Nutsy Doodleheimer Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 As most of you or some of you know about the Super Mario Bros. 2 controversy that happened about 30 years ago. As we all know the official sequel that was released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System a.k.a. "The Lost Levels" was never released in North America originally due to it being way too hard and more like a hack than a true sequel. And it wasn't until Summer 1993 we got a first taste of it for the SNES when it was released for the compilation Super Mario All-Stars. Also released as an unlockable in Super Mario Deluxe for the Game Boy Color in 1999, and lastly the official emulated 8 bit game for the Wii Virtual Console in fall 2007. Super Mario Bros. 2 was a port of a Japanese game released in July 1987 for the Famicom Disk System called Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic (Dream Factory: Heart Pounding Panic) Nintendo collaborated with Fuji TV in Japan for development of the game. Shigeru Miyamoto and Koji Kondo designed it. And after great reviews of it. Miyamoto thought that this would be the perfect sequel for North American and European players. After some tinkering and fine tuning Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in fall 1988. While it was released in Japan as Super Mario USA in 1992. So here are the major and obvious differences of the two games courtesy of the mushroom kingdom website. I own Doki Doki Panic and I consider it a great game. The Games Title Screen Story Character Select: In Doki Doki Panic when you select your character, you are stuck with the one you have chosen until you clear 7-2 or get a game over. Level Intro Restarting a level after losing a life Pause Screen Bonus Chance: In Doki Doki Panic the vegetables were in the slots from the corresponding levels. Game Over: Doki Doki Panic uses a save feature due to using a floppy disk. Phanto: In Doki Doki Panic when Phanto was in the key chamber and you pick up th key he would not give chase until you exit the room. In these stages he was never in the chamber. Also he looked less menacing than in Super Mario 2. The Lost Mouser: The World 5-3 boss is Clawgrip in Super Mario 2 while in Doki Doki Panic it is a harder version of Mouser and the third time you battle him. Stargazing: Some of the stars are in different spots or missing. World 4-1: No powerup where the first lamp is located like in Super Mario 2 it appears. World 5-3: 2 tiles of sand were removed under the warp jar in Mario 2, making it difficult to access unless you have Luigi, only way is to hitch a ride on an albatoss. World 6-3: The shortcut to the pyramid in Doki Doki Panic was just jumping down while you had a riskier approach and had to hop a few clouds in Mario 2. World 7-1: The extended cloud platform that was in Doki Doki Panic was removed in Mario 2 making it no access to shortcut your way over the column unless you used Luigi to power jump. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutsy Doodleheimer Posted March 25, 2016 Author Share Posted March 25, 2016 World 7-2: Wart's castle has a different door and windows, different conveyor belts, and different red blocks in his chamber. Endings Difference in characters and items 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutsy Doodleheimer Posted March 25, 2016 Author Share Posted March 25, 2016 Differences in sprites/animations and audibles. In Doki Doki Panic holding down B does not make any of your characters run and when you get to your last health meter your character does not shrink in size. Wart takes 4 hits instead of 6 to defeat him. Mama who is ported to Luigi in Mario 2 does not kick her legs around while jumping while she jumps the same distance, her jumping height is a tad less than Luigi's. In Doki Doki Panic, not many items were animated. For example, there are no animation frames for Cherries, POW Blocks, vines, grass, Crystal Balls, Bomb fuses, water, cloud platforms, and spikes; these were all animated for SMB2. The Albatoss enemy in DDP has fewer animation frames than its SMB2 counterpart. Waterfalls flow very quickly in DDP and were slowed down for SMB2. Audible changes In Doki Doki Panic: The "character select" and "aboveground" music is shorter The Starman and Sub-space background music is different 1-Ups make "finish level reward fanfare" noise Enemies make different noises when picked up or thrown Birdo makes different noises Rockets make different noises POW Blocks make different noises Cherries make a different noise when collected Doors and potions make different noises Mask gates make different noises Your character makes different noises when hit Whales' waterspouts make different gushing noises The Stopwatch's noise is slightly different 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Charlie Cat Posted March 25, 2016 Share Posted March 25, 2016 Hi guys, Great comparison information Keith. The community surely benefits from your works! I always have to give Nintendo credit with Doki Doki Panic into Super Mario Bros. 2 for the American market, and still turn it into a successful title Quite ingenious to say the least on Nintendo's part! Anthony... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutsy Doodleheimer Posted March 25, 2016 Author Share Posted March 25, 2016 Hi guys, Great comparison information Keith. The community surely benefits from your works! I always have to give Nintendo credit with Doki Doki Panic into Super Mario Bros. 2 for the American market, and still turn it into a successful title Quite ingenious to say the least on Nintendo's part! Anthony... I agree. I really think Nintendo of America did the right and smart move by not releasing The Lost Levels here, it would have triggered people not interested in playing video games during the post crash as well as leaving a bad reputation on the behalf of Nintendo. I'm glad they waited a while to release it. I remember first playing the Lost Levels in 1993 and I did agree think it was hard but it took me a couple days to beat it entirely. I now have it on a repro NES cart, Virtual Console, and Famicom Disk System. I play it when I am up for a challenge. Thank you so much for the kind words as well! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybercylon Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 I would have liked to seen Doki Doki Panic released on the VC. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+atari2600land Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Isn't this already here? http://themushroomkingdom.net/smb2_ddp.shtml Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutsy Doodleheimer Posted March 26, 2016 Author Share Posted March 26, 2016 Isn't this already here? http://themushroomkingdom.net/smb2_ddp.shtml I guess you didn't read the first post........ As most of you or some of you know about the Super Mario Bros. 2 controversy that happened about 30 years ago. As we all know the official sequel that was released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System a.k.a. "The Lost Levels" was never released in North America originally due to it being way too hard and more like a hack than a true sequel. And it wasn't until Summer 1993 we got a first taste of it for the SNES when it was released for the compilation Super Mario All-Stars. Also released as an unlockable in Super Mario Deluxe for the Game Boy Color in 1999, and lastly the official emulated 8 bit game for the Wii Virtual Console in fall 2007. Super Mario Bros. 2 was a port of a Japanese game released in July 1987 for the Famicom Disk System called Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic (Dream Factory: Heart Pounding Panic) Nintendo collaborated with Fuji TV in Japan for development of the game. Shigeru Miyamoto and Koji Kondo designed it. And after great reviews of it. Miyamoto thought that this would be the perfect sequel for North American and European players. After some tinkering and fine tuning Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in fall 1988. While it was released in Japan as Super Mario USA in 1992. So here are the major and obvious differences of the two games courtesy of the mushroom kingdom website. I own Doki Doki Panic and I consider it a great game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7800fan Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Long ago I found an oddity with SMB2 and it's probably because no one expected that player would intentionally balance players out so the game would end with all 4 players having equal contribution. Normally the one played the most are declared the contributor. But if you managed to get 2, 3, or even 4 with the same highest contribution points, only the left most character gets declared contributor. A minor oversight as I guess most players weren't expected to play all characters equally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+atari2600land Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Sorry, I didn't see that. Never mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classicgamer_27330 Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Long ago I found an oddity with SMB2 and it's probably because no one expected that player would intentionally balance players out so the game would end with all 4 players having equal contribution. Normally the one played the most are declared the contributor. But if you managed to get 2, 3, or even 4 with the same highest contribution points, only the left most character gets declared contributor. A minor oversight as I guess most players weren't expected to play all characters equally. wrong 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynicaster Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Very cool, thanks for sharing. SMB2 is one of my favorite NES games, and probably my favorite SMB game. I suppose I could just Google this, but since I'm here... is the Doki Doki ROM available from the usual sources? Would it play on a NES emulator? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutsy Doodleheimer Posted March 26, 2016 Author Share Posted March 26, 2016 Very cool, thanks for sharing. SMB2 is one of my favorite NES games, and probably my favorite SMB game. I suppose I could just Google this, but since I'm here... is the Doki Doki ROM available from the usual sources? Would it play on a NES emulator? Great question. I believe you need to have a Famicom Disk System BIOS ROM due to having to eject/insert the disks during the initial gameplay and you just toggle that. I don't have any FDS ROMS installed in my NES emulators. There should be some youtube videos showing you how to do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbd30 Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Yes, you can easily play FDS roms such as "Doki Doki Panic" on a NES emulator. You just need to download the FDS bios. I've played the original Japanese "Super Mario Bros. 2" this way, and Nintendo was right to not release that here. There would have been some frustrated, disappointed kids had they released that. American SMB2 is way better and more groundbreaking even if it didn't start out as a Mario game. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyHW Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Thank you for reminding me what a great game this is. Maybe I'll fire up the emulator tonight. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikey.shake Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 (edited) I love love love the US version of Super Mario Bros 2. I don't think it's the best of the early games, but it might be my favorite. When it came out, it was the right mix of "sunny" and "psychedelic" to jive with my sensibilities. As much as I love it, I wasn't as fond of SMB3 when it came out. I saw the obvious merits (it's one of the best games ever), but I liked the world that SMB2US imported from DDP more than the color palette and "throwback to SMB1" style (or so I saw it at the time) that appeared in SMB3. All that said, I just wanted to point out that one of the crown jewels of my modest little Famicom collection is Super Mario USA - the US version of the game sent BACK over the ocean to Japan (and a legitimate game, to my knowledge -- not a bootleg). It's common, nothing rare or expensive, but I love that it exists, and in my eyes legitimizes the US version even more when people rag on it for not being "real". I actually picked up a couple of packs of "Nintendo Game Pack" trading cards from '89 at my local retro game store today. My wife and I love that they (along with the Super Mario Bros Super Show) are from this weird period after SMB2US and before SMB3 -- so since nobody was sure which elements were going to stick around, there's a LOT more influence from SMB2US in the overall aesthetic. [Mrs. S also sniffed me out a copy of Hogan's Alley with a Famicom converter inside for four bucks. The second one she's scored in the wild. She knows how to spot them now, it's great.] Edited March 26, 2016 by mikey.shake 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gentlegamer Posted March 26, 2016 Share Posted March 26, 2016 Super Mario Bros. 2 is my favorite Mario game. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enoofu Posted March 27, 2016 Share Posted March 27, 2016 Lost Levels is a pretty fun game, and isn't as hard as some people believe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybercylon Posted March 27, 2016 Share Posted March 27, 2016 Lost Levels is a pretty fun game, and isn't as hard as some people believe It's okay, but I still think Nintendo made a good move... I think if Lost Levels was the one that had been released, it would have been viewed as more of the same but somewhat harder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7800fan Posted March 27, 2016 Share Posted March 27, 2016 wrong Hmmm maybe it was early version of SMB2? I'd have to play my copy and see what's up. AFAIK there's 2 different versions of ROM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classicgamer_27330 Posted March 28, 2016 Share Posted March 28, 2016 Might want to try that out, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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