Super Mario Bros. 2 Story

It was 1988, Nintendo of America released the highly anticipated sequel of Super Mario Bros. and players got addicted by it. But the game was quite different from the first installment of the series. You are Mario, yeah, but you're no longer jumping on Goombas and Koopas, main action was driven to picking vegetables out of the ground and throwing them in enemies face!
Bowser, the one who kidnapped Princess Peach in the first game was replaced with Wart, a giant toad instead of a giant spiked turtle! When this game was out I thought it was a little weird to be a Mario game... but when Super Mario Brothers 3 came out on the market, everything that was in the first one was back: Bowser, koopas, fire fortress/bowser castles, power ups and many many new great stuff to play with across the levels but still more similar to the first game.
Nintendo never share the secret of this game for years... let's find out on Tales from the Nes the story of Super Mario Bros. 2.
When the original game went out on the market back in 1985 was immediately clear that a smash hit was created. It solds 6.8 million copies in Japan in its Famicom version, around 40 million copies were sold worldwide along with merchandising and strategy books to beat the game and to know its secrets.
Nintendo saw the awesome answer received from the market and quickly worked on portings of the game, even an arcade version was released under the name of VS. Super Mario Bros. which was similar to the original nes game but Nintendo designed new levels with harder challenges to meet the requirements of the best players who beated easily the first one (and to gather more coins from players, of course).

When the VS. version was out, development team started to coding a new installment of the series, Super Mario Bros. 2, planned to be one of the titles (other titles were big names like Zelda and Metroid) for the upcoming brand new device named Famicom Disk System, a double sided proprietary floppy disk reader for the FamilyComputer out on february 1986.
This new Mario game was done in a small time window: Mr. Miyamoto who was became a father and simultaneously was working on the upcoming Legend of Zelda game took a step back from the development of the game, which was developed under the direction of Takashi Tezuka, a young designer who helped with the original Super Mario Brothers, in cooperation with the original team. After only 4 months the team were able to finish the game and less than a year after the original game's release, Japan had given the first official sequel to Super Mario Brothers. This game is quite different from the title we all know, let's find out what kind of game it is!
When we start playing Super Mario Bros 2 instantly we notice about title screen similarity with the one from the first game. Only a "2" after the title was added and the 2 player option is no longer available. There's the character selection, you can chose Mario or Luigi game, giving the game a new style, a new way to play it.

The Game: graphics and sound are pretty the same of the first installment. the musics are exactly the same and visually the game seem identical if you don't mind some little graphical improvements. Gameplay was changed a bit, the game is hard, harder than you may think, super mario bros 2 takes the player to the limit of his abilities in the game just to do some platforming moves without any enemy to beat. And beware of poison mushrooms... they're darker than usual and they can kill you!
There are even "fake" warps... or better, they aren't fake but they work against your play because you can take a warp zone in the world 3 and go directly to the first world again! backward warp!

Mario Game: Play as Mario is pretty the same like playing in the first game. Mario is pretty responsive but it lacks jump's height, this makes more difficult to reach some areas in the game.
Luigi Game: Play as Luigi is quite different, he haves the ability to jump higher than his brother so you can reach more easily high platforms but he lacks handling/traction so when u have to turn fast it feels like he's sliding on ice!
this is the first time the Mario series introduces unique characters abilities.

 The game sold well in Japan, Nintendo of American was asking for a Mario sequel so a copy was sent for preview.
Nintendo employee Howard Phillips reviewed the game as bad, hard and unplayable. plus, the game look was exactly like the previous one and Nintendo wanted to give to the players a true sequel with updated graphics to show some of the muscles the NES got and not to fall like atari done few years ago publishing many similar games.
in fact, Mario was already a star! Give to the players a sequel nearly the same as his predecessor was an hazzard that nintendo do not want to risk. Nintendo of America sent back the preview copy of Super Mario Bros 2 asking for a "real" sequel.
President of Nintendo Japan, Yamauchi, was asked for an accessible sequel and this seeemed like an impossible task because Nintendo R&D4 was overwhelmed by other tasks, Sega was pushing Alex Kidd while Konami and Capcom begin making up their own franchise so the time was incredibly bad for Nintendo.

In 1987, Fuji TV hosted the Dream Factory Communication Carnival event, where they showcased their latest TV shows and products in Tokyo and Osaka. They asked for Nintendo partnership and to develop a game to celebrate this carnival! Miyamoto and his team came up with Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic, a Mario inspired platforming game where vertical scrolling was the privileged method of going forward! The title was a pearl for the event, composer of musics was the same from super mario brothers and in the game were featured the official mascots of the Carnival which takes place in the summer 1987! Was a success thanks also to the addition of the horizontal scrolling mario's style levels wanted by Miyamoto to be in the game! The japanese magazine Famitsu reviewed the game and set a score of 31 out of 40 for it.
They came out with an idea: how about rework a title that already exist?
When Nintendo of America asked for a more accessible sequel to the original SMB. Nintendo of Japan saw Doki Doki Panic as a potentially answer: it was made by the same team that worked
on original Mario title and graphically the game looks much better than SMB.
So Nintendo of Japan, who owns copyright of everything inside the game except for dream factory characters and items inspired from them, sent a copy of Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic to Nintendo of America asking to try it out and imagine the game with Mario based characters instead of the Dream
Factory's starrings.

Nintendo of America wants more so a new copy with modified characters and items in the game arrived accross the ocean: this was the first time someone saw "our" version of Super Mario Bros. 2! This time, the Nintendo employee Howard Phillips tried the game and the results was great, he loved the game and thought it was fun. The game got green light and Nintendo wanted to support and push it at best so they also include a SMB2 inspired diorama as cover for the first Nintedo Power magazine which features also a guide of the early game levels. The same year, on october 1988, Super Mario Bros. 2 was out on the north american market and was immediately a success and I bet many of you readers got the game as present for X-mas '88, good old times!

But what Nintendo changed in the game to fit in the Mario style/universe? What they left and what the added? Obviously, all 4 characters are switched: Imajin, the most balanced character was switched to Mario.
Papa, who can move faster but lacks jump height ability, was switched to Toad.
Mama, who can jump highter than everyone, was switched to Luigi.
Lina, who can float in the air, was switched to Princess Peach.
Also, items from the mushroom world were added in the game (some of the original game items were left, they are identical) but the "Star" was already in Doki Doki Panic.
SMB2 cointains also some little graphical improvements like better animations and items definition, some gameplay additions like the ability to run holding B button or the ablity to shrink down when you got 1 health bar instead of being killed but also lacks of the "save feature" offered bu the proprietary floppy disk for Famicom Disk System. In fact, the original game (doki doki) needs to be accomplished with every character to see the ending and credits but a save feature was present to let player restart the game from when they left it. SMB2 do not offer the same save feature because the cart wasn't equipped with a battery (like the legend of zelda or kirby's adventure) so the need to beat it with every character was removed and you can switch between them after each level, not after each world like original doki doki panic title.
Obviously the story was changed too: in Doki Doki Panic, two kids were kidnapped by a giant toad named Mamu and taken in a world inside the fairy tale book kids were reading in bed! Dream Factory's heroes immediately jump in the book to rescue the kids and the adventure begin!
In SMB2 the intro with Mamu (his name is Wart here) kidnapping the kids was removed and replaced with some text ("Full" story can be found in the instruction booklet): "When Mario opened a door after climbing a long stair in his dream, another world spread before him and he heard a voice call for help to be freed from a spell. After awakening, Mario went to a cave nearby and to his surprise he saw exactly what he saw in his dream...". At least, Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic got an intro!!
When I got the game in Italy almost a year later back in '89 (yeah pal always got games later), I remember that I thought it was different from the previous Mario experience but I played and it was fun! But when Mario 3 comes out everything was back like in the first one, I remeber me asking myself why Mario 2 was so different between the others two mario games.

Answer came directly from Nintendo when they included in Super Mario All Star a game called "Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels". Why those levels were "Lost"? and why no one ever spoke about that! The answer was clear: that was the original Super Mario Bros. 2 who got only Famicom release. The snes game was graphically updated with a fresh 16bit look. Also, difficulty was lowered to fit western players (and because the original one was really a pain!).

So, if you want to play the original Super Mario bros. 2 version and take the challenge grab a Famicom Disk System and prepare to rant like never before. I done that, once you learn how to beat the levels is fun to play but you really need time to try and retry to discover everything. Glad they included infinite continues... yeah... that means infinite deaths too!
Share your thoughts about your Super Mario bros. 2 experience, tell us if you like the doki doki panic adaptation or if you feel like that is not a Mario game. But I know something for sure, you can't beat the emotional part you felt back in the '80s when we were kids: if you got Super Mario Bros. 2 and you loved it, I'm sure no one can tell you that isn't a Mario game! Let's a go!