GAME CLEAR No. 4 -- Super Mario Bros. 2 (JP)

Super Mario Bros. 2 (1986, Famicom Disk System)

Clear Date: 11/16/2020
Clear Platform: Game & Watch
Developer: Nintendo R&D4
Publisher: Nintendo

Because I enjoy desk ornaments and lack impulse control, I decided to purchase Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros. on its release date a few days ago. I own all of its constituent games in multiple formats and on multiple platforms. They are readily available to me. I’ve beaten Super Mario Bros. multiple times before, and Ball is unsophisticated and will probably capture very little of my time on this device. The clock is cute, but Nintendo didn’t have the decency or foresight to give the thing a built in stand (which I’ll note was not a problem for my beloved Parachute Game & Watch, which came out in 1981), so its use even in that capacity is limited until I come up with my own solution.

However, Japan’s Super Mario Bros. 2 was the last remaining Super Mario platformer that I had never beaten. I tried as a kid when the game was initially released on Wii Virtual Console, but it was too much for me and I ultimately gave up, telling myself I’d get back around to it eventually. When the Game & Watch featuring this installment was announced and released, I figured if I finally took the opportunity to beat it, I could justify the silly purchase. I accomplished that goal, and it feels good to have done so. I can finally say I’ve beaten all the Marios without an asterisk. That’s worth something to me.

The game itself is nothing special. It plays more like an expansion pack than a true sequel, and its difficulty picks up right where World 8-4 left off in the first game. Naturally, this means it’s quite fiendish by the end, including platforming challenges like likes of which the series has not seen since (at least not before the credits). I’m not ashamed to admit I looked up some hints on how to avoid backwards warp zones and things of that nature, as well as the correct path through Bowser’s final castle. The game is tough enough as it is! I got through the game as the super slippery Luigi. I’m not sure if his high jump makes up for his lack of friction compared to Mario or if it’s a roughly even tradeoff. Maybe I’ll give the eponymous brother a shot sometime. But Luigi’s my guy, so I had to take my first shot as him.

The game’s release on this particular piece of bespoke hardware lends it a unique form factor in which to be played, and probably for the worse. While the Game & Watch device is comfortable enough to hold, its mushy buttons don’t work especially well for precision platforming. They’re not awful, but I think I probably missed a jump or two that I might not have missed on a more traditional and responsive controller. I understand the decision to remain faithful to the original hardware’s look and feel, though, as I expect this device will spend the vast majority of its life on display for most people that buy it.

The decision to release just these two games on a Game & Watch is puzzling. I’ll grant that Nintendo and Mario both have followings that will push a certain number of these units to people like me almost regardless of quality or price. I was drawn in by its retro form factor and convinced myself it might be practical as a clock. Plus, it may hold decent value as a collectible one day. But overall? It’s an exceedingly Nintendo release, mostly in the bad sense of the term. There’s no reason this should not have featured all of the NES Super Mario Bros. games. For that matter, it could’ve featured a number of different Game & Watch games as well. Why didn’t it include Mario’s Cement Factory? Instead of Ball why not Mario the Juggler, which was already effectively a Mario reskin of the same game. Why does Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros. not include the original Game & Watch that bore the title Super Mario Bros.? I don’t have the answer to any of these questions other than that it falls in line with most things that Nintendo does of this nature. But maybe the answer is just that I bought it, and so did probably enough other people to justify its creation.

If something cool were to come of this, I hope it’s that Nintendo releases another Game & Watch device featuring a slew of the original titles. Hell, for that matter, put all four Game & Watch Gallery games on one of these. That’d be great! Which means Nintendo will probably never do it.

Anyway, Super Mario Bros. 2 (Japan) is fun if you like difficult Mario. But do be aware that it is truly hard by any standard, not just Mario standards.