Coming out way back in 1988 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Mario Bros. 2 (Mario Mania?) is considered an odd outlier for the series.  It introduces new enemies, gives you the option to play as Peach or Toad, makes you hop on enemies and then throw them to kill them.  Heck, the bad guy isn't even Bowser, it's some noob named Wart, and to be honest, he se♉ems way more competent than ol' King Koopa.  I mean, he employs a bomb-throwing mouse instead of throwing his kids in Mario's path.

Maybe it is because of all these weird, new additions that people consider this entry the odd man out.  Some people, including some of us here at TheGamer, believe that this is one of the best entries in the series, 168澳♎洲幸运5开奖网:being vastly s❀uperior to Super Mario Bros. 3.  Despite being𒅌 the much-maligned black sheep of the family, there is a ton of backstory, trivia and just flat out absurdity hiding within the story of how Super Mario Bros. 3 came to be.  A perfect storm, if you will, of scenarios, artistic choices, trends and corporate shenanigans that led to an entry that gave us such series mainstays as Birdo, Shy-Guy, Phanto, and The Boꦜb-omb.  So let's delve right into the wacky world that made this game the beautiful trainwreck we know it to be.

18 Birdo Is A Little Different, And That's Ok 𒈔 𓄧

Birdo is a girl, right?  She's solid pink, she wears a ribbon in her bird/lizard hair(?), and her name is Birdo.  In the straightforward, what you see is what you get in the world of video games, that means she's a girl, right?  Oh ye of little faith, it's like youܫ don't know that Kirby is pink and Sa꧂mus is a girl.  In the magical world of Nintendo characters, nothing is what it seems.

While nothing in the game seems to indicate Birdo is anything other than the ge✨nder she seems, the instruction manual that accompanies the game says a little differently, stating that "he thinks he is a girl."  Good on you, Birdo, breaking through gender stereotypes way before it was a trend.

17 ♛ Saturday Morning Goodness 😼

Despite being labeled weird and new, people instantly clicked with the characters and premise of this newly fleshed out Super Mario univers♏e.  With a large pantheon of core characters like Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad, with a wider range of supporting characters thanks to the sequel, the people at Viacom and DiC Animation thought that this premis🗹e was definitely enough to warrant a kid's show.

Thus was born the  and it was everything we ever wanted.  We got both a live action Mario and Luigi (played by Captain Lou Albano and Danny Wells, respectively) and an awesome animated show.  While the inspiration for the show claims to be from Super Mario Bros. 1 & 2, we can easily assume that 2 was the major influencer, s🌜ince the very first episode centers on Toad being kidnapped by the aforementioned Birdo.  If you have never heard of the🙈 show, check it out, but I'll admit right now it is very dated, but it's always cool to see the 90s in full glorious action with a Super Mario Rap.

16 Everybody Is Good A🀅t Something

Remember when the first Super Mario came out, and the only thing Luigi had going for him was being green?  He was mostly relegated to the control of someone's younger sibling, because nobody wanted to be that goof Luigi.📖  Heck, most of us didn't even know Luigi had a separate nꦛame and we just called him "Green Mario."

Then Super Mario Bros. 2 came out and upset everything.  Luigi had that frantic little run thing he could do in mid-air that made him jump just a little bit more.  In fact, there was a whole system of power, high jump, and speed, with different characters excelling at different things, a system that would be largely abandoned in later games.  This new system made Luigi...still not that great, but at least he could jump.  In fact, there's a good r🎃eason why the characters all seem so different in power in the game, but more on that later...

15 Difficult Tim𒊎e To Be A Mario Brother

So earlier we mentioned that Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in 1988.  Do any eagle-eyed readers note that year, an🔯d what it is fairly close to?  That's right, the Video Game Crash of 1983.  Also known as The Atari Shock in Japan, the crash was felt during the mid-90s due to oversaturation of the market, not to mention the loss of publishing control which resulted in terrible games at full prices.  During this time, game company revenues fell 97%, going from as high as $3.2 billion down to only $100 million.

After this horrific crash, the video game market reಌcovered largely due to how amazing the Nintendo Entertainment System was.  These were difficult times for video games, so Nintendo ha𓃲d to make some serious strategic calls about Mario, it's flagship series.  It was due to these unstable waters that Nintendo of America crafted this sequel in such a bold yet familiar design.

14 Marios Always Welcome In Japan 🌊

Earlier we mentioned the Video Game Crash of 1983.  So while this was a tough time for Mario & Luigi in North America, in Japan, it was a completely different story.  For a multitude of reasons, not least of which wa🥃s 🃏a standardized version of arcade games accepting a single dollar for playing, the video game market in Japan remained stable.

This unrivaled stability led to two things: Nintendo of America having to make autonomous decisions outside of the rest of the Nintendo empire, and control of the console market moving away from North America towards Japan. This control led Nintendo to double down on the Mario franchise, which had proven to be widely popular ๊with the first installment.  Nintendo of North America wanted Mario to be in every kid's television, but they didn't want kids to be too flabbergasted so..ꦦ.

13 What Do🎉 You Mean It's Too Hard? 🎐

So Nintendo had a game lined up as a sequel to their 1985 success, and that game was a lot closer to the original game than what North American Audiences got.  It featured the same controls as last time, and even looked mostly the same, aside from a few key differences.  The was no two player, with Luigi and Mario acting independently, each with their own benefits, with Luigi✨ being able to jump higher but also handling more slippery.  There's also one key difference from the original: it's almost impossible.

With a steep incline in difficulty, plus the ꦺintroduction of Poison Mushroom Power-Ups (downs?), Warp Pipes that take you backwards, and the introduction of hindering weather, the game is a real challenge, even by today's standards.  With the Video Game Crash looming over everyone's head in North America, Nintendo worried that Western audiences would reject a game so frustrating, a risk they were not willing to take on their golden meal ticket.  So if they didn't publish this game in the West, what game did we get?  Keep reading...

12 Fortune Favo💧rs The Bo🦩ld

So everyone can agree that Super Mario Bros. 2 is possibly th𝐆e weirdest entry in the series.  It was a serious departure from what we knew, with multiple players with multiple powers, different enemies, and almost completely different controls.  It was as if this wa🀅s a completely different game (foreshadowing).  Well, what can we say, weirdness pays off?

Despite feeling new and strange, Super Mario Bros. 2 sold over 100 million copies worldwide.  A financial and critical success, this sequel paved the way for the rest of the series.  It's hard to ima♛gine that if this game had tanked, it would have killed the series.  Imagine a world without Super Mario?

11 Lost But Not Forgotte💦n

Some of you may think you are video game dynamos and are demanding "Where can I play those harder Mario levels that Japan made?"  Well, worry not, irate reader, since they have definitely been made available to North Americans.  Released under the title Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, this game was shown to eager Westerners as far back as 1993 when it was released with Super Mario All-Stars.

Anyone who doesn't have their old console, or was born a little after that time, thereby making this author feel tremendously old, can still play it on the Game Boy, Nintendo 3DS, Wii or Wii-U.

10 🌠 If It Ain't Broke

 

So across the sea, Super Mario Bros. 2 was receiving huge success with North American audiences, and in Japan, the OTHER Super Mario Bros. 2 was receiving...also a huge success.  What was de♛emed too hard for other audiences became a fan favorite of Japanese gamers.

The Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 was the top of the charts according to the video game magazine Famicom Tsushin with many praising its' steep increase in difficulty.  Despite the hard gameplay, it even sold 2.5 Million units on the Famicom♉ Disk System, on which it was initially released.

9 The More The Merrier 🎉

So while it may not be as difficult as its Japanese counterpart, it did have a huge upscale in enemies.  With the original game only clo🥀cking in a scant 15 enemies (generously counting the fire bars,🅺 cannons and jumping lava balls as enemies) and a single repeating boss, the first game didn't have all that variety in the way of enemies.  Nobody is taking issue with this gameplay, considering what a groundbreaking entry the first game is, but the second game took notice and really upped the ante.

Introducing a huge pantheon on 20 enemies, none of which are environmental hazards (which there were plenty of outside of these baddies) plus an eclectic mix of 7 different bosses.  The visually distinct look of Birdo, Mouser, Tryclyde, Fryguy, Clawgrip, The Mask Gates and Wart himself, plus the distinct fighting styles of each boss battle helped cement this sequel as the highly st🃏ylized success it was.