The Gaming Historian - Super Mario Bros. 2 / Doki Doki Panic!

Of all the Mario Games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Mario Bros. 2 is the black sheep. When it came out, it was a completely different game than the first Super Mario Bros. While some core ideas such as mushrooms and coins were included, the levels were radically different, as well as the characters, enemies, and the gameplay. Luckily there is a perfect explanation for this change. Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn’t originally a Mario game! It’s interesting how many people are unfamiliar with this neat piece of history. However, some people who know about this get pretty upset and some even don’t consider Super Mario Bros. 2 as a Mario game. Today we are going to take a look at the history behind Super Mario Bros. 2 and the impact it had on gamers and the Mario franchise.

I guess the best place to start would be with the original Super Mario Bros. This game did a lot for not only Nintendo, but for the video game industry. It helped end the North American Video Game Crash and is responsible for the success of the Nintendo Entertainment System. To this day it has sold 40 million copies, which makes it the 2nd best selling video game of all time (right behind Wii Sports). Obviously with such a successful game, Nintendo would release a sequel. Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in 1986 in Japan. It was very similar to the first game, but the difficulty had been increased. Howard Lincoln, the president of Nintendo of America at the time, felt that Super Mario Bros. 2 was simply too hard, and not very innovative. While the game did bring some new ideas, it was essentially the same style of gameplay.

Meanwhile, Shigeru Miyamoto was working on another game known as Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic. Translated, this means Dream Factory: Heart-Pounding Panic. This game was created for the Dream Factory Festival of 1987, which was being hosted by Fuji Television. Everything in the game was created by Nintendo except the four main characters, which were the official mascots of the festival. Doki Doki Panic was released in 1987 on the Famicom Disk System. Nintendo of America decided to take Doki Doki Panic, make some slight changes, and release it in the United States as Super Mario Bros. 2

The four main characters in Doki Doki Panic are Mama, Papa, Imajin, and Lina. Mario replaced Imajin, Princess replaced Lina, Luigi replaced Mama, and Toad replaced Papa. There were also some other minor changes, such as adding a new boss, Clawgrip, at the end of World 5-3, and the flow of the waterfalls in certain levels. To explain all of these radical changes in the Mario Universe, Nintendo changed the ending as well, claiming the entire game was a dream Mario was having. Now, all of these changes are minor, but the impact of what Nintendo did was actually surprising. Word that Nintendo had simply taken another game and made it a Mario game upset a lot of people.

However, in 1993 Nintendo would release Super Mario All-Stars for the Super Nintendo. Super Mario All-Stars included remakes of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros 3, as well as a game titled “Super Mario: The Lost Levels”. This game is actually the Japanese Super Mario Bros 2. You can also play the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 on the Game Boy Color game, Super Mario Bros Deluxe. It is an unlockable in the game known as Super Mario Bros: For Super Players, noting the difficulty of the game. It was also remade on the Game Boy Advance known as Super Mario Advance. And Finally, it is available on the Wii Virtual Console as Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels for 600 wii points. Japan would also get a release of the US version of Super Mario Bros 2. known as Super Mario USA in 1992.

It surprises me how many people don’t enjoy the North American version of Super Mario Bros. 2 simply because of the history behind it. However, there are actually quite a few staples of the Mario series that were first introduced in Super Mario Bros 2. Shy Guy has appeared in numerous Mario games, including Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario RPG, and Mario Power Tennis. Bob-omb’s have shown up in just about every Mario game after Super Mario Bros 2. Pokey has evolved since Super Mario Bros. 2, but has appeared in other games, including Super Mario 64. Birdo has become a staple character and has appeared in several Mario games, including Super Mario RPG, Mario Tennis, and Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Even the final boss, Wart, has made appearances. The character Wart Jr. is in Animal Crossing, and a character named “Mamu”, who looks very similar to Wart, appears in Links Awakening on the Game Boy.

In my opinion, Super Mario Bros 2. should be considered a Mario game and the impact it had on the series is evident...even if the original game was just one big dream.