Take Super Mario World on the SNES and shrink it down to the Game Boy Advance. Enough said. Really, that’s the gist of Super Mario Advance 2. The game plays exactly the same as the SNES version. Super Mario Advance at least added some new things to Super Mario Bros. 2, like coin challenges, large enemies, and the like. Not so with SMA 2. If you played the original, you know exactly what to expect with its GBA incarnation. But it looks so good, if you don’t have a SNES, you’ll want a Wide Boy or some way to play it on your TV. For those who are looking to import this title next year, it’s got very little Japanese.

The multiplayer portion of SMA 2 wasn’t playable, but on the menu it was listed as Mario Bros Classic. For right now, it’s looking like it won’t be any different than Super Mario Advance. What the hell? Nintendo can’t come up with something different? This would be really disappointing. At least they could toss something like Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. or even Donkey Kong 3…just to add some sort of replay value. That wouldn’t be true multiplayer, but at least it would be something. I guess I would hope Nintendo could be a little more creative than just rehashing something already done.

The title is only 60% complete, and I’m hoping at least 30% of the incomplete aspects are the multiplayer. I loved Super Mario World on the SNES, and I’d like to replay it over again on my GBA, but I’d like some more additions and a couple new multiplayer arenas. Rehashes are only fresh if there’s something new added to them. For a lot of people, I think this game would be pretty stale if they’ve already experienced Super Mario World on the SNES. Time will tell. I’m just hoping for more out of this.