Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988) (VG)

Release Date:

October 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Family | Fantasy

Tagline:

Mario Madness

Plot:

Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool and Toad enter a mysterious door to save the people of Sub-Con from the evil frog Wart and his minions.

Plot Keywords:

Toad | Princess | Sub Con | Frog | Dream

Also Known As:

Super Mario USA (Japan: English title) (reissue title)
Yüme fakutori (Japan)

Country:

Japan | USA

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:K-A

Company:

Nintendo

Trivia:

The game was not originally a Mario game (see the entry above), yet many of the foes in this game later became regulars in the Mario series (Shy Guys being the best example.) Wart/Mamu, the main villain from this game, later made a cameo in The Legend of Zelda - Link's Awakening, as a musician.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Strongbad_email.exe: Disc Five (2007) (V)

Not Mario in the strictest sense

The reason why this gameplay is so different from all the other Mario games is that it never was meant to be a Mario game. They didn't ship the Japanese version of SMB2 into the United States because people complained that it was too hard. Eventually they decided release a sequel in the United States but did it in a very cheap fashion. They took a totally different game that never was released in the US and altered the appearances of the characters and some of the objects so they could release it as a Super Mario game.

The game that was turned into SMB2 in the US was actually about a family who stepped into the world of a strange book to find the two missing younger children.