Super Mario Bros is best known as one of the most famous and recognizable games in the world as it is what brought back the gaming franchise from it's extinction in 1983 and made Nintendo one of the top rated and best selling gaming company's so it was pretty obvious that with the great success from Super Mario Bros that a sequel would be made and released in North America.....Right? Well we did get a Super Mario Bros. 2 game in North America however this was not the TRUE sequel to the original game as the real sequel was made in Japan but do to it's much higher difficulty when compared to the original and Japan decided that because of that they wouldn't release this game and instead would release a changed version of their own Japanese game Doki Doki Panic but changed the characters with Mario characters. Now that we have the history of this game done with let's move on to the review of the Real Super Mario Bros. 2!

Graphics: 8 out of 10

The graphics in this game are basically the same as the original game with few minor changes such as the grounds having a different look to the clouds and tree's having eyes added to them as well as the platforms in levels having a mushroom look instead of it's normal look so the graphics aren't that much of a step up but I would still say that they are great and they show alot of creativity in them so I must applaud Nintendo for still making the graphics appealing even with only a few minor details so an 8 out of 10 is what graphics deserve for this game.

Sound: 6 out of 10

Sound in this game isn't much different  just like the graphics but there are some few changes made such as when you quickly turn left or right you have a sliding sound that plays for a few seconds and the theme when you save princess peach is different and sound better in my opinion. The sound that plays inside the castle's, underwater levels, underground levels, and normal levels are all the same so the music hasn't made a huge step up but Nintendo was just at the beginning so you can't really fault them for not improving the music or sound effects much so a 6 out of 10 is what I'm giving the sound for this game.

Story: 5 out of 10

Well the story hasn't changed at all it's exactly the same as the original game "You have to go rescue the princess named Peach because her guards the toads are always messing up and are horrible at protecting her so you Mario/Luigi must go and save her from Bowser yet again and stop bowser by kicking his butt out of this world. Same story but still lives up to it's original story so at least a 5 out of 10 is what the story of this game deserves.

Addictiveness: 8 out 10

Now even though the story & sound really didn't change that much  the addictiveness value actually did jump up higher from it's predecessor. The reason why this has a higher level of addictiveness is because of the fact that the difficulty was raised which made players want to make it further until the end of the game and even when you reach the end of the game there are still more things that you can do such as beating the game 8 times to be able to go to world A-D from the title or even making it to world 9 in the game which can only be accomplished if you make it all the way through the game without using any warp pipes. Also once you get to level 9 you only have one life and if you reach the end of stage 9-4 you will see blocks made out to look like the Japanese letters アリガトウ which mean "Thank You" most likely meaning thanks for buying and playing this game which you may think well that's pretty pointless to see level 9 just for that but it's actually better when you actually see it for yourself and even just the idea of that is very interesting how they put that in a level in the game. With it's higher level of difficulty, secret levels, and stage selects I'd have to say an 8 out of 10 is deserved here.

Depth: 8 out of 10

If you include all the extra levels that you can get to then this game is 2x longer than the original Super Mario Bros also since the difficulty is higher it makes the game last longer since it is harder to beat which isn't a bad thing  so don't think it's something that makes the game bad as the first Super Mario Bros was a little too easy to beat even when it first came out so the 2nd game give the player more of a challenge and makes it more fun. Like I said in the addictiveness section there is a way to make it to 2 hidden worlds called World 9 and Worlds A-D. So a 8 out of 10 is how the depth in my opinion should be rated well not much else to say here so let's move on.

Difficulty: 9 out of 10

When this game was made the developers decided to add some extra difficulty to the game since the first game was fairly easy however with the way that they made the game harder they thought it would be too hard for Americans so they chose to keep it in Japan I don't know why they made this choice as the difficulty in this game isn't nightmare hard as the difficulty is a little less than the Mega Man series and the difficulty makes this games more fun to play. The reasons that make this game harder are that some levels include spots were you have to make major jumps to make it to the other side or you have to repeatedly jump on enemies heads in a pattern so you can make it to the other side which can be difficult especially when there are several paratroopas that you have to jump on while they fly back and forth however it isn't an impossible task. Also they added a power-down item called a Poison Mushroom where if you grab one when you are big Mario you'll turn into small Mario and if you're small Mario then you will lose one life which makes you have to choose whether to hit certain blocks or not which is a good addition in the game, so all in all a rating of 9 out of 10 sounds pretty fair here.

That's Super Mario Bros. 2 (JPN) in a nutshell, Like I said I don't know why this game wasn't released on the NES in North America even though eventually it did get released on the SNES game Super Mario All-Stars and was renamed Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels but it still doesn't feel the same without the same 8-bit graphics but that's just me. It is a shame that we didn't get this game in North America but instead we got a different Super Mario Bros 2 but that is a game for another review.

honestly i was disappointed with the us version of Mario Bros 2 after I found out it was a hacked version of Japan s doki doki panic . and i dont really know why it was too hard for the us  honestly i got through level 1 of this game fairly easy without any problems . ,,,,,,,too hard for the us yeah right Nintendo 

SuperCrash64 : Yeah I don't understand why they didn't release it because we've had hard games released on the NES before that so why is it only this game that is too specifically hard? Honestly I was surprised when I found out it was just Doki Doki Panic but with Mario characters but that still didn't stop me from liking the game and I kind of actually prefer it over the real Super Mario Bros 2 or Lost Levels whatever you want to call it but that's just me.

Well written review. Loved all of the detail on the hidden levels etc. Seems you did your studying on this one. I always appreciate seeing people do that, as it seems all too often that I see reviews on games that the reviewer only played one or two levels of. You put alot of thought into this, and it payed off. 5 stars.

 sonicthehedgehog57: i like it more because it felt more compelete  than the us  i really dont understand nintendo s problem with this game heck they had contra which was a hard game so really they have no excuse to not release this  

I actually enjoyed the second game, contrary to most people. Most people don't like it because of the way it differed, but it was only the second game, so there wasn't any precedent for the series.

Eirinn : I always try and see how much I can fit inside a review by studying up or talking about what I think of the game or other games related to it. I think the sad thing is when people write a review and it's not even a paragraph long cause it's like "this is a review, not a comment section"

Well I'm glad you enjoyed the review and I still have one more that I am writing for this month

SuperCrash64 : I understand why you like it and that's perfectly fine that you like it over the US one. But to me the game was good because of it's added challenge but it was kind of just like a repeat of the original so that's why I don't like it over the US version.  I know the US version was a clone of the Japanese game but it was fine for me cause the gameplay was different. Yeah like you said we had Contra and that was really hard especially when we were children and even now it's still hard so why they didn't release it we'll never know

ender44 : Yeah I like how it was differed rather than how the Japan version was basically the same as the first game just with some added things in it. Like I said in the review it was only their second game in the series so you can't really fault them for giving the North Americans a different version rather than this version as they probably thought that the Japanese version of the game might become stale because of how similar it was to the original. Still it's only the second game in the series either way so you can't really punch them down for that, now let's say if it was Super Mario 64 that was a problem like these 2 games then yeah I could see why people would be knocking Nintendo down for that.

I feel the need to clear up a few misconceptions about this game and its American counterpart, as well as give my own opinion on both.

First, no SuperCrash64, our Super Mario Bros. 2 was not "a hacked version of Japan s doki doki panic". Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic started off development as a sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. with direct involvement from Shigeru Miyamoto himself, but after a while, it was decided that they should make a sequel that was more like the first installment and started focusing on that, until Fuji Television asked Nintendo to make a game based on the mascots for the then-upcoming Yume Kōjō '87 event, at which point they took the old Super Mario Bros. 2 prototype, finished it, and stuck in the aforementioned mascots as playable characters.

Meanwhile, the more traditional sequel to Super Mario Bros. was also completed, and the higher ups at Nintendo of America (note, not Nintendo of Japan) thought that it was way too hard. You have to imagine it from their perspective at the time; Mario may have been the new hot thing in livings rooms across the country, but it was still one game . . . and a handful of lesser games that happened to have him in them, primarily in the arcades. The point remains that they didn't want to risk alienating a new and unpredictable fan-base by, you know pissing them off with a game that was so difficult; and this was back when people still thought the first game was incredibly hard.

So they ask NoJ, "hey, how about something that won't make people want to rip their hair out", and the folks in Japan realize that they have a game that started off as a Mario game that wouldn't be marketable in America because it starred weird mascots they (we) had never heard of, and proceeded to slap Mario & Co.'s likenesses all over that thing. And it turned out well. So well, in fact, that it would up getting released in Japan as Super Mario Bros. USA.

Beyond all the how and why, though, I would argue that it's just a better sequel and did much more for the franchise than the "true heir", as you called it, ever would have. The game you lavished with so much praise . . . it isn't bad, but it's just so samey. Imagine if it was the only sequel we had gotten, all around the world. Mario wouldn't be anywhere near as interesting and diverse as he is now. Our SMB2 introduced vertical scrolling, Pokeys, Bob-ombs, Shyguys, picking stuff up, the notion of Luigi being taller and thinner, and Toad as a specific character rather than just a race. And it was fun. Both games are fun, but the Mario 2 we wound up with much more so.

I've been typing for a while though, and it's almost five o' clock, so I'll just wrap this up by saying we didn't get the short end of the stick. In the short term, we got a fun game that we never would have otherwise, and an enhanced version of the game we had missed out on for the SNES a few years later. In the long term, the effects Doki Doki Panic has had on the Mario series are innumerable and there's no telling what the series would be like without it, but I'm willing to wager not nearly as good or as timeless.

Well I'm glad that you shared those things on here and I agree with alot of the points that you make in them like how it was not actually a hacked version but a different game but with Mario characters included which is true. I can understand that the difficulty was hard and they thought it would be a bad idea to release it but I still kind of think that just because of that reason you shouldn't not release the game because if they had continued doing that then we wouldn't have alot of the NES games that we received, but still I can understand why they would have thought that.

By the way the title of the review "The True Heir" I only used that as I thought it would be interesting for the review and I actually like Super Mario Bros USA or Super Mario Bros. 2 that we outside of Japan received. As to me the Super Mario Bros 2 from Japan was to much of the same thing as the original game so it doesn't attract me as much. Like I said we got this game on the SNES so at least we got it in some form but it still would have been nice to get this game on the NES in North America. I also do agree with you that without the Super Mario 2 game that we got, then we might not have had a Super Mario Bros 3 or anything afterwards.

Thanks for the reply and I must say you did give alot of information that I didn't know as well as giving alot of good points in your post.