by Alan Noah
June 9th, 2008 -
I hate Super Mario Brothers 2.
Here's a quick recap of why this game is the oddball of the Super Mario franchise, for anyone who didn't know: The game was originally a weird Japanese title that was repurposed as a Mario sequel when Nintendo execs decided that the true sequel to Super Mario Bros. would be too hard for American gamers. The Lost Levels, as they came to be known, were certainly challenging, but they felt like you were playing in the same Mario universe that you knew and loved, mainly because you were. (If you never played the games on the SNES Super Mario All-Stars, I strongly recommend you check it out by way of the Wii's Virtual Console.)
But what is so bad about the Super Mario 2 we got stateside? It was all a dream. After 20 levels of throwing vegetables at bad guys in masks, hitting weirdly androgynous birds with their own eggs, and wondering what is up with Luigi's legs, you defeat Wart, only to see that the whole thing happened in Mario's mind. None of it really happened. For a 9 year-old kid, realizing all of that hard work I put in was for nothing was, well, traumatizing.
Now I know whats going through your mind, because this is an argument I've had a few times before. So allow me to present the three main counterpoints to my ridiculously nerdy rant, along with my rebuttals.
Counterpoint #1: Um, you do realize that none of the other Mario games "really" happened, right?
My Rebuttal: Of course I do. Yet all of the other adventures that Super Mario has been on were real to Mario. In his universe, he is always rescuing Peach from Bowser. He lives in the Mushroom Kingdom, goes on vacation to Dinosaur Land and Isle Delfino, and has even ventured into outer space. But the land of "Sub-Con" (which is a pretty big clue that all was not kosher in this game) exists outside of Super Mario canon.
Counterpoint #2: Birdo and Shy Guys appear in various other games, therefore, they must be "real" in Mario's world.
My Rebuttal: Keep in mind that this was only the second time we saw a Super Mario adventure. We didn't see Thwomps in Super Mario Bros. 1, but that doesn't mean they weren't there. As time goes on, we see more of the Mushroom Kingdom as Mario explores new realms of the land. Therefore, one could infer that at some point in Mario's travels of the Kingdom, he encountered a Birdo or two, which could lead to them popping up in a dream. We know that he encountered plenty of Shy-Guys when he was a baby, so it is not surprising that they also exist in his subconscious. So when video gamers saw them in Mario's dreams in SMB2, they were new to us, but not new for Mario. As for Wart, Tryclydes, and other creatures unique to this game, well, they were just weird creatures conjured up in the deep recesses of Mario's mind.
Counterpoint #3: You have given way too much thought to this. And besides, what difference does it make if it's a dream or not? It's still a fun game.
My Rebuttal: I over analyze things. Hence most of the stuff on this blog. Deal. And why does it matter? It matters because this game, for some reason, is given a free pass for using the dreaded and lame
"every-thing-that-just-happened-was-really-a-dream-and-therefore-didn't-actually-happen" plot device. People hate it when movies and TV shows turn out to be just a dream, so why should video games by any different? That one season of Dallas, the last season of Roseanne, those extended dream sequences in The Sopranos, the ending of St. Elsewhere - weren't people pissed off when they were all revealed to be nothing more than the imaginings of one character?
Remember that episode of Lost where they toyed with the notion that everything that was happening in the show was all happening in Hurley's head? It was an interesting notion that made for a good episode, but could you imagine if that was the REAL secret of the Island? Lost fans would go ballistic, and with good cause.
Why? Because after you get emotionally invested in a fictional universe, you want to know that even though the story is make-believe, that it is at least "real" to the charachters you have grown to care about.
My Closing Argument: A lame plot device is going to be lame no matter the medium, and if a dream negates everything that came before that reveal, what's the point?
Agree? Disagree? Sick of hearing me bitch about a video game that came out 20 years ago? It's OK, I can take it.
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