How America Changed the Mario Brothers

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."

Tonight o_O

[Fusione]

As I wasted my last life fumbling with mario 3 using an emulator on my PDA while riding home on the bus, the Japanesse kid beside me chuckled. I gave him a dirty look, and turned away to try again. What an erie slashdot article to come home to.

oh.

[supernova87a]

from the title, I thought it was going to be how the Mario brothers became fatter, and less efficient.

Re:oh.

[carpe_noctem]

This should be a clear consequence of any game involving mushrooms and magic pipes...

Glad I grew up in Japan!

[magi.sys]

Well, this is old news like others have said but it sure makes me glad I grew up in downtown Tokyo. I had the opportunity to waist tons of hours on this super hard Super Mario Brothers 2 with my Japanese buddies. And when I got tired of playing this difficult game I would just go to the toy shop to have the disk rewritten with a easier game for just 500yen (like Doki Doki Panic).

Re:Does anyone not know about the story of SMB2?

[ewe2]

Whole continents are unaware of this. Perhaps it should be your mission in life, o great sage.

Re:oh.

[Opportunist]

Now that you mention it, I'm surprised that the game is still not on some index in Germany. A plumber who eats magic mushrooms and starts to see monsters, then dives deeply into some pipes and more often than not comes out with a new life, little stars that, when you take them, make you all jumpy...

That game's a drug party!

Re:Does anyone not know about the story of SMB2?

[LiquidCoooled]

Its not [NEXT]
Short, but [NEXT]
you will need [NEXT]
a new mouse [NEXT]
button afterwards [NEXT]
because of [NEXT]
all the [NEXT]
page breaks. [NEXT]

Its like [NEXT]
reading toms [NEXT]
hardware guide.

Re:The most important thing...

[Shanep]

Uh, you know the Mario character debuted in Donkey Kong, right? And again in DK Jr. And then yet again in Mario Brothers (the one with the crabs in tunnels and stuff). All of this way before before Super Mario Bros., let alone SMB2.

So the Mario character debuted how many times? ; )

Re:Does anyone not know about the story of SMB2?

[Anonymous Coward]

This almost [buffering...]
sounds like [buffering...]
What Real [buffering...]
players does. [buffering...]

Have they [buffering...]
branched out [buffering...]
into making [buffering...]
web pages? [buffering...]

Or has... this web page... a work of... Capt. Kirk?

Re:Everything inherited from SMB2

[MrSquirrel]

She pulls them out of... you know, I'm not even going to go there.

Re:It's common

[elrous0]

It's a matter of patience really

One person's "patience" is another person's "obsessiveness."

-Eric

Re:Old...

[it0]

Well I think if you americans weren't so darn stupid, we europeans, would have better gadgets!

I mean we all look alike to them?

Re:Everything inherited from SMB2

[Solder Fumes]

She pulls them out of... you know, I'm not even going to go there.

And I'm sure you never have.

Re:"Too Hard" canard

[RpiMatty]

In A.D. 2101
War was beginning.
Captain: What happen?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's You !!
Cats: How are you gentlemen !!
Cats: All your base are belong to us.
Cats: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Cats: HA HA HA HA ....
Captain: Take off every 'zig' !!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'zig'.
Captain: For great justice.

And that was just a short intro

Re:Old...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no. You Americans have big penis. Really big.

Re:Old...

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people went through the 80's with a blinking 12:00 clock on the VCR because it was "too hard to set"?

...you mean it's NOT 12:00?

bootlegs... and disappointments

[Kenshin]

There are, or were, bootleg cartridges available of SMB2.

Back when I was a kid, WELL before SMB3 was released outside of Japan, the asshole at the local video rental place told me they had an imported "Super Mario 3" in. I was extremely excited, and rented it right away. I got home, turned it on, and wondered "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" (It was, in fact, the Japanese SMB2.)

My mom convinced him to give me a refund.

A few days later, my friend rented and imported "Super Mario 5" from them, which finally turned out to be (the much sought-after) SMB3. We were as happy as you could possibly be.

To this day, I still wonder what the "Super Mario 4" cartridge was.

What a knob...