My Super Mario Advance (GBA) Review by LusterPurge94

• submitted by LusterPurge94
• posted 4 months ago
• 0 of 0 recommend this review

Have you ever seen a game, movie, or book that you absolutely loved, and when you heard a sequel was coming out, rushed to get it, only to find that it was terrible compared to the original?

I'm sure that's how many people felt about *Super Mario Bros. 2.*

The original *Super Mario Bros.* was a classic, and is considered one of the best Mario games to date. The second one, however, didn't quite make it to expectations. Now, it was okay, but it wasn't as good as Super Mario Bros. 1 or its sequel, Super Mario Bros. 3.

This game was ported over to the Game Boy Advance in the early 2000s, in the form of the game *Super Mario Advance.* This game was basically the same as the original with several added twists.

The one major problem that I have with this game, as well as the original, is this - what happened to Mario? In any other Mario game you can think of - Super Mario Bros. 1 and 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario RPG, even Super Mario Galaxy - Mario is able to stomp on enemies. In this game, however does he? No.

No. He can jump on most enemies, but for some reason he only rides on their back and it doesn't kill them. How does he kill enemies, then? (It took me like a week before I figured this out, mainly because I didn't read the instruction manual first) He has to pull up vegetables from the ground (which you can see from blades of red grass poking out of the ground) and throw them at enemies to kill them.

That is ridiculous! If you started playing this game without knowing anything about it, would you have ANY idea that you have to pick stuff up from the ground and throw them at enemies? I sure didn't, and I'm sure thousands of other people across the world were clueless at first, too.

This is very annoying in the Boss levels, when all you can do is either toss back whatever the Boss tosses at you, or pick up yet more veggies and do the trick. WHY VEGETABLES??!! Why is this Mario game the only one where you can't kill your enemies by jumping on them?

Aside from this, there's the music. Now, I know that the early Mario games only had the same tune repeated over and over, but could they not have used more level tunes for different levels? I mean, for all 20 levels, you hear the same old tune over and over and over again. The tune is different only when you're in a cave, and even then the actual tune lasts only about 9 seconds, and repeats endlessly.

The Final Boss music is pretty good, but the Miniboss and Boss music is so bland. It only uses three different notes! Whoever composed the music for this game should have done a much better job.

Now, aside from everything I have mentioned so far, Super Mario Advance is a pretty fun game overall. It's a nice challenge, and there's a decent variety of levels- there are seven "Worlds", the first six with three "Areas" and the last one with two Areas. Worlds 1, 3, and 5 are grassy areas Worlds 2 and 6 are deserts. World 4 is an ice land. World 7 is a sky area, where the final Boss resides.

The plot of the game is that Mario, Peach, Toad, and Luigi were going on a picnic, when they discovered a door that opens to another dimension. They are asked for help, as the evil toad, "Wart," has taken over the land. Mario and his friends must stop Wart by traversing through these 20 levels.

You can play as four characters - Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad. Each character has certain advantages and disadvantages. For instance, Toad has top-notch strength and speed, but a wimpy jump. Peach is not very strong or fast, but she can float when jumping for a few seconds.

My final say in the game is - it's decent, but not as good as Super Mario Advance 2, which is a port for Super Mario World.