Paid $36.87 shipping included Feb. 2021
Keeping in mind, we were very poor, so I knew it would generally be many, many, many months until the other kids would trade off the newer games with me. I was soooooo looking forward to this one! Well, one my friends at school, his parents just got this one for him on like day one of release! (that was something only in my dreams) and it turns out, he didn't like it!
Turns out, latter on, I'd learn he was far from alone but he was the only kid I knew who didn't like at my school. So anyway, he told me just give me anything for it! So I traded him a game for it and got to play a new release! I LOVED it! This would end up being my personal fav out of the 3 released on the system (4 if you count the og Mario bro's). This was the final top 5 of all Nintendo games. Who knows how many times I've beaten this one. Sure, we all know the story now how it's not a "real" Mario game but I didn't care then and I don't care now. I still love it. A few things that made me fall right in the love with this one right off the bat, was no more timer and you were free to backtrack unlike the first Mario game. To me, it felt far more "freeing". That was the first, then there were different bosses, not just always the same exact browser at the end of every dungeon like the first. I love how the characters all had different moves and handling! I actually wanted to be Luigi in this one! I play as him to this day, every time I have a play through. It was where Super Mario needed to go. Had we just got another game like the first, it would have just flopped. Especially now knowing all they did was make it insanely harder. So glad we ended up getting this. It turned out to be one of my all time favs!
