Nintendo made the right(ish) decision. Making a harder version of the same game is not a proper sequel.
It wasn’t just a harder version.
Miyamoto handed it off to another director, and wasnt really focused. It broke the game design rules that he created. Power ups were supposed to reward you. The game had a lot of unfairness for the sake of messing with players.
Sussy Super Mario Bros 2 is super fun though, even if it is just reskinned Doki Doki Panic. I’ve played DDP in an emulator, but I like it better with the Mario characters!
I’m so nostalgic for it. I played it over and over on the SNES Mario All Stars cartridge.
I remember when Mario 3 came out, there was so much hype and demand for yet another sequel that a local game rental store put a copy of “Super Mario Bros. 4” on their shelf. Astonished at our good fortune, we immediately rented it.
Our first clue something was off: the box was much different, square-shaped. Mario was on the box, but the writing was all in Japanese.
The game cartridge was also odd, but we just chalked it up to being a super-secret Japanese release and rushed home to play it. Looking back, It was actually a Famicom cartridge with a converter attached to it.
When we turned on the game, it gave us Mario game and a Luigi game options. We were quite befuddled to pick up the poison mushroom almost immediately and get that face-slap the game was intended to deliver. Somehow my brother later discovered he could play even harder levels right away by holding one or 2 of the buttons while pressing start.
Overall it was a bit disappointing, but it was the game we selected to rent so we were stuck with it and played the hell out of it. What a weird surprise to see it come back years later on the SNES…
The real SMB2 was on Super Mario All-Stars for the SNES and I gotta say… The reskinned Doki Doki Panic is a better game.
It is, but it doesn’t play like a Super Mario Bros. game at all. They just got away with it because the series was still new.
Even back then, when you jumped onto the first enemy and just… Stood on them instead of killing them was pretty different.
It wasn’t totally outrageous though. Zelda did it. I think there might be more, but I’m old and this is reaching way back in the memory banks.
Best episode of the Simpsons hands down.
