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How America Changed the Mario Brothers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the jumping-plumbers dept.

DreamWinkle writes "It might seem unlikely considering that Mario was born and developed in Japan by Japanese minds, but America forever changed how our favorite plumber played. Why? Because Nintendo thought the U.S. and European gamers couldn't play. As a consequence, they never released the real Mario 2 outside of Japan because it was too hard, and instead released Doki Doki Panic with the Mario name. Since then, the entire Mario franchise has picked up traits from Doki Doki Panic, like the card game at the end of each level in Mario 3. This article takes a look at what elements really belong to Mario and what belongs to Doki Doki Panic. It's interesting to see that, point for point, Nintendo changed almost nothing about Doki Doki Panic before releasing it in the states and Europe as Mario 2."

10 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Does anyone not know about the story of SMB2? by bonch · · Score: 5, Informative

    I thought this was very common knowledge by now, especially on Slashdot. For crying out loud, a link to About.com? For more detailed information about the differences between the U.S. and Japanese versions of all the Mario games, check out The Mushroom Kingdom.

    1. Re:Does anyone not know about the story of SMB2? by stickb0y · · Score: 5, Informative
      You're missing the point. The article's about the effect that those changes have had on all future versions, not just about the changes themselves. Everybody's in such a rush to yell "DUPE!" they don't bother to read.

      Pot. Kettle. Black.

      DreamWinkle's summary indicates that's what the article is about, but it's really not. The article just shows a bunch of comparison screenshots and talks about what changed and what didn't, and even then, The Mushroom Kingdom's Doki Doki Panic/SMB2 comparison is more accurate, more thorough, and easier to navigate.

  2. Re:Old... by Coneasfast · · Score: 5, Informative

    for those who don't know though, you can find this (and other) info on the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros.

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  3. Wait a minute by denmarkw00t · · Score: 3, Informative

    Now, if I had a look at, say this page linked from this article, noted here, then I probably wouldn't need TFA to tell me that Mario 2 was an almost complete rip off of some other game.

  4. Re:original "Mario Bros" by KDR_11k · · Score: 5, Informative

    The original Mario Bros was an arcade game, the Atari got a port of it as did numerous other platforms. It came after Donkey Kong but before Super Mario Bros.. There are variants of it in other Nintendo games, for example the battle game in SMB3 and a remake of the arcade game in all Super Mario Advance games and Mario & Luigi.

    MB was also the game that introduced Luigi.

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  5. Adware on linked page by Paul+Johnson · · Score: 4, Informative

    Like, don't warn us that the linked story tries to run ActiveX controls that "improve" my computer. I suppose most /.ers either run Firefox or have security turned up high, but hey, thats no excuse.

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  6. They DID release it by Calydor · · Score: 4, Informative

    They DID release the original Mario Bros. 2, just not on it's own, it was part of the Super Mario All-Stars compilation for the SNES, then dubbed The Lost Levels. So the article is kinda wrong, it did get released outside of Japan - eventually. It is, however, more of the same old as the first game, only harder.

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    1. Re:They DID release it by hal2814 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "They DID release the original Mario Bros. 2,"

      No, they did not. They released a dumbed down version of the original SMB2 for American and European audiences. From the Wiki:

      "Neither of these rereleased versions [SMB All Stars and SMB Deluxe] of the game are absolutely true to the original. Aside from the save feature and improved graphics, extra power-ups and 1-ups were peppered throughout the levels, and hidden power-ups were placed in plain sight. Red Piranha Plants, which would originally come out even if Mario or Luigi were next to or on the edge of the pipe, would not emerge if the player was standing on the center of the pipe."

      If you've ever played the Famicom version of SMB2, you WILL notice the differences after a few levels.

  7. Everything inherited from SMB2 by gcnaddict · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't think the article ever really mentioned how many games inherited things from the Doki Doki Panic rebranding later on.

    One of the biggest things that comes to mind is how Princess Peach can float and pull+throw turnips(?) seemingly out of nowhere in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

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    1. Re:Everything inherited from SMB2 by Megane · · Score: 3, Informative

      She pulls them out of hammerspace, duuuhhh.

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