Tendo City

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/...bros-2.ars

Wow, talk about full circle. Super Mario Bros. 2 (or Super Mario USA) as we all know was originally based on an earlier Nintendo game called Doki Doki Panic. I've made my own <a href="http://www.tcforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5548">review</a> going on about how too many dismiss it as "not a true Mario game" just because of that history, even though even as Doki Doki Panic it had a lot of Mario elements in it. Now it's come to light that Doki Doki Panic originally started as a prototype for a new Mario game. In other words, it started out as a Mario game all along and got hijacked into being Doki Doki along the way thanks to a liscensing deal in Japan.

This certainly adds an interesting new chapter to this funky game's history.

Another interesting bit of info is the original version would have been a two player co-op game, with players tossing each other around along with blocks and so on. That would have been cool! Anyone ever played the Capcom Chip and Dale game? I imagine it would have felt similar to that.

I think it would be cool if they stuck Doki Doki on the Virtual Console. They already stuck Super Mario Bros 2 (Lost Levels) Famicom version on there, and I have it. I'd certainly pick that up just to see for myself the little changes between the two versions. I don't think there'd be any language issues. They've released other Japanese games with far more Japanese text before without a problem, and I'm pretty sure the only thing I wouldn't be able to read is the title screen (hint, that's already widely known at this point). The only issue I can think of is those characters are apparently mascots for some trade fair in Japan at the time and Nintendo may need to get permission before they can release the game again.

I found an amazing speed run of SMB2.

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Wow...

That's pretty interesting... it started as a vertical-scrolling Mario concept? Huh. I assume the critics now will say something about how because Miyamoto didn't come up with the original idea it doesn't "count", or something like that, but it's interesting information to know. So it was Mario originally.

Also, too bad it didn't end up with co-op, it'd have been pretty cool to see.

And yeah, I've always liked Mario 2. Good game.

I never had a problem with it being "so different" as a kid. It still felt like Mario to me, but then again who as a kid would have had all the future Mario games to compare it to in order to say it was different? All there was was SMB1, and that was "so different" from Mario Bros. The biggest thing I enjoyed was that the screen could scroll both ways unlike the first one.

I will say this though. It was a disappointment that multi player wasn't in it. That's also true of Lost Levels though. Sure, multi player in those old Mario games was just alternating, but that didn't stop my siblings and friends from enjoying taking turns in the games that had it. Apparently technical issues prevented them from using the simultaneous multi player mode, but it's still an interesting thought, and an interesting project for a fan mod.

I remember seeing some gaming site or another recently review SMB2 since it was put on the Virtual Console. They rated it "low" (8 is considered low these days as we all know) because, as they put it, it was "insulting to American players to think they couldn't handle the difficulty of Lost Levels". Is a perceived insult really worth bashing the game over? It sounds pretty stupid, considering the rest of the review was generally positive. All I can say is SMB2 is certainly not as hard as Lost Levels, but it's no push over itself. Partly due to the continue limit added to the US version (easier here huh?), it can be a pretty challenging game in it's own right. That, and from what I've read it was less about difficulty and more about Lost Levels being too similar to the first game, which is a pretty good argument really. Considering that Lost Levels is ALSO on Virtual Console, which is the format they were reviewing the game in, they had no business complaining about it for that reason. However, big name news sites these days care more about catering to public opinion than actually being fair about reviews. The recent Splatterhouse game actually turned out, to me at least, a lot better than all the hate reviewers gave it led me to believe. Also, let's not forget how every single time FF6 and FF4 are brought up, they seem to forget the countless times since the SNES days those games have been brought over here, always once again claiming that the game is "known in the US as FF3/FF2", which realistically, it isn't, and hasn't been for longer than they ever were known as that here.

Super Mario Bros. 2 was always very special to me. I owned the first and third games, never the second, but I did play the hell out of it nonetheless. Before I got my Genesis at the age of 11, summers consisted of my sister and I being allowed to rent three NES games every three days for the duration of break (a local drugstore/market named PharMor rented them at $1.50 each for three days). Ostensibly, the idea was that one of us would get to pick two games one time, the other got two the next time. In practice, we would always pick one each and Super Mario Bros. 2 would be the third by mutual consent. Why we never actually bought the game is a valid question, probably because it seemed a waste to buy a game we'd rented so many dozens of times. In any case, eventually, we got a Super NES and Super Mario All-Stars, rectifying the problem forever.

For me, a third of why I loved it so much was because it was the one I could not slap in (after blowing on it for a half-hour) and play any time I wanted. A third was because it was that much different than the two games which sandwiched it. The rest was because I was a faithful viewer of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, which used at least as much material from Super Mario Bros. 2 as it did the original, and the characters in the show visually resembled their depictions in the second game much more than in the original. Plus, all four playable characters shared screen time. It defined the show for me in ways the original did not. For all those reasons, it has a very dear place in my heart.

That's pretty cool there.

I remember playing that game with my aunt and uncle. I mostly rented as a kid myself, and it was always friends that owned the majority of their games. I also remember that Mario show being heavily based on SMB2. Super Mario All-Stars rectified it all for me as well, and later on I eventually bought a used copy of SMB2 NES (for the sake of completeness). Even though I rented a lot of them, I rented them often enough that it still felt like I "owned" them. Ah Blockbuster... Considering how much of my childhood it fueled, you'd think I would be more strongly affected by them going bankrupt, but nothing. Really all I want is to find out if they still have some warehouse full of old cases for cartridge games that I could buy a bulk set of, or even buy some actual used games from way back when. About the only thing they are selling now that interests me at all are their shelves. 1 for $75, 3 for $100. The first is a terrible deal, the second is a pretty good deal, but I don't need 3 of them :D.

Wow as cool as that is, 4 Mario games at once makes my brain hurt.

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