Now, since everyone already knows that Super Mario Bros. 2 is awesome, you may think that this review is unnecessary. However, you may have forgotten that this was the game that let you play as 4 different characters, and they each had their own special powers. Except for Mario, whose special ability was to be completely average in every way. Way to go, Mario. Thus, this Mmmm, Opinion will actually review the 4 characters after I've kicked this game's ass with each of them.
Since I am a slacker, I will be taking the warps in World 1-3 and 5-3, and skipping the one in 4-2 because it takes me to world 6, and I hate world 6. Mostly because World 6-2 is absurd. Fuck that shit. I am not riding a goddam Albatoss (gotta love the 8-character limits on those old games) over a bottomless pit for an extended distance. That's just not safe, especially when those damn Beezos start flying at me.
Mario - Mario sucks. The only reason to pick Mario is if you want a challenge. He doesn't jump high, he doesn't run fast, he doesn't do anything well. He's like the Brian Scalabrine of SMB2's lineup. Speaking of which, is Scal still on the Celtics? Wait, nevermind. That is off topic. I should have done a little more work/research/paying attention before writing this post, but I am almost positive I died the most times as Mario in the course of running through the 9 levels necessary to choke Wart's stupid frog-ass with random vegetables. This also leads to the question: if Wart's weakness is vegetables, why would his room contain 3 pipes that do nothing but launch vegetables into the air, which are easily caught and thrown into his enormous mouth? This seems like a poor design plan, just like Bowser's strange need to keep the axe for cutting his bridge down right next to the bridge. These guys are just begging Mario to defeat them. Even if he does suck at his job. Bottom line: Mario is the worst character in his own game. Nice job, jerk.
Luigi - I always chose Luigi when I played this game as a kid, so I am probably biased toward him. He controls sort of the way I imagine a zamboni would feel on the ice, but he jumps the highest, and his legs are always running in the air like a cartoon after they run off the edge of a cliff but haven't looked down yet. He jumps so far that I have literally sprint jumped through an entire level without bothering to worry about where I was supposed to be landing. I would estimate that his horizontal jumping distance is around 40 feet per leap. Of course, that is based on absolutely no scientific evidence of any kind. It just seemed like a good number. In addition to being able to pretty much leap through levels, Luigi's jumping also lets you cheat/not really cheat but not play right! You can skip getting the key (and avoid the stupid face chasing you) in 1-2; you can skip an entire section of 4-3 by leaping across a large pit; you can avoid the stupid whales' spouts by leaping over them; you can reach the warp in 5-3; I am pretty sure (but not 100%) that you can leap behind Wart and throw the vegetables into his mouth from behind him without a chance of missing or getting hit; and the list goes on. I am pretty sure the programmers didn't even bother testing whether or not Luigi was a game-breaker before they shipped this thing. There is even supposedly a way to do double-jumps with Luigi, but I suck and can't get it to work. Not that you really need to jump further, since he already is a superhuman freak. Best character if you can get used to his weird controls.
Toad - Toad is alright. He can't jump very high, but he's really fast. He also has the special ability of being able to pick stuff up quickly. I am not sure why that is good, but whatever. I spent the majority of time as Toad running through the levels as quickly as possible, since that is pretty much what he does. One of the major issues with Toad is that you have to pay attention to trivial details like where platforms are located. Unlike Luigi, Toad can't just sprint jump across almost every pit in the game, which means those dumb logs on the waterfalls and the jumping fish are actually important for survival. Toad had the 2nd most lost lives, mostly because of the running blindly forward thing. However, rumour has it that he gets all the bitches. So he's got that going for him, which is nice.
Princess - Princess Toadstool (I am pretty sure this game was pre-Peach) is slightly faster than Luigi, but she can float! Since this game is sexist, she picks things up at roughly the same speed as old people merge onto the highway, but that doesn't really affect the game other than when you have to fight the green/gray Birdos that only shoot fireballs. Then it's slightly annoying. But who cares! She floats!! You can float pretty far, but I think that Luigi's sprinting jump travels slightly further. Either way, the game was super easy as the Princess. She can take several of the same shortcuts as Luigi, and also gets to ignore the "correct" way to do the levels in favor of just jumping and hoping. I also had way better luck in the crappy lottery, and ended up with somewhere in the 20s for lives remaining after force-feeding Wart his doom.
Overall, I rank the characters in terms of Wart-killing abilities as: Luigi, Princess, Toad, Mario.
Now go play this game. Especially if you have a Wii, because then you can get this and all sorts of other sweet old-school games. Which are clearly more awesome than the new ones. Slick and I both agree, so you know it's true.
-Jon
PS - Yeah, I'm going to keep linking to that video. It's just a quality film.
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