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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.
the same reason that geeks look at porn...
As mentioned at the end of TFA, a SNES reworking of the real SMB2 came out on the Super Mario All Stars cartridge as the Lost Levels. Also, hunting down a copy of the Doki Doki Panic ROM for NES emus is worth the time. It's kind of bizarre playing that game again without the cast of Mario characters.
This guy's the limit!
I've always found it odd that even though the US SMB2 wasn't considered canon, some parts of it have managed to make their way into the real Mario world anyway, Birdo, Shyguys, the fact that Luigi can jump higher than Mario, Princess Peach floating...
"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."
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The Mushroom Kingdom is the best site I've seen for the Marioverse... they have a very good Doki Doki and SMB2 comparison.
Nintendo had a few oddball "2"s... I'm one of those oddball gamers who preders Legend of Zelda 2 to the original, I really dig SMB2 (it was the first game that made me think 'wow, THIS is a VIDEOGAME???', it looked that good).... and the way that Starfox 2 was never released is a serious tragedy, it really was poised to take the series in some interesting directions, N64 is just pedestrian eye-candy in comparison...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
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.
Insert Sig Here
The only reason Mario ended up with a mustache was because programmers needed some sort of feature to show that he had a mouth.
Can someone explain to me why a game released in Japan was thought to be "too difficult" for players in the U.S.? Are we American's just wimps when it comes to video games? Are the Japanese really that superior to us in the arena of manipulating a pixelated plumber?
It may not be bleeding edge news, but original NES titles like this are worth talking about and appreciating. Shigeru Miyamoto is, IMO, one of the most brilliant game designers ever... obviously, right? I don't remember where I read/heard this, but one of his game design "virtues" is eliminating everything between the player and the game; i.e., there's no controller in your hand, no TV, no console... just you and a game. Some games today do this well; with such sophisticated 3D graphics and surround sound, it seems like it should be easy. But the NES has only a few colors and rinky-dink sound, it's hardly accurate in any regard (simulation or otherwise). But Miyamoto and Nintendo accomplished this virtue amazingly well; they still do as far as I'm concerned. And no, I'm not a Nintendo fanboy, the last Nintendo product I bought was a SNES.
;) Even without an article at all, old game history like this is a lot of fun to talk about, IMO. If you don't think it's interesting, or you already know everything there is to know about classic video games, you don't have to read the article or post a reply.
Nintendo in and of itself isn't like any other game company, and I think they're particularly interesting. They're over 100 years old... have been in everything from playing cards, to a taxi service at one point, and minute rice... and are still one of the big three game console manufacturers (the oldest one that remained successful, I might add). To rant a little... this is why when people talk about "gee, Nintendo's all washed up, Sony and MS have way better hardware", you've got to be kidding me - they're not going anywhere! And hardware isn't everything; but "fun" is almost everything. Their game console might drop in and out of popularity, or the state of the art; but it's not like MS is going to come out with the Xbox 720 and Nintendo will just fold up and go home.
(to rant a little more
Hooray for fun games and game history!
Beyond that- anyone who equates violence with maturity is either 13 or really needs to see professional help. If anything overt violence is a sign of immaturity.
I don't agree with that statement. Look at movies - there are two primary ways to get an R rating: sex and violence. The more explosions you add to a movie, the higher your box office draw. The more skin you show, the more adults will flock to your movie. Neither of these add anything to the plot or content of a movie, but without them it's harder for a movie to attact an audience.
Then you have movies like Seven, Silence of the Lambs, and other classics. These movies are built almost entirely around violence, and not of an immature kind either.
Violence is a part of everyone's life. Even in our relatively sheltered 21st century lives, it's a day to day fact - if not in person (and at some point it IS in person for most people), then by proxy. It's also a mature subject, in that you try to shelter the young from it as best you can - and in that it takes an adult to understand it as a story mechanism and not the central focus.
I also don't agree about most violent games having violence purely because of poor gameplay. I haven't seen many truly bad violent games, except for those copying far superior violent games. Grand Theft Auto required violence for it's storyline to work at all, yet the same gameplay worked well for Simpson's Hit and Run (a far less violent game). First Person Shooters require violence, and the greatest of them all have been some of the most violent games ever to exist. Also, like movies, fiction-based follow-the-story games have usually been at their best when the plot was "mature" - simply because sex and violence are visceral. Just ask Shakespeare. Virtually all of the major classics of literature have involved shock of one sort or another, even when that shock isn't as gaudy as less talented hands make it.
In other words, there is nothing intrinsically immature about violence. Glorifying it as something it's not is a sign of an immature mind that has neither truly experienced nor understands violence, but accepting it as a reality, and something that gives fictional events and experiences a deeper sense of reality, is a sign of maturity. Whether that person abhors it and avoids it wherever possible, or whether that person can sit back and enjoy a good tragedy without the "cool" factor, both are signs of maturity, not immaturity.
(Imagine Hamlet without the murder, vice, insanity, incest, and blood? Or Henry V, or Julius Ceasar, or Macbeth)
Do not confuse "Freedom of Choice" with "Free Will".
Interestingly, Birdo apparently used to be a transvestite.
While the Japanese SMB2 had some interesting new features -- wind/weather, bad powerups -- it lacked the whimsy and mystery that SMB2 provided. It was really just more of the same.
That being said, I know of lots of people who would've loved to have "more of the same". I knew people that played SMB1 inside and out and would've definately bought the Japanese version had it been available. I think *both* versions should've been sold here.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
While historically the japanese version was the "real" SMB2, the US version had IMHO much more impact on the Mario series as a whole, plenty of enemies got taken over to the main series and some charakter behaviour as well, while with the japanese version there is pretty much nothing left. The insane difficulty hasn't been seen in other Marios, neither have the evil-bonuses. In the end SMB2(jp) really was more like a Add-On to SMB then a fully new part, so while SMB2(us) might have its faults, I am very happy that Nintendo did create it instead of just releasing SMB2(jp).
I'm trying to think of the highest ranking box office successes in history. Here's what I remember.
Star Wars (PG)
Titanic (PG)
ET (PG)
Indiana Jones (PG)
Then I figured that my list was probably terribly incomplete. So I looked up this. Take a look for yourself.
Why write this crappy article? Well, the E3 registration deadline is less than 2 weeks away. Maybe he's one review away from scoring a press pass. Hmm...
Oh look, he wrote an article about how to get into E3 last year.
bort.
Free, Anonymous surfing: Pagewash.com.
Luigi gets a floatier jump, but he's also taller, so he can't go through 1-block tall passages even when small. Luigi also has less traction, which is a tradeoff because being able to jump higher is a big help in some parts of the game.
Lost Levels is good, but you sure can't blame NOA for saying it was too hard back in the day.
Now for those with a USB gamepad and a NES emulator handy, I present you the "Lost Levels" of SMB3!
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"