YMMV / Super Mario Bros. 2

• Adaptation Displacement: The game is far more well-known than the original game it's based on, even in Japan. The only thing Doki Doki Panic is truly well-known for is simply that it was the basis for Super Mario Bros 2 and not much else. The fact that Doki Doki Panic has never been released outside of Japan, on top of it never receiving a re-release on any platforms after the Family Computer Disk System likely contributes to the game's relative obscurity. That said, as of the late 2010s the knowledge that Super Mario Bros. 2 is based on Doki Doki Panic has become common, to the point that those who still think it's obscure information have become targets of mockery (see Memetic Mutation below); but good luck finding someone who has actually played the original game.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Final Boss Wart is relatively straightforward, in contrast to the previous end-world bosses encountered. His projectile pattern is very easy to figure out, and all you need to do is throw vegetables into his mouth a few times, and those who find that too difficult can just jump behind him and avoid his projectiles entirely. Said vegetables are also helpfully provided by a machine in the same room. He's even more pathetic in the original game, as he only has 4 HP instead of 6 and has an easier pattern of projectiles to dodge.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The pink Birdo quits being a boss after World 2-1 and the last time you ever see her is World 4-3, where she is a Helpful Mook. Did the pink Birdo undergo a Heel–Face Turn and, to atone for assisting Wart, want to help Mario and friends progress on their adventure? Supporting this theory in the Advance remake, where upon meeting Birdo, she doesn't deliver her usual Trash Talk line compared to the previous times you met her. This idea was backed up in one of the official manga adaptations, where Birdo announces that she has decided to join up with the Mario Bros. and Toad in their mission to defeat Wart and rescue Peach.
  • The same can likely be said about the Albatosses, who are large red birds who in various supplementary material were normal Subcon residents forced to do Wart's bidding. They don't actively attack you, you can't lift them up, and an entire level is dedicated to riding them. Two oddly placed Albatosses in Level 7-1 suspiciously drop their Bob-Ombs off screen to give the player a ride to the rocket that takes them to the next stage of the level. Did the Albatosses realize what the heroes are trying to do and try to help them defeat Wart and free them from their slavery?
• Bizarro Episode: The biggest example in the franchise, though the series at this point was still in its infancy. Mario must liberate a land that isn't the Mushroom Kingdom from a villain that isn't Bowser; Toad and Princess Toadstool^note Back when it was first released in America, she hadn't updated to her original Japanese name of Peach yet are playable; you kill enemies by uprooting and throwing vegetables (or picking up and throwing other enemies) at them instead of stomping them; there are no Goombas, Koopas, Bullet Bills, or Hammer Bros. as enemies. Blocks and Fire Flowers don't exist; most enemies and items introduced in this game don't come back in future installments; there is no time limit; and the game turns out to be All Just a Dream in the end, something no other ending in a Mario game does.
• Breather Level:
  • World 4-1 is a very straightforward level sandwiched between 3-3 and 4-2. It has simple-to find Mushrooms, easy to dodge Flurries, and Birdo doesn't even appear.
  • World 6-2. It's a fairly short level with virtually no platforming or enemies at all. The player just has to ride an Albatoss across the stage, occasionally leaping over oncoming enemies or jumping off to get an item, challenges made easy by just using the Princess. At the end of the stage, Birdo is stuck on an elevated platform and there's one above her as well, allowing players to strike at her while basically being untouchable.
  • World 6-3 is also rather easy. Its the third-to-last level and after the previous castle levels 3-3, 4-3, and 5-3, you'd expect 6-3 to be a nightmare, especially seeing that huge intimidating-looking gate you enter, but it really isn't. You only have to deal with a mild bomb "maze", and lots of climbing on vines with Hoopsters. You have to fight the Red Birdo and a rematch with Tryclyde (Who unlike Mouser, didn't get more HP), and that's it. The stage is such a breather it even has a hidden shortcut that takes you to the very end of the level.
• Broken Base:
  • The third world's dungeon is seen by some as a huge difficulty spike due to the Shyguy pots and lots of spark platforms and increased length, while others see it as the easiest dungeon in the game due to the abundance of POW blocks, the near absence of instant death traps, the ease of escaping the Phanto, the fact you get all your hearts early, and the lack of Zerg Rush enemies in the dungeon.
  • Once the west caught wind about what the game actually was, a somewhat sizable debate began on whether or not this change was a good idea, or if it made the game worse in retrospect. Some feel that they were essentially lied to about the game being a sequel to Super Mario Bros., and wished that The Lost Levels got released in the US proper instead. Others argue that Nintendo was more than right with their reasoning that Lost Levels was too hard for the American market at the time, and reskinning a game that was originally conceived as a Mario-style game made by the the same devs that would also have otherwise been lost to time was a smart compromise.
  • Lost Levels has had the reputation of being one of the most difficult Mario games ever made, however several gamers (mostly on Twitch) who play Lost Levels and then America's Mario 2 have commented that this game is more difficult due to having very different game mechanics that are unusual for a Mario game, and take getting used to, as well as several levels being non-linear, and more enemies actively trying to kill you (as opposed to just walking around aimlessly).
• Cheese Strategy: If you're having problems with Wart, this exploit could help. The goal is to stuff vegetables down his throat when his mouth is open—which you can do when you get behind him, where you're (mostly) safe from his attacks. This should be impossible given the angle, but it's not. Even better, Wart won't even turn around to rectify this oversight, and will instead act as if you are still in front of him.
• Contested Sequel: Among fans, this game is one of two things: a very different but fun Mario game that deserves its status in the series as a classic and which is generally considered at least more forgiving and enjoyable than the sadistic Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, or a lazy ROM hack of an unrelated Japanese game^note though it was originally conceived as a Mario-style game made by the same development team that, while good, doesn't belong in the franchise.
• Creepy Awesome: Phanto is a scary mask that will chase Mario & co non-stop when they're carrying keys, but man is it memorable.
• Cult Classic: It's not the most popular title in the series, but many people still appreciate it for its unique, offbeat gameplay and canon additions to the series. It is particularly beloved among fans of Luigi and Princess Peach, who enjoy seeing them treated as Mario's equals instead of the sidekick and the damsel in distress respectively.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Blue Pansers are rare, but they shoot flames in an arc and they move around unlike their red and green cousins. They're essentially this game's answer to the Hammer Bros.
  • Phanto. Once you have the key, this floating mask will chase you relentlessly, no matter how far you run.
  • Whereas Yellow Beezos have a slow arcing angle and can be easily worked around, Red Beezos fly in a completely straight line, which, coupled with them Zerg Rushing you in 4-2, causes them to be almost impossible to predict in a short amount of time, resulting in extremely precise ducking and jumping.
• Difficulty Spike: Depending on whether or not 3-3 is difficult for you, this either happens there or in 4-2, a level with a very hard to find second mushroom, Zerg Rush Beezos BEFORE you get to the first mushroom, and some annoying platforming involving an Autobomb, not to mention fighting Birdo on ice. The difficulty spikes again in 5-3 with an area overflowing with enemies plus a tough climb up inside a tree. Then you have to fight Clawgrip, who is one of the tougher bosses.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: The prototype version features a remix of the classic Underground theme from the original Super Mario Bros. that was later replaced with a revised version of the Underground theme from Doki Doki Panic for the final version. Many people who listened to the prototype's version wish it had appeared in the game proper, though it already appears in a modified form in Super Mario Bros. 3.
• Fanon Discontinuity: To this day, there are fans who still refuse to accept the game as a part of the Mario series, even after its elements (such as Shy Guys, Bob-Ombs, Ninjis, and Pokeys) were integrated into Mario canon and Doki Doki Panic was revealed to have been originally conceived as a Mario-style game by the same development team as its predecessor.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Peach's hovering ability. Don't have to worry about risky jumps on disappearing logs when you can just levitate over them.
  • In general, Luigi breaks vertical jumping, and the Princess breaks horizontal jumping (Mario's vertical jump height is actually better than hers).
  • Luigi's and Peach's super jumps, when used with the run button for great distance, can not only clear certain pitfalls with ease, but they can also bypass huge chunks of some levels to reach the end faster instead of going the longer normal way. Using said shortcuts will mean passing up a mushroom or two though.
  • Interestingly enough, the game manual declared Toad this, due to his speed and power, saying that you will use him the most, with Luigi and Peach only for levels that require their jumping abilities. It's probably worth noting that most Speed Runners do exactly this.
  • Super Mario Advance made shells rebound from walls instead of disappearing upon contact, and it now always generates hearts for every enemy it kills, making it ripe for exploit potential.
  • Super Mario Advance also added Giant Shy Guys and Ninjis, who drop small hearts when thrown, making them an easy source of health should you find yourself taking too much damage.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Sparks move quickly along the ground and other surfaces, deal Collision Damage from every angle, and can't be picked up. They often show up in enclosed areas, where they'll become a real pain by constantly coming at you while you're trying to get through the room.
  • Bob-ombs, when uprooted, often have an extremely short fuse, damaging you if you don't throw them in time.
  • Porcupos move slowly, but they cannot be jumped on or grabbed, making them more of a pest than anything else.
  • Red and green Pansers shoot fireballs which can be tricky to get past without taking damage. What keeps them from being outright deadly is that they can't move... which, unfortunately, doesn't apply to the blue ones.
  • Red Shy Guys are normally no problem, but they can give you trouble in the areas where you have to dig through sand. Since they can walk off platforms, they can walk into the holes left by your dig and potentially fall right on top of your character and damage them. And they're not easy to get rid of, since the sand can disrupt your attempts to throw them, leaving you in a nasty spot where the Shy Guys swarm you while you're trying to dig.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The POW block and Starman cameos in Doki Doki Panic, which were present before the game was adapted into a Mario game - or, rather, re-adapted. Also, few people know that the Spark enemies were already in a Mario-related game beforehand (Donkey Kong Jr.)
  • Luigi being a swap of Mama from Doki Doki Panic, considering the "Mama Luigi" meme in the Super Mario World cartoon.
  • The Spiny enemy Porcupo has a bluish/purple color scheme, predating a certain blue-colored hedgehog by a few years.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: The Game Boy Advance port really scaled down the difficulty as 1-Ups and hearts are rather easy to come by. It's not hard to amass 40-50 extra lives by the time you reach World 4, and that's without grinding for them. Hearts to restore health are also far more abundant than they were previously, and can be generated an infinite amount of times by the new giant enemies.
• It Was His Sled: The whole game is a dream being had by Mario. The graphics during that scene are perhaps the most iconic visuals in the game, and is accepted as an explanation for some of the more bizarre elements of the game.
• Jerkass Woobie: Birdo, the Game Boy Advance version makes her voice lines go from her confidently telling the players that they'll go no further... and with each incarnation (red and green) she gets more and more annoyed, and when you beat her during the green time, she just screams in pain. In fact, when you hit her during the green form, she sounds more in pain. This after she says "I'm ready for you THIS TIME!"
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The overworld music is frequently used as background music for text-to-speech videos. For instance, the famous Moonbase Alpha video. Though they typically take the format of reading off Internet comments on a certain topic, such as this video featuring 4chan users wanting to do some... rather NSFW things with cartoon horses.
  • Game of the Year goes to SUPER MARIO BROS. 2! SUPER MARIO BROS. 2! SUPER MARIO BROS. 2! STILL THE KING BABY!!!^Explanationvideogamedunkey always ends his Game of the Year videos by mentioning the game. Fans have taken to always declaring Super Mario Bros. 2 Game of the Year and facetiously praising it in a similar manner to the earlier instances of dunkey's Running Gag.
  • "Did you know that Super Mario Bros. 2 was originally a different game called Doki Doki Panic?"^ExplanationThis fact became the subject of backlash in the late 2010s and early 2020s thanks to how damn-near every video game-related trivia outlet and know-it-all fan kept repeating it as if it was still a hugely obscure fact. As a result, it's now brought up mockingly to make fun of those who still treat it as obscure information, and in response to other reiterations of once-obscure but now well-documented trivia about popular video games.
  • Claiming that Doki Doki Literature Club! is somehow connected to Doki Doki Panic and/or Super Mario Bros. 2.
• Memetic Psychopath: Phanto, already a creepy enemy with very annoying patterns, has gained a reputation on the internet for being a relentless killer who nobody can escape from.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Phanto. An eerie, grinning mask that shudders to life and hunts you down the moment you pick up a key and does not back off until you either drop it or use it on a door. The Advance version gets even worse - when you pick up a key, it starts out small and grows to normal size, giving it the illusion of flying in from the background, then once you throw the key away, it grows huge, meaning it's trying to fly right at the player. The sequel game BS Super Mario USA has the worst incarnation of Phanto ever, where a GIANT one can appear to attack your character, and it can't be stopped until the event passes.
  • The final mask gate unexpectedly detaching from the wall and attacking you. It's even worse in Doki, where the hawk head is a creepy, painted tribal mask instead.
  • The boss music is really eerie and anxiety-inducing.
• Nightmare Retardant: Fryguy is one of the creepiest and most challenging bosses, taking the form a giant fireball that separates and spreads into many difficult to squash ones. However, he makes a comically derpy look when hit, and in Advance he spews puns at you in a flamboyant Ed Wynn impersonation.
• Once Original, Now Common: While the All Just a Dream ending is a bit clichéd, the game was one of the first to have any kind of Twist Ending in a time when Excuse Plots were the norm. Also, having various playable characters each with different abilities was hardly seen back when it was released (and to an extent it's still somewhat rare, at least in this franchise).
• Polished Port:
  • The game is much better than its original Doki Doki Panic incarnation thanks to some touched up animations, the added ability to run, extensions to the soundtrack pieces, and the removal of the requirements for the true ending. The only thing lost in the conversion was the save feature, which the All-Stars and Advance versions restores.
  • Super Mario Advance is certainly this. Difficulty drop aside, the game reimplements scoring mechanics, tweaks the character physics to make it feel even more like a traditional Mario game, adds new enemies and a new boss (Robirdo), voice acting, a newly added post-game in the Yoshi Challenge, and many bug fixes and QoL improvements.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • In the NES version, you can only choose a character when you're starting a new level. If you feel like you're having too much trouble in a particular section or level with your current character and want to select another, too bad. This was rectified in the All-Stars and Advance rereleases: You can select a character every time you lose a life.
  • The original NES version is the one of the only two 2D Mario platformers (the other being Super Mario Land) to place a limit on how many times you can continue after losing all of your lives. Even then, Super Mario Land gives you a continue every 100,000 points. This game gives you a hard limit of two. Meaning if you Game Over three times over the course of the game, it's back to the beginning. You can easily get back to your spot by using Warp Zones, but those who want to see the rest of the game will feverishly stockpile lives and picking the right character for each stage (since you cannot change your character without losing all of your lives, as seen above). All Stars and Advance fix this issue by offering unlimited continues and saving.
  • Restoring your health in the NES and even the All-Stars versions. In order to get more health, you have to kill ten enemies, after which, a small heart appears and floats up from the bottom of the screen, which is also very missable if you take too long to get it, or worse, appears in a part of the screen where you can't get to it. If you're in dire straits and want to recover, prepare to stop and do a lot of grinding, breaking the pace of the game and making it rather repetitive. The Advance remake makes hearts far more common and plentiful, plus Giant enemies spit out hearts, as well as red shells creating hearts from killing enemies, and the hearts themselves are much larger and float to the top of the screen much more slowly, making health restoration far less of a hassle.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: The game is less difficult than the first Super Mario Bros., in contrast to the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 which is far harder than both. This also applies for later versions: All-Stars is a lot easier compared to the original version as you have infinite continues and can save, and Advance is even easier due to the numerous floating hearts, random large enemies that drop hearts when you throw them, and you can now save per level rather than starting from the beginning of a world. The levels themselves aren't any easier, though.
• Serial Numbers Filed Off: Pirated versions of this game are sometimes called "Super Wonderful Mario" (on the label) and "Super Bros. 5" (on the title screen). The game is completely the same.
• Solo-Character Run: A frequent Self-Imposed Challenge for the game is to beat it with only one of the four playable characters. Naturally, depending on the character used, some levels end up being more difficult than others. In particular, Peach-only runs have a following among speedrunners of the game.
• Sophomore Slump: Few people would call it a bad game, but where the original was the Trope Maker for the platformer genre and the next game is often ranked among the greatest games in history, 2 is mostly just considered to be a very good game.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Averted with New Super Mario Bros. 2 in terms of similar titles (though ironically it's certainly one to the Japanese one, ''The Lost Levels''). Super Mario 3D World, on the other hand, is this trope, minus any vegetables. Super Mario Run, as well in terms of playable characters, as just like in 3D World, Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad have the same abilities introduced in this game.
  • Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is another. The main enemies of the game are Shy Guys, and the game itself takes a slower, more exploratory approach to its gameplay and downplays the Goomba Stomp in favor of other, more puzzle-based methods of killing enemies. And like in SMB2, the castles and dungeons feature Locked Doors and much of the gameplay is based on finding keys to open them.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The boss theme sounds a whole lot like the castle theme from the first Super Mario Bros.. Koji Kondo did the music for both games.
• That One Boss:
  • Fryguy. Constantly sweeps around his room raining fireballs and delivers a deadly Kaizo Trap to those players used to defeating bosses by hitting them three times. Fryguy splits into four smaller versions of itself, and the more ones you kill, the faster the remaining ones get. You're more likely to get swarmed and taken out by the smaller Fryguys than the lone big one.
  • Clawgrip. He throws lightning-fast rocks that aren't always guaranteed to slow down enough before going down a pit, from far enough away that you won't always be able to see what he's up to. Good luck getting past him with Princess or Luigi. Fun fact: Clawgrip was introduced in Super Mario Bros. 2 proper as a replacement for Doki Doki Panic's third Mouser boss, which was considered even more difficult.^note The third Mouser fight gave him even more HP and the room had spikes on the floor.
• That One Level: World 5-3 is the stuff of insanity and nightmares. A pretty long level with a blitzkrieg of Albatosses and Bob-ombs in the first part, Zerg Rush enemies underground, a hornet's nest of Sparks and Bob-Ombs inside the tree, and having to contend with magic carpets and enemies on tiny cloud platforms, all leading up to an encounter with Clawgrip.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While Bob-ombs, Pokeys, Shy Guys, Snifits, Birdo, and Ninji managed to find a place in the Mario franchise (with a few other enemies making sporadic appearances, like Pidgits in Super Mario World and Phanto in Super Mario Maker 2), most of the enemies in this game did not. This leaves plenty of them like Albatosses, Ostros, Autobombs, Beezos, Mouser, Tryclyde, Fryguy, and even the Big Bad Wart feeling wasted. The fact that this game is All Just a Dream doesn't help either (while BS Super Mario USA did try to retcon that, it's a very unknown game on an obscure, Japan.exclusive console add-on). The only other place these enemies got to shine was The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, with the exception of Wart (who actually does appears in another game, but said game is The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, so that only raises questions).
• Values Dissonance: The manual says that Birdo "thinks he is a girl" and that "he'd rather be called Birdetta". Nowadays, such transphobic language would be seen as unacceptable.
• Vindicated by History: In 2012, Shigeru Miyamoto shocked many by dubbing this game as his favorite Mario game, tied with the first Super Mario Bros.. This surprise was because, while the game itself was popular during the first few years following its original release on the NES, bad word of mouth regarding its origins as a Dolled-Up Installment (especially during The Noughties) battered its reputation considerably among certain fans. General audience reaction has been kinder towards the game in the following years, partly because it is a game that breaks the formula in many ways and introduced numerous defining gameplay mechanics. In particular, modern-era games like Super Mario 3D World and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze were inspired by it, which has been noticed positively. The Broken Base surrounding the modern 2D New Super Mario Bros. titles (particularly the 2012 games released for 3DS and Wii U), contributes to this as well. The previous fan criticisms of it being a Dolled-Up Installment have also withered, under the fact that very few of Nintendo's titles start out as belonging to this franchise or that, so this game isn't some special case; their standard method of creating has typically been to come up with an interesting concept, then figure out which IP it fits into the best (this even applies to the original Super Mario Bros.!). Nintendo themselves also never treated this game as some sort of black sheep, always acknowledging that it was originally conceived as a Mario-style game made by the team that made all the Mario games of the time, and implementing various elements from it to newer entries of the series as early as Super Mario Bros. 3.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The close-up of Mario sleeping in bed at the very end. A very convincing cartoon Mario on the NES.

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