23rd April 2010, 11:46 PM
I think that it's just that a lot of people seem to dislike Mario 2 in general, thanks to it being strange, different, and "not a Mario game", so they look for things to criticize it about... and it's too bad, because I've always thought that it's a great game.
It is true that 'it was alll a dream" is often a cop-out ending, but in Link's Awakening particularly it really isn't. The entire game is designed around it being a dream, from long before you become aware of it. It's a rare example of the "it was a dream" ending actually being done really, really well, instead of badly and making the whole thing annoying as is much more common, I think.
Mario 2 is somewhere in between, but the thing is that as GR suggests, the story really doesn't matter much because it's a Mario game. Plot is always somewhere around last on the list for Mario games.
It is true that 'it was alll a dream" is often a cop-out ending, but in Link's Awakening particularly it really isn't. The entire game is designed around it being a dream, from long before you become aware of it. It's a rare example of the "it was a dream" ending actually being done really, really well, instead of badly and making the whole thing annoying as is much more common, I think.
Mario 2 is somewhere in between, but the thing is that as GR suggests, the story really doesn't matter much because it's a Mario game. Plot is always somewhere around last on the list for Mario games.