In art class today, a group of us started talking about the first three Super Mario Bros. games, specifically, the final bosses and what happened in each game after you won. It turned out that none of us had beaten Super Mario Bros. 2 (the game that allows you to play as Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool or Toad, has that heart meeter thing for health, magic doors that you conjure up with pink potions, and uses vegetables like radishes and turnips as weapons). Could somebody who has beaten the game let me in on the ending? Thanks a lot.
Turns out it was all a dream. IIRC the end shot after you beat the boss shows Mario in bed in a nightcap with a dream balloon showing you celebrating your final victory.
It also shows how many times each character was used. This site has screenshots.
Dream sequence! Pah! What a let down. Oh well. If I’d actually beaten it, though, then I’d really feel thouroughly cheated. Thanks again for the info, Amp and Number. 
This is all IIRC, since I haven’t seen this in 13 years.
After you kill the easiest boss on the planet by feeding him vegetables, he sinks from the screen, blowing bubbles out of his mouth. Then all the cute furry things are let out of a jar with a cork. They have a parade where they drag the boss’s corpse out of town.
Then credits roll - not the people who made the game, but all of the characters in the game - with Mario asleep in the background. He opens one eye, and he gives a distinct impression that he is winking. Then he closes the eye and goes back to sleep.
Can’t believe I remember this much about it.
[hijack]How does Super Mario 3 end?[/hijack]
[hijack continue]I don’t remember everything from the ending, Engywook, but I do remember that you rescue the princess and she tells you something along the lines of “Thank you for saving me, Mario… but the princess is in another castle. Ha ha, just kidding…” yah, I sure thought that was funny when I first beat it. hehe[/hijack continue]
Of the 3 SMB games, the second one is probably my favorite (even though the ending was a bit of a let-down).
LilShieste
You guys 'n gals do know that Super Mario Bros 2. was originally a Japanese game with an Arabic theme, right? Mario got shoehorned into the game because Nintendo felt the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 was too tough for 'mericans.
And, if you’ve played SMB 2 through the All-Stars game on the SNES, you may tend to agree. It’s very hard.
The Arabic-themed game was called Doki Doki Panic in Japan. Nintendo basically replaced the turban-wearing hero with Mario and the other familiar characters. That explains the flying carpets, at least!
Number’s link has screen shots to all the four NES/Famicom Super Mario Bros. games. But it’s not the original games; it’s the remakes on SNES, called Super Mario All-Stars. Same action, but rather different graphics.
Mario 2’s ending was foreshadowed, somewhat. It takes place not in the Mushroom Kingdom, but a bizarre world called Subcon.
Re: Being upset that it was all a dream.
IIRC, the opening of the game says it is a dream.
The story introduction stated that Mario had a strange dream one night about the people of Subcon who were cursed by the evil Wart. They beg Mario to come and save them. The next day he goes for a picnic with Luigi, Toad, and the Princess, and they find a door inside a cave. Going through the door Mario ends up in a world just like that in his dream. This is the door you fall from at the very beginning of the first level.
Yes, you’re right…I do remember something about that from the openers, now that you mention it, HoldenCaulfield. Regardless, though, Engywook made me reassess my disappointment…furry things are freed from a jar prision after a ritualistic de-corking ceremony. Best end sequence ever.
I never realized how weird that was until now. Almost Mussilini-like.
I can’t remember Super Mario 3’s ending. I don’t think I beat it. I read it somewhere, but I can’t remember it
Super Mario Bros 1 and 2 were the only ones I ever beat. For some reason, I found Super Mario Bros 2 ridiculously easy, I beat it on my first try, only dying two or three times. I was surprised to see that some people found it harder than the others. Of course, some people say Contra is the hardest game they ever played and I was able to play it indefinitely on one life after a 3 day rental.
French:No, we won’t help you find a princess. You see, we already got one.
Mario:You what?
French:I told him we already got one (snickers)
(Don’t mind little wiseass me:) )
Count me as someone who found SMB2 the hardest of them all. I’ve never beat; I don’t think I ever made it past the 2nd final enemy!
SMB3 on the other hand was pretty easy…with the two warp whistles you only had to play maybe 4(??) levels to reach the final one. Then you just had to jump around a lot. I beat it a lot, but I can’t remember the ending either
Yep. At a minimum, you could play 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and World 1 Fortress. You could then warp to World 8 and play through the first tank level, the ship level, possibly the three quick levels, the airship level, 8-1, 8-2, the World 8 Fortress, the second tank level, and Bowser’s Castle. That’s a total of 11 levels you had to play. SMB3, though, had the most levels (I think somewhere in the 80s total), and also the shortest levels.
In Super Mario Bros. you only had to play 8 levels (1-1, 1-2, 4-1, 4-2, 8-1, 8-2, 8-3, and 8-4) out of 32.
SMB2 featured a meager 20 levels total, so the fact that you could get by with only 10 (1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 4-1, 4-2, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3, 7-1, and 7-2) is probably kind of deceptive.
SMW, the last of the classical Mario games, also had a quick way to win. 12 levels (Yoshi’s Island 2, 3, 4; #1 Iggy’s Castle, Donut Plains 1, Donut Secret 1, Donut Secret House, Star World 1, 2, 3, 4; Front Door) out of (IIRC) 74. Note: Many SMW levels actually had two exits, so to get through the whole game you had to play some levels twice, whereas in SMB1-3, it’s impossible to play a level again once you’ve finished it. Counting exits instead of levels, the total for SMW was 96.
None of these games featured any kind of good story or ending. If you want a Mario game with an ending, play Mario RPG or Paper Mario.
SMB1 is the hardest, IMHO. Then it’s SMB2 then SMB3. But overall I like SMB3 because if you want to make it a challenge, you can. For example, try killing Bowser at the end using fireballs. (The hard part is getting to him while still having the fire ability.) Or with hammers. That’s fun.