You can argue I’ve reviewed this before. Super Mario Advance is for the most a part of Super Mario Bros 2 which I reviewed back in 2018… wow… 8 years.

But I think that while the changes are somewhat small, there is enough to validate looking into this version of the game. Plus it was on the GBA player on my Switch so I had easy access and felt like giving it a run through again between playing Sonic Generations and starting up Shadow Generations.

As mentioned above this was a GBA game, and in fact was one of the 2 launch games for the console. I fondly remember getting it and the GBA when it came out, getting that Glacier colour they don’t do in consoles anymore, where it was semi transparent and you could see the inner parts. I recall originally wanting to just get the console from one of my parents, I think my mother thought it would be a bit of a waste not to get a game specifically for it, despite that I could play my classic Gameboy games which by this point included the first 2 Pokémon Generations.

At the start up of the game, you have 2 choices Mario Brothers or Super Mario 2. Mario Brothers is the game featuring Mario and first appearance of Luigi taking down creatures coming out of pipes, it goes on endlessly as you rank up points. So the main focus is on Mario 2’s adaptation.

Both the games have the updated graphics from the All Star collection released on the SNES. It starts the same but you now find an additional counter of something to find in each level. As you reach the bottom of the first screen you will spot 2 other additions. First is a giant Shy Guy, and second one of the platforms is a creature that then springs up raising the platform.

Those collectables mentioned earlier are a main additional challenge, the Red Star Coins. There are 5 in each level and while not giving any gameplay reward for getting them all other than an extra life, it’s a bonus challenge with an alteration to the start up screen signalling your success.

Similarly once you beat the game you unlock an extra mode which now has Yoshi eggs hidden in the level. These are harder to find because they are in subspace rather than being hidden in the main overworld of each level. Once again it doesn’t really change the gameplay, just a bonus challenge for the sake of completionism.

The actual game play changes can be found all out. Some items have been moved, the mushrooms for increasing your HP are in some levels in different places, and as you find in the very first screen, there are now giant versions of the enemies that move about. These don’t make the levels any harder though.

The biggest change comes in that the 3rd End of World Boss has been altered. Before this was the second fight against Mouser But now you fight a large robot Birdo instead. That Second Mouser having been moved over to the end of world 6. With the Robirdo boss you then can’t help but notice, its sprite work, as well as any parts of the game that use new sprites, are quite different than those for the original content. Maybe it was harder to notice when it was on the original GBA screen with no backlight, but running it on even the Switch’s handheld mode, you can see it quite clearly.

One slight annoyance with this version is the sprites, and thus how far the screen shows is ever so slightly larger than it was on the NES and SNES versions. You won’t really notice it with this game except for the moments of digging, where before it wouldn’t need to pan left and right, but now it is just so ever so much smaller you can start to see it at these sections. Fortunately this is a Mario game and not a Sonic game, and won’t make it harder, but it’s just a little niggle in me when spotting it.

It’s hard to say if I’d recommend this version over the All Stars iteration. There are tweaks to it that give more things to do, and mechanically I wouldn’t say it’s worse. But … it’s hard to put my finger on it, maybe the slightly smaller screen, or the strange sensation of seeing sprites that don’t quite fit. They do give the bosses voice lines, the player characters too… I don’t know, it’s up to you which you prefer.

Rating : 🎮🎮🎮