One of my most prized possessions as a youngster was my silver Game Boy Advance. Remember how you had to bring a link cable if you wanted to be able to play a two player game with your friends? Ah, good times. I loved getting a new game cartridge and knowing that there were hours of fresh, new gameplay ahead of me. Super Mario Advance 2 was one of my absolute favorites, and it’s still proving to be super fun today.
Wish you had a different life? Mario gets new ones all the time!
I love how there’s basically a fresh life shop on level one where you can take out that line of red turtles with the green shell and build your lives back up. If you’re greedy for a nice supply of lives before you hit up the first castle, you can do what I do and collect these 1UPs and then stroll off your nearest cliff and repeat. My poor little Mario. He leads a tough life (lives?).
Finding the secret areas and exploring all the hidden aspects of the game are of course the best parts. I’m still not sure if these walkways in the skies are supposed to be happy little clouds or smiling bicuspids. They’re in such a perfect alignment my money’s on cheerful chompers who have enjoyed some orthodontic time.
The first castle is all about lava. I think the first time I played this game way back when, I spent way too much time figuring out how to beat this level. Those darn Thwomps would always mess me up when I had run out of performance enhancing mushrooms. Mario is such a druggie, what a great role model.
Okay, I know you’re feeling the nostalgia. Go ahead and rummage through those old boxes and pull out your Nintendo games. I know you want to! You can find it for the Wii U Virtual Console right here, or you can even still find the cartridge right here.