And there are many more suits such as the Frog and Tanooki suit. A fantastic idea, although I never understood why a racoon could fly in the first place, I just went with it. The first stage on the first level gave you a Leaf rather quickly, turning Mario into a Racoon that can fly. Mario 3 went crazy with all the different suit powers-ups you could get. Also there’s the ever important staple Starman pick-up of you collect five cherries. Then all you would have to do is find the hind mushroom when you found a potion to go into that weird other world. There was the Super Mushroom, kind of, you started it as the bigger version of whichever character you chose, and if you were down to one hit point left you shrank. Power-ups are certainly an entertaining and interesting point of any Mario game, and while Super Mario 2 lacked the number that number three had, I didn’t feel like anything was missing. But the koopa’s shell could be picked up and carried after thwacking him on his head, as well as certain kinds of special blocks found in the environment. The third game had the jump on it to kill it technique, and had a sort of pick things up mechanic, the lowly goomba would flatten if you jumped on him, or hurt you if you ran into him. Mario 2 being the odd one out as it usually is, when you jump on enemies, they don’t die and you can ride on their heads or pick them up over yours.
It even threw in a not so hidden version of the arcade original you could kind of play between stages with another person.įundamentally both games operated the same way, majority of the time you’re going right and jumping from platform to platform to get to the end of the stage. However Nintendo did bring back the ability for a two player take turns mode. Although they went back and had only two playable characters, Mario and Luigi, and they were just a palette swap for one another, with no unique abilities between them. Mario 3’s graphic style was more of an improvement on Super Mario 1, because the two games had a similar setting, the Mushroom Kingdom, as opposed to being in a different World altogether in Mario 2. Personally I either used Mario or Toad the most, but I’ve also finished the game by only using one character with each one as well. I think it’s world 5-3, you need the green man’s higher than everyone’s super jump to get to the warp pipe, it’s not a very dire situation if you miss that. As far as I can remember there is only one spot where you need a specific character, Luigi, in a specific spot in the game. For example if you wanted to use the Princess in the desert level, you could, despite her have the slowest possible pick-up animation, making all that dirt digging even more laborious, but still I have done just that more than once, for the hell of it. It made certain characters do better on different levels, but it never made finishing the level impossible. The fact that there were four distinct characters, with the same basic abilities, but different stats for each was enough to make the game feel more diverse. That line of thinking wouldn’t explain all the different Toadstools in the castles of Super Mario 1, but I didn’t, and still don’t mind you, really think of the lore of Super Mario Bros. This was when I referred to the Princess as her name, not “Peach”, as her name when Mario 64 rolled around, and I thought there was only one Toad.
I thought that was the coolest thing, not only could you play as the titular character Mario, or his brother Luigi, but the Princess and Toad as well. You can make out the features on Mario, or the three other playable characters. The first noticeable difference from the first game is that the graphics are improved to a higher degree. I had them both in my collection, and played them the most back in those days.īeing chronologically first Super Mario Bros 2 was the first one I had, and I remember it being awesome from the start. They’re both 2D Mario platformers originating on the NES. Depending on time of day/ year/ season/ the phase of the moon and any position the planets orbiting around the sun I’ll either say Super Mario 2 or 3 is my favorite game of all time.