on a solid diet of SMB2 felt a bit disappointed that SMB3 didn't stick to the SMB2 formula they knew and loved. Wart and his cohorts didn't return, and Mario went "back" to fighting Bowser and his hordes of Goombas and Koopa Troopas. In short, Nintendo had us completely fooled with their little scheme On a side note, the horribly poor Super Mario Bros. Super Show TV series probably played a role in installing SMB2 in our hearts so firmly. After all, Mouser was a prominent character as well as several other nasties from SMB2. Mario and his chums went around chucking vegetables, all with the music and sound effects from the game itself to accompany this. The foot-fethishism and kinky implications that the Mario cartoons are so fond of did strike Marioholic viewers as something that never happened in the games. And it struck concerned parents as deeply unsuitable for young children, but that's another story. The colourful bestiaire of SMB2 has also contributed to it's success. With their amusing looks, and the often inventive way the player has to deal with them, they rapidly became popular. Mouser's eyes bulging out from under his shades when he gets hit is a touch that springs to mind, as well as the way Pokey keeps the same gormless grin on his face after you pluck his head off several times. Note that some of the more illustrious Mario enemies made their first appearance in SMB2. Bob-ombs and Shyguys are clear examples, as they have shown up in later Mario games, gradually becoming "Mario regulars". And Mario Tennis also featured a brief comeback Birdo/Ostro, who deserves kudos for being the only transvestite in the Mario games (check your old SMB2 manuals), even if Nintendo is now trying to cover it up due to sickening "political correctness" (which sounds a bit dodgy; cross-dressers are politically incorrect, but discriminating against them is correct?). So there is no doubt that SMB2 is a quality game as well as a beloved game. There's a reason why it's NES box has the words "Mario madness!" proudly stamped across it, after all. It's a shame that, due to it's origins as not a "real" Mario game, SMB2 has sort of been the ugly duckling of the Super Mario Bros saga. One can only hope that the arrival of Super Mario Advance will help to re-instate this misunderstood little beauty of videogaming. The promised enhancements and new elements that Super Mario Advance will bring to the SMB2 we know, and in many cases still love offer rich possibilities. One who has been there during the NES years, when SMB2 had it's big day in the sun can only be thrilled to see this beloved game making a comeback. So, all things considered, what is the last word here? "SMB2 RULZ! DONT DIS SMB2!", perhaps? Maybe, only that's a bit too plain. Videogaming-wise, there is nothing superior to playing a "proper" Mario game, created from the mastermind of Miyamoto, I won't argue with that. Transforming into Fireball Mario while Para-Koopas swoop between the platforms you are bravely hopping over to cross a bottomless pit is a joy I am but too familiar with. But it's not a reason to turn down a game that does things a little differently, and with just as much style. Variety is the spice of life, or so they tend to say. And when variety goes hand in hand with quality, there's no reason to complain about it.