Positives:
- Changes the gameplay but still feels pretty faithful to what "Super Mario" is about.
- Easy to pick up but there's definitely a good amount of challenge to the levels here.
- Having four playable characters adds some uniqueness to the game as a whole.
- Graphics are quite nice and colorful for the time.
- Soundtrack is great, with the main theme being one of my favorite "Mario" themes.
Adds more character to Luigi, Toad and Peach, which is welcome.
Negatives:
- More so than before, the controls feel a tad bit slippery this time around.
- The lack of power-ups feels like a hindrance to the gameplay at points.
- Level design becomes incredibly repetitive, to a degree even previous Mario games didn't reach (TOO MANY DIGGING LEVELS).
- I hate the Phantos so much holy moly.
- Wii U port is prone to frame-rate drops.
Consensus: I'm almost done with my backlog of games I've been working on since 2015, and the last series on my list is that of "Super Mario" (or at least the game's in the series I haven't beaten). Starting off, the ever-polarizing "Super Mario Bros. 2" (the US version based on the Japanese title "Doki Doki Panic"), which is still arguably the black sheep of the classic 2D "Mario" games. And while I certainly see why, I don't think the game is terrible. It helps that it's pretty short, so it goes down pretty easily, but this is a game with some interesting ideas. I like that it made changes to the overall style but still managed to carve out its own identity. It's nothing amazing, but I don't mind it while I'm playing it.
Final rating: 6 out of 10 "Decent"