23rd July 2009, 12:02 PM
I thought I'd review a game that for reasons I'm not sure of has come under fire as being a "black sheep" or otherwise unpopular game in the first Mario trilogy. Basically this is my attempt to defend the game from what I see as recent unfair criticism.
Firstly, a history. As is well known by now, this is a redesign of the game Doki Doki Panic for the Famicom Disk System add-on in Japan. Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan was basically a rehash of Super Mario Bros. 1 but with completely new levels and a vastly steeper difficulty curve. We later recieved that game in Super Mario All-Stars as Lost Levels, and now even the original version, still called Super Mario Bros. 2, can be bought from the Wii shopping channel.
However aside from that basic info, there's some misconceptions. Firstly, many seem to think the difficulty alone was the reason that SMB2 Japan was never released here and they went with Doki Doki instead. That did play a part, but the greater part of the consideration was that SMB2J basically was the same thing again, and there was a fear that retreading the same game would not sell well and they wanted something more unique. This is hardly as insulting as purely "Americans just don't like hard games" and is actually quite a complement. Adding to this is other games, such as Clu Clu Land Plus, which never saw the light of day in the US because they didn't want to just release minor upgrades to games already out. For that matter, some Japanese versions are easier than their US counterparts, such as Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania 3.
That's not the only misunderstanding. Another is that Nintendo just "bought out" the small company that "did all the work" and took the credit by shoving Mario in the game. This couldn't be further from the truth. A little research and it's easy to find the "small company" that made Doki Doki Panic, it was Nintendo EAD! Even more, it was designed by Tanabe! That's someone who, while not Miyamoto, still worked on a large number of the Mario games. Nintendo didn't steal anything. With that origin, replacing the characters basically owned by some other radio station with characters Nintendo actually owned can hardly be considered deceptive or "lazy" in any way. They really did do all the work themselves.
Further though, Miyamoto didn't have much involvement in SMB2J, leaving that to others to work on, so really Doki Doki can be considered more worthy a successor to Mario than that can.
One last thing to point out is that we aren't the ONLY ones that got the modified version of Doki Doki as a Mario game. Japan got the same game, simply renamed Super Mario USA, and it sold better than Doki Doki ever did there too. I would have to imagine based on the poor sales of Doki Doki that even many Japanese kids didn't realize Super Mario USA was a repackaging until years later on the internets.
This isn't to say that SMB2J is a bad game. When I first got a chance to play it, I loved the insane level design and basic torture of the game. However, that said it basically is more like an expansion pack added to Mario 1 than a true sequel. That's not a bad thing, but it has to be said.
What I'm getting at here is that SMB2 isn't some afterthought tossed out to Americans, they put a lot of work into it from the start.
However that's all meaningless if it isn't a good game. Personally though, I consider it great. Further, I'm not the only one. The labels of SMB2 as a "bad Mario game" are pretty recent. Back when it first came out, it was repeatedly at the top of the sales charts, and even after SMB3 came along it still sold very well. It never reached the sales of 1 and 3, but it still sold far better than most other games. Further, for the longest time online reviews had nothing but praise for it's "unique" gameplay. Check older reviews on GameFAQs and you see almost nothing but 9/10 ratings for the game. Further, and this is just personally, but I never had a bad thing to say about the game when I played it as a kid, and neither did anyone I remember playing it with, except that it didn't have a multiplayer mode like 1 and 3. Everyone I knew loved it then.
So, I have to ask why all the recent hate? I'm really note sure, that's beyond the scope of this, but I can only say that it's probably just a passing meme. A similar thing happened with Donkey Kong Country shortly after Rare got sold to MS. Many people started suddenly saying that DKC sucked, when I read nothing but glowing reviews when that game first came out.
I think it's good to look at the game itself now. I'll start with the major changes from Doki Doki. Of course there's the replacement of the characters with Mario characters, but what is surprising (though it shouldn't be considering it had the same developer) is just how much didn't need to be changed at all. There are a lot of things in even the original Doki Doki that were taken straight from Mario. Invincibility stars, for example, had no changes at all.
Here's a list of things that Doki Doki already had from the Mario universe (just as that universe existed at the time):
POW blocks (Mario Bros.)
Coins (Super Mario Bros.)
Starmen (Super Mario Bros.)
That "boing" sound effect for jumping (I think that's as early as Donkey Kong)
Spark enemies (Donkey Kong Jr.)
Vines to climb to reach the sky with clouds you can walk on, complete with climbing sound effect (Super Mario Bros.)
Pipe-style objects you can press down to go into and find secrets, including warp pipes (Super Mario Bros.)
Mushroom houses (Super Mario Bros.)
Something you can throw along the ground to take out lots of enemies (Super Mario Bros)
Cannons firing stuff at you (in this case fire) (Super Mario Bros.)
Fish flying out from the water at you (trouters here instead of bloopers, but the basic enemy type is the same)
It's also worth noting that the cherries were likely inspired by the cherries in Pacman, since Miyamoto is known to be a big fan of that game. Heck, for that matter the stopwatch item that freezes enemies seems to be lifted directly from Zelda 1 (Castlevania uses it too actually).
Now, clearly some of the latter stuff isn't an exact match, instead of shells the things along the ground are weird shrunken heads, the cannons shoot fireballs instead of bullet bills, and the pipes are actually weird vase things, but clearly the spirit is the same, and the rest are clearly directly lifted from the Mario world. The game has a pretty obvious Arabian theme to it, but that's really more of a setting thing than anything, no different than a Mario game set on a tropical island would modify a lot of things to fit a tropical setting (Mario Sunshine anyone?) or a game set in space would change some conventions to be more futuristic (Mario Galaxy?).
In other words, it's almost like this was intended to be a Mario game from the start, and the Doki Doki thing was tacked on later on simply due to that deal being struck with that radio station. It's also possible it was never intended to be a Mario game and it was just Miyamoto's influence that led to so many similarities, but either way it's very striking and makes this game tailor-made to be a Mario game from the very start. Oh yes, and it's notable that the lead character in this game, Papa or whatever, happens to look a lot like Mario. Further, Mario using plants as powerups is pretty well established by SMB1, and with that being the only game to use them to that point, that they are radishes and such rather than mushrooms can be easily forgiven. The spirit is the same, eat your veggies.
It's also worth noting that this game has had a massive lasting impact on the entire Mario series. Here's a list of things that first appeared here that are now staples of the Mario series.
Pokey
Shyguys
Snifits
Bob-ombs
Pidgit (sort of, it was reused in Mario World when you unlocked the Halloween remodel of the world)
Flowers shooting fire at you (Here it's the Panzer rather than a special Piranha plant, but the basic idea is the same, and the Panzer heavily resembles an underwater version found in SMB3)
Bombs Mario himself just picks up and uses to blow stuff up
Gathering keys to open locked doors
Super jumping by ducking first
Mini-games at the end of levels to earn extra lives (SMB3's clearly had a strong inspiration in that it uses the card matching system with a spinning slot machine style reel at the end, only it does it one card at a time instead of 3 at a time)
Picking stuff up and throwing it at the enemy (though not nearly to the same extent as it was here, and done in a different way, it's been a big part of Mario's abilities ever since this game).
The Princess, basically everything about her. (Her sprite in Mario 3 was basically a direct rip from this game, and all those special moves they gave her defined her later on, such as most of her moves in Smash Bros.)
Clearly this game was responsible for a lot of stuff later Mario games would use, so it is hardly some footnote.
So what else was changed when it went from Doki Doki to Mario 2? Well, the characters got changed obviously, and lots of little elements got changed to better fit the Mario universe. The Heart Container items (which are another nod to Zelda) were changed to mushrooms (the littler hearts remained the same, and again are a nod to Zelda). The extra life "character heads" in Doki Doki were changed to 1-up mushrooms (not green as usual but a different look with the word "1-up" on it). Doki Doki had a lot of strange tiki/african style masks in it, and most of these got changed. The stackable masks become mushroom blocks, and the big scary mask at the end of the level was changed to a big scary bird head. The Phanto chasing mask was given a big creepy grin and one of the turnips that was angrier in Doki got a fat faced look here. The slot machine was totally changed from the most boring bland green background in the world to a fancy smancy border. A lot of things that were static sprites before became animated, such as the tufts of grass and the clouds. The condor that had two frames of animation had a much smoother wing flapping animation added. Also, when bob-ombs exploded, it just said "BOM" in Doki but said "Bomb" in SMB2 (still not sure why they didn't change it to "Boom" an actual sound).
The title screen was totally changed, with a story explanation as a new song played. Along those lines, the character selection music and "outside level" music which were brief in Doki Doki were made a lot longer with more sections so they didn't get nearly as old. Further, the arabian sounding music in Subspace for Doki was replaced with good ol' fasioned Mario music. It's notable that the extra life music in Doki Doki was the same, another lift from Mario. Further, the ending credits music was basically a dreamy and expanded remix of the opening music from Doki Doki's title screen and story sequence.
Along those lines, the story was completely changed. In the original, kids are reading a book when suddenly Wart, the villian of the book, comes to life and kidnaps them. The rest of the family rushes in and jumps into the world in the book to rescue them (sort of an Arabian Nights comes to life kind of thing). The changed story is that Mario was dreaming and heard a voice telling him the world of dreams called "Subcon" was in danger and he had to rescue them, and when he went to a picnic with his friends and told them, he found a door in a mountain nearby which led to the world from his dreams, where everyone decided to help the subconians by defeating Wart.
This is another point of contention. A lot of complaints seem to stem from the whole "it was just a dream" thing, like it was all "pointless". Well, as far as I can tell, it wasn't like it was "just all in Mario's head". The story seems to make it very clear that it's more of a "dreams occur in another world and if Mario doesn't save subcon everyone with have nightmares forever thanks to the evil Wart" sort of thing. It seems that Mario is "sharing" his dream with Luigi Toad and the Princess at that, like the picnic was all part of the dream too. The instruction booklet actually mentions a curse on Mario that he has to break by beating Wart, which seems to suggest Mario is under some sleep spell. Mario wakes up to find everything is well and then goes back to sleep again, and all in all I can't really find fault in that. I mean, everyone likes Kirby and all his games take place in dreamland. There's a notable difference between "just a dream" and a "dream world".
The gameplay was largely unchanged from Doki Doki. They basically just added the ability to run by holding down "B". It's pretty easy to infer from this that the entire game can be played without ever using the run button, every single thing in the game can be jumped to, though a few require certain characters like Luigi or Peach. Other than this, the crab boss replaced, gasp, another mouser boss in the original. This one has spikes in his room, oh deary me. The only other notable change was to a small level layout in one of the final levels, making a certain jump to reach a ladder from under some clouds a little less dangerous. There is one other thing to note. Doki Doki had a save system, saving each individual character's progress (notably, one can't just change characters, each must make their own way through all levels). As a result, one has effectively infinite continues. For SMB2, they didn't put in a save system, understandable due to costs of cartridge batteries in those days. However, for some reason they had to make it harder than that and limit the player to two continues. This more than anything extended the gameplay for new players more than it needed to. Two is more than enough, but if you are new, better learn to master that slot machine game. It's especially bizarre seeing as how no other Mario game has limited continues. One can select characters between all stages, and when they use a continue, but not when they die, a rather annoying omission.
Graphically, it's leaps above SMB1, but not quite as good as SMB3. The sound follows the same pattern. While most of the tunes are new, they are all very catchy. This should be no surprise as Koji Kondo composed this game (Both Doki Doki and the remodel) as well as the other Mario games.
The gameplay is pretty addictive. Aside from Mario suffering Belmont-itis with rather slippery bouncing when he gets hurt (at least he can recover from it in the air), the controls are pretty tight. It is a little too easy to slip off vines and ladders though.
The tossing of enemies doesn't get old, which is good because you'll do a lot of it, to do everything in the game. The bosses are all bizzarre and there's enough changing up of them to keep things interesting all the way to Wart. The levels follow a typical "here's a world, and here's 3 stages" pattern. There's no time limit, which is nice, and many have multiple pathways. There's also a number of hidden world warps, found by managing to carry a special "sub space potion" to certain out of the way pipes and entering the pipe in sub space. Ah yes, sub space is interesting. Throw magic potions and you get a door, and inside that door is a dark mirror image of the screen you entered the door at. Here all plants become coins (for a limited number of times) and you may find a hidden mushroom to increase your life. Get your life down to one heart and you shrink, again and you die.
There's plenty of platforming fun to be had across the levels, from hopping from one fish to another to logs and bouncing around albatoss birdies across a mostly bottomless level.
Oh yes, an important mention of the characters. Mario, Luigi, Toad, and the Princess make up the roster, each with their own specialities. Mario is average in all ways, perfect averageness is basically his super power. Luigi jumps higher with "floaty" longer jumps, but his jumps are shorter holding things. Toad jumps the shortest but his jumps are unaffected by holding things (and he's the fastest at plucking things). Princess Peach Toadstool (whatever you want to call her) is very slow at picking things up and her jumps very crippled by holding things, but she has the greatest thing ever, she floats when she jumps.
All in all, I very much enjoyed this game, and still do. They remade it twice, and the second time added a bunch of extras like red coin hunts and such. I'd highly recommend it as another great game in a great series.
Firstly, a history. As is well known by now, this is a redesign of the game Doki Doki Panic for the Famicom Disk System add-on in Japan. Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan was basically a rehash of Super Mario Bros. 1 but with completely new levels and a vastly steeper difficulty curve. We later recieved that game in Super Mario All-Stars as Lost Levels, and now even the original version, still called Super Mario Bros. 2, can be bought from the Wii shopping channel.
However aside from that basic info, there's some misconceptions. Firstly, many seem to think the difficulty alone was the reason that SMB2 Japan was never released here and they went with Doki Doki instead. That did play a part, but the greater part of the consideration was that SMB2J basically was the same thing again, and there was a fear that retreading the same game would not sell well and they wanted something more unique. This is hardly as insulting as purely "Americans just don't like hard games" and is actually quite a complement. Adding to this is other games, such as Clu Clu Land Plus, which never saw the light of day in the US because they didn't want to just release minor upgrades to games already out. For that matter, some Japanese versions are easier than their US counterparts, such as Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania 3.
That's not the only misunderstanding. Another is that Nintendo just "bought out" the small company that "did all the work" and took the credit by shoving Mario in the game. This couldn't be further from the truth. A little research and it's easy to find the "small company" that made Doki Doki Panic, it was Nintendo EAD! Even more, it was designed by Tanabe! That's someone who, while not Miyamoto, still worked on a large number of the Mario games. Nintendo didn't steal anything. With that origin, replacing the characters basically owned by some other radio station with characters Nintendo actually owned can hardly be considered deceptive or "lazy" in any way. They really did do all the work themselves.
Further though, Miyamoto didn't have much involvement in SMB2J, leaving that to others to work on, so really Doki Doki can be considered more worthy a successor to Mario than that can.
One last thing to point out is that we aren't the ONLY ones that got the modified version of Doki Doki as a Mario game. Japan got the same game, simply renamed Super Mario USA, and it sold better than Doki Doki ever did there too. I would have to imagine based on the poor sales of Doki Doki that even many Japanese kids didn't realize Super Mario USA was a repackaging until years later on the internets.
This isn't to say that SMB2J is a bad game. When I first got a chance to play it, I loved the insane level design and basic torture of the game. However, that said it basically is more like an expansion pack added to Mario 1 than a true sequel. That's not a bad thing, but it has to be said.
What I'm getting at here is that SMB2 isn't some afterthought tossed out to Americans, they put a lot of work into it from the start.
However that's all meaningless if it isn't a good game. Personally though, I consider it great. Further, I'm not the only one. The labels of SMB2 as a "bad Mario game" are pretty recent. Back when it first came out, it was repeatedly at the top of the sales charts, and even after SMB3 came along it still sold very well. It never reached the sales of 1 and 3, but it still sold far better than most other games. Further, for the longest time online reviews had nothing but praise for it's "unique" gameplay. Check older reviews on GameFAQs and you see almost nothing but 9/10 ratings for the game. Further, and this is just personally, but I never had a bad thing to say about the game when I played it as a kid, and neither did anyone I remember playing it with, except that it didn't have a multiplayer mode like 1 and 3. Everyone I knew loved it then.
So, I have to ask why all the recent hate? I'm really note sure, that's beyond the scope of this, but I can only say that it's probably just a passing meme. A similar thing happened with Donkey Kong Country shortly after Rare got sold to MS. Many people started suddenly saying that DKC sucked, when I read nothing but glowing reviews when that game first came out.
I think it's good to look at the game itself now. I'll start with the major changes from Doki Doki. Of course there's the replacement of the characters with Mario characters, but what is surprising (though it shouldn't be considering it had the same developer) is just how much didn't need to be changed at all. There are a lot of things in even the original Doki Doki that were taken straight from Mario. Invincibility stars, for example, had no changes at all.
Here's a list of things that Doki Doki already had from the Mario universe (just as that universe existed at the time):
POW blocks (Mario Bros.)
Coins (Super Mario Bros.)
Starmen (Super Mario Bros.)
That "boing" sound effect for jumping (I think that's as early as Donkey Kong)
Spark enemies (Donkey Kong Jr.)
Vines to climb to reach the sky with clouds you can walk on, complete with climbing sound effect (Super Mario Bros.)
Pipe-style objects you can press down to go into and find secrets, including warp pipes (Super Mario Bros.)
Mushroom houses (Super Mario Bros.)
Something you can throw along the ground to take out lots of enemies (Super Mario Bros)
Cannons firing stuff at you (in this case fire) (Super Mario Bros.)
Fish flying out from the water at you (trouters here instead of bloopers, but the basic enemy type is the same)
It's also worth noting that the cherries were likely inspired by the cherries in Pacman, since Miyamoto is known to be a big fan of that game. Heck, for that matter the stopwatch item that freezes enemies seems to be lifted directly from Zelda 1 (Castlevania uses it too actually).
Now, clearly some of the latter stuff isn't an exact match, instead of shells the things along the ground are weird shrunken heads, the cannons shoot fireballs instead of bullet bills, and the pipes are actually weird vase things, but clearly the spirit is the same, and the rest are clearly directly lifted from the Mario world. The game has a pretty obvious Arabian theme to it, but that's really more of a setting thing than anything, no different than a Mario game set on a tropical island would modify a lot of things to fit a tropical setting (Mario Sunshine anyone?) or a game set in space would change some conventions to be more futuristic (Mario Galaxy?).
In other words, it's almost like this was intended to be a Mario game from the start, and the Doki Doki thing was tacked on later on simply due to that deal being struck with that radio station. It's also possible it was never intended to be a Mario game and it was just Miyamoto's influence that led to so many similarities, but either way it's very striking and makes this game tailor-made to be a Mario game from the very start. Oh yes, and it's notable that the lead character in this game, Papa or whatever, happens to look a lot like Mario. Further, Mario using plants as powerups is pretty well established by SMB1, and with that being the only game to use them to that point, that they are radishes and such rather than mushrooms can be easily forgiven. The spirit is the same, eat your veggies.
It's also worth noting that this game has had a massive lasting impact on the entire Mario series. Here's a list of things that first appeared here that are now staples of the Mario series.
Pokey
Shyguys
Snifits
Bob-ombs
Pidgit (sort of, it was reused in Mario World when you unlocked the Halloween remodel of the world)
Flowers shooting fire at you (Here it's the Panzer rather than a special Piranha plant, but the basic idea is the same, and the Panzer heavily resembles an underwater version found in SMB3)
Bombs Mario himself just picks up and uses to blow stuff up
Gathering keys to open locked doors
Super jumping by ducking first
Mini-games at the end of levels to earn extra lives (SMB3's clearly had a strong inspiration in that it uses the card matching system with a spinning slot machine style reel at the end, only it does it one card at a time instead of 3 at a time)
Picking stuff up and throwing it at the enemy (though not nearly to the same extent as it was here, and done in a different way, it's been a big part of Mario's abilities ever since this game).
The Princess, basically everything about her. (Her sprite in Mario 3 was basically a direct rip from this game, and all those special moves they gave her defined her later on, such as most of her moves in Smash Bros.)
Clearly this game was responsible for a lot of stuff later Mario games would use, so it is hardly some footnote.
So what else was changed when it went from Doki Doki to Mario 2? Well, the characters got changed obviously, and lots of little elements got changed to better fit the Mario universe. The Heart Container items (which are another nod to Zelda) were changed to mushrooms (the littler hearts remained the same, and again are a nod to Zelda). The extra life "character heads" in Doki Doki were changed to 1-up mushrooms (not green as usual but a different look with the word "1-up" on it). Doki Doki had a lot of strange tiki/african style masks in it, and most of these got changed. The stackable masks become mushroom blocks, and the big scary mask at the end of the level was changed to a big scary bird head. The Phanto chasing mask was given a big creepy grin and one of the turnips that was angrier in Doki got a fat faced look here. The slot machine was totally changed from the most boring bland green background in the world to a fancy smancy border. A lot of things that were static sprites before became animated, such as the tufts of grass and the clouds. The condor that had two frames of animation had a much smoother wing flapping animation added. Also, when bob-ombs exploded, it just said "BOM" in Doki but said "Bomb" in SMB2 (still not sure why they didn't change it to "Boom" an actual sound).
The title screen was totally changed, with a story explanation as a new song played. Along those lines, the character selection music and "outside level" music which were brief in Doki Doki were made a lot longer with more sections so they didn't get nearly as old. Further, the arabian sounding music in Subspace for Doki was replaced with good ol' fasioned Mario music. It's notable that the extra life music in Doki Doki was the same, another lift from Mario. Further, the ending credits music was basically a dreamy and expanded remix of the opening music from Doki Doki's title screen and story sequence.
Along those lines, the story was completely changed. In the original, kids are reading a book when suddenly Wart, the villian of the book, comes to life and kidnaps them. The rest of the family rushes in and jumps into the world in the book to rescue them (sort of an Arabian Nights comes to life kind of thing). The changed story is that Mario was dreaming and heard a voice telling him the world of dreams called "Subcon" was in danger and he had to rescue them, and when he went to a picnic with his friends and told them, he found a door in a mountain nearby which led to the world from his dreams, where everyone decided to help the subconians by defeating Wart.
This is another point of contention. A lot of complaints seem to stem from the whole "it was just a dream" thing, like it was all "pointless". Well, as far as I can tell, it wasn't like it was "just all in Mario's head". The story seems to make it very clear that it's more of a "dreams occur in another world and if Mario doesn't save subcon everyone with have nightmares forever thanks to the evil Wart" sort of thing. It seems that Mario is "sharing" his dream with Luigi Toad and the Princess at that, like the picnic was all part of the dream too. The instruction booklet actually mentions a curse on Mario that he has to break by beating Wart, which seems to suggest Mario is under some sleep spell. Mario wakes up to find everything is well and then goes back to sleep again, and all in all I can't really find fault in that. I mean, everyone likes Kirby and all his games take place in dreamland. There's a notable difference between "just a dream" and a "dream world".
The gameplay was largely unchanged from Doki Doki. They basically just added the ability to run by holding down "B". It's pretty easy to infer from this that the entire game can be played without ever using the run button, every single thing in the game can be jumped to, though a few require certain characters like Luigi or Peach. Other than this, the crab boss replaced, gasp, another mouser boss in the original. This one has spikes in his room, oh deary me. The only other notable change was to a small level layout in one of the final levels, making a certain jump to reach a ladder from under some clouds a little less dangerous. There is one other thing to note. Doki Doki had a save system, saving each individual character's progress (notably, one can't just change characters, each must make their own way through all levels). As a result, one has effectively infinite continues. For SMB2, they didn't put in a save system, understandable due to costs of cartridge batteries in those days. However, for some reason they had to make it harder than that and limit the player to two continues. This more than anything extended the gameplay for new players more than it needed to. Two is more than enough, but if you are new, better learn to master that slot machine game. It's especially bizarre seeing as how no other Mario game has limited continues. One can select characters between all stages, and when they use a continue, but not when they die, a rather annoying omission.
Graphically, it's leaps above SMB1, but not quite as good as SMB3. The sound follows the same pattern. While most of the tunes are new, they are all very catchy. This should be no surprise as Koji Kondo composed this game (Both Doki Doki and the remodel) as well as the other Mario games.
The gameplay is pretty addictive. Aside from Mario suffering Belmont-itis with rather slippery bouncing when he gets hurt (at least he can recover from it in the air), the controls are pretty tight. It is a little too easy to slip off vines and ladders though.
The tossing of enemies doesn't get old, which is good because you'll do a lot of it, to do everything in the game. The bosses are all bizzarre and there's enough changing up of them to keep things interesting all the way to Wart. The levels follow a typical "here's a world, and here's 3 stages" pattern. There's no time limit, which is nice, and many have multiple pathways. There's also a number of hidden world warps, found by managing to carry a special "sub space potion" to certain out of the way pipes and entering the pipe in sub space. Ah yes, sub space is interesting. Throw magic potions and you get a door, and inside that door is a dark mirror image of the screen you entered the door at. Here all plants become coins (for a limited number of times) and you may find a hidden mushroom to increase your life. Get your life down to one heart and you shrink, again and you die.
There's plenty of platforming fun to be had across the levels, from hopping from one fish to another to logs and bouncing around albatoss birdies across a mostly bottomless level.
Oh yes, an important mention of the characters. Mario, Luigi, Toad, and the Princess make up the roster, each with their own specialities. Mario is average in all ways, perfect averageness is basically his super power. Luigi jumps higher with "floaty" longer jumps, but his jumps are shorter holding things. Toad jumps the shortest but his jumps are unaffected by holding things (and he's the fastest at plucking things). Princess Peach Toadstool (whatever you want to call her) is very slow at picking things up and her jumps very crippled by holding things, but she has the greatest thing ever, she floats when she jumps.
All in all, I very much enjoyed this game, and still do. They remade it twice, and the second time added a bunch of extras like red coin hunts and such. I'd highly recommend it as another great game in a great series.