Super Mario Brothers 2 Cover Art.
It was the third best-selling NES game, having sold for 10 million copies, until its successor Super Mario Bros. 3, also released by Nintendo for the NES, took that title with 18 million copies sold—including from a system and ports. Albeit Super Mario Bros. 3 took that title, Super Mario Bros. 2 remains the 4th best selling NES game.
It is considered by many video game journalists, critics, and publications as one of the best video games of all-time; it is also considered one of the best video games of all-time by video gamers, in the same sense that they, the video gamers, considered it one of the best videos games in the Mario video game series and one of the best for the NES and also one of the best for all of Nintendo consoles.
Electronic Gaming Monthly (often abbreviated as EGM), a monthly American video game magazine, ranked Super Mario Bros. 2 108th out of 200 in one of their monthly issues titled “Greatest Games of Their Time”.
On Wednesday, 14 April, 2010, ScrewAttack Entertainment Limited Liability Company, (commonly known as ScrewAttack, sometimes as ScrewAttack LLC), a video game review and entertainment website and a production studio that creates video game entertainment, including original content, listed the music used in Super Mario Bros. 2 in the battle against the final boss Wart number nine in their web video titled “Top Ten Mario Games”, whilst IGN named it the best in their list titled “8-Bit Final Boss Themes“.
On Monday, 16 April, 2012, GamesRadar, a video game website featuring video game related news, previews, reviews, videos, and guides listed Super Mario Bros. 2 number 6 in their Top 50 gamming list titled “Best NES Games of All Time”.
On Monday, 11 June, 2001, Imagines Games Network (abbreviated as IGN) listed Super Mario Bros. 2 number 18 in their Top 100 gamming list titled “Top 100 NES Games”, citing that “SMB2 offers greater diversity in graphics and gameplay than the original, making it a great bridge game between the other NES Mario titles.”; they also listed the game number 48 on Wednesday, 24 September, 2014, under the category titled “The Top 125 Nintendo Games of All Time”, citing that, “And it’s just funny how you don’t forget how to play” when it comes to not playing it for a long time.
Super Mario Bros. 2 was proceeded by Super Mario Bros. and succeeded by Super Mario Bros. 3, which was released in North America on Sunday, 9 October, 1988.