[theme music]
[fizz, sip]
Aahhh!
[typing]
When I think back to my days as a kid playing the NES,
it seems like a disproportionate amount of time was spent
playing Super Mario Bros.
And when the third game came out, I played that one a lot.
Although, as much as I liked it, I still kind of liked the first one.
Not quite the same experience.
But I always wondered
why I never knew anyone that had the second game
or even if there was a second game at all.
Eventually I played S.M.Bros. 2 at a friend's house,
and what the balls?
It wasn't a Mario game at all.
It didn't make any sense. I was confused.
I wanted to die.
Why was Mario half-blue?
Why couldn't you jump on enemies?
Why were you harvesting vegetables?
Eventually, I ran across the story
that is now common knowledge among Nintendo aficionados
Super Mario Bros. 2–
in America–
is actually a modified version of the Japanese game
Yume Kōjō: Doki-Doki Panic.
Countless videos and articles have already been made surrounding this story.
I don't plan this video to be another one.
Here's just a quick overview.
Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in Japan
shortly after the first game,
but only on the Famicom Disk System,
which was an add-on for the Famicom/NES
that used floppy disks instead of cartridges.
It was a direct sequel to the original game
with all of the original gameplay mechanics and characters, plus a few additions.
But for one reason or another, it was deemed to be too difficult for American players.
So another game that Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, had worked on
was hacked
to contain several Mario elements
and released as Super Mario Bros. 2 in the US.
This of course was Doki Doki Panic,
the awkward, vegetable-centric platformer.
Fooling us poor children
into thinking we were playing a Mario game when, in fact,
we were playing some bogus
imposter.
But I'm not here to talk about that.
I'm here to talk about the Japanese version of Mario 2.
I finally got this in cartridge form recently,
so I could play it without emulation.
Now you might be thinking,
Didn't this only come out for the Famicom Disk System?
Well, yes, it did.
But this is a reproduction cart.
It's done by this guy in Canada
at nesreproductions.com.
You just send him a donor game and some cash
and he'll make you a very high quality repro cart
of Mario 2 or whatever else you need.
Mario 2 was also released on the Super Nintendo
in Super Mario All-Stars as Super Mario: The Lost Levels.
But it's a remake. Not the original.
It's also available on the Wii Virtual Console,
if you want to dabble in such things.
The game starts off with a similar opening screen to the original game
with the title and game selection options at your service.
But this time, you can't play with a friend
because it is anti-social.
All you have is Mario and Luigi single-player modes.
This offers two different ways to play the game, but we'll get to that.
Upon starting the game, you're greeted with the familiar World 1-1 music and everything
looks just right for a Mario game.
The same enemies, same power-ups,
same platforming concepts– even the sounds are the same–
minus the skidding sound effect, which sounds like the one from Super Mario Bros. 3.
[skidding]
But there are some very key differences, too.
The first is the controls.
They're exactly the same.
For Mario.
But for Luigi, you can run faster and jump higher.
However, the difference is that Luigi
is green.
Which apparently means that he doesn't have as much grip as Mario.
So you'll end up sliding around,
and easily so after long jumps, so be careful.
Also significant is that now when you jump on an enemy,
you can press jump again to do a much higher jump.
Which is useful for getting secrets, but also sometimes necessary
for making difficult jumps over pits.
This is where we start getting into some of that supposed American-crippling difficulty.
For starters, the level design is just plain evil.
Even the first level is challenging the first few times around.
Several sections are just straight up precarious,
with platforms spaced out just enough so that they'll screw you up.
But that's actually pretty much standard fare for Super Mario games.
What's particularly evil, though, is that some pits
require you to use that extra jumping ability
that you get from jumping on certain enemies.
If you don't, there's no way to get across.
so without memorizing these traps and hazards, you have no chance,
but, again, what platform game isn't like that?
You always have to memorize something.
However, there are some absolutely stupid cheap shots.
You got some annoying enemy placement,
that are of course there just to trip you up,
because they know what you're gonna do before you do it,
those darned Japanese mind readers!
And there is a new additional "power-up":
the poisonous mushroom.
This looks very similar to the 1-Up or original power-up mushroom,
but it's actually an enemy
and will shrink or kill you if you touch it.
But again, it's all about memorizing where they are and avoiding them.
Unless some of them are randomly generated, I don't really know.
Then it's just mean.
The power-ups and secrets are all still there,
like stars, fireballs, coin boxes,
and hidden 1-Ups.
You even still have those hidden warp areas,
but some of these are completely messed up!
Instead of sending you ahead, they'll actually send you backwards,
warping you to a previous world you've already beaten!
Unfortunately, I fail so much at this game
that I was not able to record one of these backwards warp zones,
just the regular one.
Although, this one's evil enough to get to! Good grief!
This game is what it is.
It's another Mario game just like the first one,
but it's definitely a few steps up in difficulty
and content from the first game.
I'm not a huge fan of games that make it their goal to piss me off,
but somehow, I like this one.
I've always loved the original SMB,
so having this second one to play is completely awesome,
somewhere in my mind.
I suppose I can understand some of the talk of the difficulty being completely unforgiving because
it is,
but it's nothing that really can't be overcome with lots of practice, I'm sure.
I mean, I've already gotten to where I can beat the first level,
and even part of the second one.
Maybe it's just because it's a Mario game. I don't know why I like it.
I don't feel like it's completely absurd,
like Ninja Gaiden or Super Contra.
Those games are darn near impossible to me.
Now, I Game Genie that crap every time!
But for whatever reason, Mario 2 just feels a bit more approachable
...somewhere.
Super Mario Bros. 2
is really hard.
But it's not unapproachably hard for the most part.
It's got its good moments
and its bad moments
but if you're a fan of the first game, you should do yourself the favor
of trying Mario 2
in one of its various forms.
It's not as simple to play as the other Mario games,
but it's not supposed to be.
If you like a good challenge,
go for it.
[Mario death jingle]
[Game Over jingle]