Why SMB2 is different
By: Adam
  
   

Why was Super Mario Bros. 2 so much different from the standard "run, jump, and stomp" Mario platform games? Well, let me tell you a story about a game called Dream Factory: Doki Doki Panic...

Dream Factory: Doki Doki Panic

The reason SMB2 was so strange is because originally, it wasn't a Mario game! When Nintendo decided to release a Super Mario Bros. 2 in the USA, they took a Japanese game called Dream Factory: Doki Doki Panic and added Mario stuff to it. All Nintendo had to do was change some sprites, and they had a new Mario game in record time. Here are a few changes they made:

Title screen

The Doki Doki Panic screen starts off with three balloons, and each balloon pops and shows the title logo.

Intro

Doki Doki Panic's intro sequence is this: Two kids are reading a book, when a big green hand pops out and yanks them into the book. Their pet monkey runs off to find help. A family finds the book, then decides to jump into it and save the kids. In Super Mario Bros. 2, the intro is just a story about how Mario dreamt about some weird land. Not too exciting.

Character Select screen

In Doki Doki Panic, you choose your character at the start of the game and play all the way through with him/her, saving after you defeat a boss. So basically there are four save files, one for each character. In SMB2, you can pick your character after every level.

Bonus Chance

DDP's Bonus Chance screen is incredibly bland. Even though SMB2 used its Title screen as the background, anything's an improvement over DDP's screen. The cool thing about DDP's bonus chance is that the vegetables change depending on what level you're in. This would've been neat in SMB2, but, oh well.

Mariofied

These are all the items and characters that were changed from DDP to SMB2. Note: The enemies were not changed.

The fast Papa was changed to Mario. The high-jumping Mama was changed to Luigi. This is the first time that Luigi is depicted taller than Mario in a game. The long-jumping sister was changed to Princess Toadstool. The strong brother was changed to Toad.

The grass changed from black to red. In SMB2, when you pull out the red grass, the vegetable you get will still have black grass on top.

The magic lamp that makes a door appear was changed to a magic potion.

The Heart that appears in certain areas of Sub-Space was changed to a Mushroom.

In DDP, the 1-Up item was your current character's head.

The Shell was some sort of black shrunken head thing in DDP.

This Inca mask thing was changed to "Hawkmouth."

The "BOM" explosion was changed to the English "BOMB."

Phanto looks less menacing in DDP.

The Mushroom Blocks were originally these weird clown mask things.

This veggie from World 7 was changed for some reason.

Comatose sprites

In Doki Doki Panic, not very many items were animated. For example, there are no animation frames for Cherries, POW Blocks, vines, grass, Crystal Balls, Bomb fuses, water, and spikes; the animation for these items were added for SMB2.

The Albatoss enemy also has fewer animation frames than its SMB2 counterpart. Phanto does not move when you pick up a key, but he magically appears later to chase you around.

In a somewhat related note, if you get down to one dot on the power meter in DDP, you don't shrink to half your size. This and the "B-Button run" are Mario trademarks, and were duly added to SMB2.

Audible changes

1-Ups make "finish level reward fanfare" noise
Enemies make different noises when picked up/thrown
Birdo makes different noises
Rockets makes different noises
POW Blocks make different noises
Cherry collection makes different noise
Doors/potions make different noises
Mask gates make different noises
You make different noises when hit
Starman and Sub-space music is different
Whale's waterspouts make new gushing noises
Stop-watch noise is slightly different

As you'll notice , only the items and characters were changed to Mario items, and the enemies were left alone, which resulted in some strange new enemies in the "Mario Universe." Stranger yet, the POW Block and Starman—two Mario items—were already in DDP. Coupled with the Mario lookalike "Papa" character, it seems as if DDP was planned to be converted into a Mario game from the start...

Doki Doki (translation: nervous/hysterical) Panic was developed by Nintendo and Fuji TV, and was released for Japan's Famicom Disk System in 1987. According to DDP's intro, the plot goes something like this: Two kids were reading a book, when a big green hand popped out and yanked them into the book. Their pet monkey runs off to find help. A family finds the book, then decides to jump into it and save the kids. I think this is a much better plot than Super Mario Bros. 2's unoriginal "Mario dreams the whole game" plot.

Four years after Super Mario Bros. 2 came out, Nintendo took it, changed the title screen to "Super Mario USA" and released it in Japan. But why did they call it that, and not Super Mario Bros. 2? Read on.

Japan's Super Mario Bros. 2

Before Doki Doki Panic was even released, there already was a Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan. Using the same "engine" as Super Mario Bros., featuring different levels, SMB2(J) was basically a harder version of SMB. Perhaps, too hard...? Deemed too challenging for American players, SMB2(J) was never released in America. Later on, however, SMB2(J) was included in Super Mario All-Stars as "Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels" and in Super Mario Bros. Deluxe as "Super Mario Bros. for Super Players." But even before America got to play SMB2(J), SMB2(USA) was released in Japan as "Super Mario USA." Confused yet?

Here's a few bloopers they made:

The credits have Clawgrip spelled as Clawglip. The reason for this is that in Japanese, R's and L's are interchangable or something.
An enemy is "Hoopstar" in the credits but "Hoopster" in the manual.
An enemy is "Triclyde" in the credits but "Tryclyde" in the manual.
Instruction manual
Page 20, second paragraph:
If you place a door in a certain place, there will be a heart that will increase your life meter.
Change heart to Mushroom. In Doki Doki Panic, it was a heart that would appear. They forgot to change that in the manual for SMB2.
The screen shot of Phanto on page 24 is actually a screen shot of the Phanto from Doki Doki Panic.
In the Enemies section (and credits), the names Birdo (26) and Ostro (27) are switched.

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