Early last year, my sister from another mister Indie Gamer Chick wrote an interesting piece on Super Mario Bros. 2. In it, she stated that her dream game would be a sequel to Super Mario Bros 2 done as a Metroidvania. This may seem odd to some people but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. Mario has always delved into a variety of genres, such as racing, RPGs and strategy games, so a Metroidvania would not be anything that unusual.
Super Mario Bros. 2 is often thought of as the black sheep in the Mario series by many players. Most people know that the game was a reworked version of the Famicom title Doki Doki Panic with some changes such as new running features, due to the Japanese version of Mario 2 being considered too difficult and too derivative to appeal to Americans. Fewer are aware that the game that became Doki Doki Panic actually did originate as a Mario title before being reworked, but the fact remains that the game is very different from Mario 1 and Mario 3. The game is far more about exploration thanks to shifting its focus from going left to right only, and introducing vertical oriented levels. Now Mario and friends would need to go to higher and higher areas, as well as lower areas, while navigating through different parts of the stages.
Indie Gamer Chick argued for a sequel, but I would go further than her original ideas. As she said in her piece, single levels from Super Mario 2 can feel like large open worlds, and returning to them in a sequel would be interesting. Players have already experienced the world of Super Mario 2 and veterans have played the game countless times, and yet there is lack of games that follow up on its design. Super Mario 3D World comes the closest ironically enough, due to its own offbeat design and use of the same four characters, as well as setup of the level. A sequel could expand heavily on the original ideas and allow Nintendo to innovate the same way they did with the first Paper Mario games.
This would not just be a case of taking the levels from Super Mario Bros 2 and making them an interconnected world as the charm would be gone after a few minutes. Nintendo has an issue where they tend to keep their remakes as close to the original as possible as seen with the Link’s Awakening Remake, and that is to the detriment of many games. A follow-up to Super Mario Bros 2 should go all out and embrace the possibilities first explored in that game. Take the multiple characters for instance, as a place to start. Rather than just starting out with the full cast to choose from, this game could see you start as Mario and only be able to explore certain areas. However, you could advance to new areas by unlocking new characters and factoring in the different abilities, such as Toad’s speed, Luigi’s jumping height and Peach’s flight. The character abilities were neat in the original game but by making them the focus of exploration, the very nature of the game is changed. Entire levels from Super Mario 2 could be brought back and reimagined in new ways to go along with new areas to take advantage of this change and give longtime players something new to experience with different gameplay.
Super Mario Bros 2 may stick out as the odd game in the series, but by tweaking the nature of the gameplay, Nintendo can open up a brand new way to experience the Mario universe with a new entry. You do not even need to stick to the classic lineup and even more characters could be added in. Perhaps Rosalina could join the cast like in Super Mario 3D World, or perhaps Wario using his abilities from the Wario Land series. A follow-up to Super Mario 2 could also be similar to Super Mario 64 DS, another remake of a classic game. The original is already focused on exploration and secret finding, so the changes would work well, and the new reworkings would not break up the flow. In any event, the fact remains that the basic gameplay of Super Mario Bros 2 lends itself to Metroidvania style exploration, and is something Nintendo should look into.