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Super Mario Bros. 2
Crazy One-Shot #1
Type of Game
Simulation of gardening, base jumping in dresses, potion throwing and other everyday activities.
Release date on our machines
April 1989 in France, three years before Japan, because consistency and all that, let's see about that later.
Developer
Nintendo Company Ltd. surprisingly, under the leadership of the famous Shigeru Miyamoto.
Publisher
Nintendo Company ltd. Oddly enough, under the supervision of the rather less famous Hiroshi Yamauchi.
Super Mario Bros. 2 : available on the Nintendo NES Mini Classic, and the NES Nintendo Switch Online.
It's hard to put this in context, but I discovered this game at my doctor's office. Well, not during a consultation at the practice, but at his house, during a day when I was playing with his son, more or less a friend from kindergarten. I don't remember whether I got on with him because his father was my doctor, or whether my mother chose this doctor because of my friendship with his kid. In any case, I knew Super Mario 2 before I knew the first one. It was one of my very first videogame encounters, and it marked me for the rest of my life, no less. Well, the first two levels left their mark on me, anyway.
First consultation
Radish Radish Panic
At home, at both Mom's and Dad's, we played SEGA machines. The NES (and later the Super NES) held the status of a ‘special console’, the kind only owned by friends. A bunch of games acquired some sort of legendary status, as I had sparing access to them: Bubble Bobble, the famous ultra-difficult Ninja Turtles adventure, and the first Super Mario games, of course. During playtime at school, there was a merciless clan war between those who worshipped Nintendo and those who adored SEGA. I could say that I liked both, which often left the belligerents speechless (and I ended up alone in the playground, sob). Oh yes, um, what about the gameplay... Knowing that this game wasn't originally part of the Mario saga explains a lot.
The sprites of our favourite moustachioed man, of Luigi, Daisy and Toad replaced those of the original characters in Europe and the US, perhaps out of fear that the cartridge wouldn't sell well outside Japan. Hence this impression that the designers have sometimes lost their way, despite a desire to evolve. Well, I didn't learn about this until 2008 or 2009, so... And as I discovered Super Mario Bros 2 before its predecessor, I didn't experience the supreme disillusionment of not understanding why enemies didn't die when you jumped on them. Now, what about this obsession with ripping out plants at every turn, for real?
What kind of lunatic imagined the player weeding the whole world, throwing vegetables in all directions, and that it was going to be super cool? And rightly so, even. I used to call them radishes, but there are other trends, turnips for example, or those who call radishes small vegetables and turnips large ones. Exciting, isn't it? Of course it is. And the choice of four characters given to the player before each stage is also great. All with their own characteristics. Mario was nothing special because screw him, a unique feature in itself. His brother jumps higher, to the detriment of his speed. Peach uses her dress to glide over long distances, and Toad snatches radishes faster than anyone else.
Before we learned that this title had stolen the concept of Doku Doku Panic, a lot of kids labelled Super Mario Bros. 2 as a kind of UFO that was a bit of a mess compared to the other games in the licence. Not me, since I wouldn't get to know the first Super Mario Bros. until a few months later at my cousin Walter's, but also at the home of another very old friend of mine, Lionel Mortadelle, at whom I was going to spend a loooooot more time than I would at Doctor Junior's. Personally, I really liked the mystical aspect of it, with the secret doors you could make appear by smashing potions on the floor, and the dark rooms you'd discover upon entering...
Psychotropic prescription
Birdo's design, the Maskass, and the little bit of stress when a Phanto appeared, the huge raptor's head acting as an exit door. There's a kind of haunting aura that emanates from this game, creepy even, perhaps due to the strange colours, the animated decor and the really weird monsters. The Japanese aesthetic of the late 80‘s/early 90’s oozes a bizarre magic that's impossible to reproduce these days (nostalgia makes me talk nonsense, and I let it do its thing); I found it pretty damn powerful in this game, more so than in Psycho Fox, for example. That said, maybe it's better to let it pass into posterity, and keep only the good memories.
soundtrack prescription
I think the main theme is so great that it almost overshadowed everything else in my memory. And not just the other songs, but also the stages, the enemies' faces... etc. It has to be said that I never finished Super Mario Bros 2; I never even played it again, apart from those sessions at the doctor's son's house, because no-one else I knew owned it. Did I even play it more than once? I'm not sure at all. I don't think I've got past level 3, so I've never seen the snowy world or the rest of it. As a result, the song accompanying the outer zones has remained embedded in my neurons after all these years. Anyone can say they prefer Super Mario Bros. 1, or that the vegetables you throw are called turnips, I'll let them. Anyone who dares criticise the music had better get the hell out of my sight! Otherwise I'll... well, I'll think of something. In any case, I already adored Koji Kondo without even knowing him, and his ability to compose melodies that convey an incredible good mood, or on the contrary tracks that communicate a hyper-anxious sense of urgency. That's the only thing that hasn't changed compared to Super Mario 1.
Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES) - Overworld Theme
00:00 / 02:56
Impossible Cure
I don't really know how or why I became friends with the doctor's son, but this videogame experience coincided with the discovery of some very concrete toys that I absolutely adored: Cosmix and Monsters in my Pocket, which the kid in question had dozens of at home. My first imaginary epic stories, made up of colourful creatures in soft plastic, took place in this room, between two rounds of Super Mario Bros. 2 (the NES was in the living room, but we don't really care about these geographical considerations). Thanks to him for getting me hooked on this stuff, or not. To this day, I regret like hell having sold or lost all those things. Damn adolescence, which made me throw away a bunch of wonders just because I wanted to grow up!
But that wasn't all! In another room, there was also a sort of filthy macerator, right next to his bedroom. Even when I slept at his place, I'd never have dared pee in that stinking machine. Did the doctor know what diseases you could catch just by looking at that hellhole? Why am I talking about this? To exorcise some trauma, no doubt. No, I really meant to mention the office with the computer in it. A machine even weirder than a NES to my uncultured little eyes. We played Prehistorik on it, and other stuff I can't remember. We gave up Super Mario Bros. 2 for it, I think. And yet, there was no ‘POW’ block to throw on the floor to get all the enemies off the screen (sorry Maskass, you know I love you). I stopped seeing this guy overnight, I think he moved. He could have given me his NES, the ingrate.
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