presented by nibbishment
Super Mario Brothers 2 introduced a lot of cool, quirky gameplay aspects to the series, but one of my personal favorites was the idea the jumping onto an enemy’s back might not immediately kill said enemy. The idea of riding on an enemy over an otherwise deadly obstacle opened the game’s level design up to all sorts of interesting possibilities. My favorite of which is today’s moment.
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| All aboard! |
Basically, you hop aboard an albatoss (my favorite SMB2 enemy) and ride it (or one of the other albatosses (there are a couple of connecting flights)) for the duration of the level. There are several spots where some quick maneuvering is required (particularly if you end up on the lower-flying bird, who leads you straight through every dangerous area he can possibly find).
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| “…we may encounter some turbulence… yeah, turbulence. That’s what we’ll call it… “ |
Death By Troggles 
I loved that section. I also prefer to use Luigi, which made that section more difficult than it probably had to be.
I also loved the part in 7-1 that had you go all the way to the right and then hop on an albatoss and head just past a pillar just to the left of the beginning of the level. (sure, you could skip pretty much all of it by executing a jump toward the beginning, but where’s the fun in that?)
I always thought it was even a little underutilized. Can you imagine if they had made it so that you had to pick up a key and jump around on a flock of albatosses slowly heading left as a Phanto chased you from bird to bird?