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Reviewing the Real Super Mario Brothers 2
An anonymous reader writes "When Mario Brothers 2 for the NES came out in the U.S. in 1988, many people were surprised at how different than the original Mario Brothers it was. The second Mario Brothers title that U.S. audiences know was never designed to be a Mario title at all. Instead, it's a game called Doki Doki Panic that's been modified with Mario sprites. Here's a review of the original Super Mario Brothers 2 as designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and released only in Japan. Nintendo felt that the poison mushrooms, blowing wind, and warps that took you backwards made it too difficult for North American audiences."
I think most of us knew this ages ago. The "real" Super Mario Bros. 2 has been available in collections since the SNES era.
Yeah...this was news in 1988. It's been pretty widely known for a very long time. Good job, Slashdot -- way to keep up on the times.
"Super Mario All-Stars" for the SNES contains this game, retitled "The Lost Levels." The Japanese version of All-Stars, called "Super Mario Collection," contains this game as "Super Mario Bros. 2" and the American Mario 2 as "Super Mario USA."
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From what I've read on Wikipedia, the All-Stars versions of Mario 1 and Lost Levels have a "floatier" jump, which I guess means there's less control of the jumping or something. I don't ever remember noticing that, but it's been a long while since I played either version, and I'm going to bet you'd have to play both side by side to actually notice something like that.
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Luigi jumped higher in the Japanese SMB2 ("The Lost Levels"). If you look at the title screen you'll notice that you have two options: Mario Game and Luigi Game. There was no two-player.
Mario runs faster than Luigi but doesn't jump as high. Luigi jumps higher than Mario but doesn't run as fast. Both characters would "slide" a little when they stopped running - Mario stopped faster than Luigi.
So the jumping thing is canon from the Japanese SMB2, not the American SMB2.
However, Shyguys have appeared in the various Super Mario RPGs (along with other US SMB2 enemies) so it would seem that it's canon-ish, at the very least.
The Wikipedia article on The Lost Levels lists a bunch of gameplay features and comparisons from The Lost Levels. It's worth noting that The Lost Levels version of SMB2 is actually quite a bit easier than the original SMB2 - the Wikipedia article lists why. (In The Lost Levels, you have The ability to save and trestart at any level, so if you find a backwards warpzone you can easily restart the level you started from. The poison mushrooms were changed to be vibrant purple, looking nothing like normal mushrooms. There are other minor changes to enemy AI that makes the game easier as well.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Interestingly, Birdo apparently used to be a transvestite.