OVERVIEW
 
The original Super Mario Bros 2 is what you may say is a hard-mode version of the first Super Mario Bros. In fact it is called Super Mario Bros 2 for Super Players and for some oddball reason it was deemed as too hard for western players which is a load of crock since everyone should be entitled to play a challenging game. In order to make up such travesty, Nintendo decided to use what you might say is a legal game hack of another game to release westward as Super Mario Bros 2. That game in question is known as Yume Koujou - Doki Doki Panic where the characters in that game were replaced with Mario characters and some other graphical changes. This review is about the original game.
 
STORY
 
Two children are in the bed fighting over a children's book to a point that the last page was ripped out of it and it had the part where the monster now known in the USA as Wart was defeated. Without the ending, the children are dragged into the book and the children's pet monkey runs to fetch the children's family: Mama, Papa, Imajin, and Imajin's girlfriend Lina. The four of them jump into the book in an effort to rescue the children.
 
GRAPHICS - A+
 
If you have played Super Mario Bros 2 US version then you are already aware of the excellent graphics this game has to offer. The enemy characters are all the exact same with a few exceptions such as the enemy that eventually became known as Phanto does not have such a scary menacing face it was given in the US. Instead, it only has a plain expression on its face. In the place of Hawkmouth is some sort of African (maybe Kenyan) mask. Clawgrip is not in this game, you will fight a white Mouser in its place. Anything related to the Mario franchise in the form of items are changes from this game. Those changes were: The blackface head became the shell, the magic lamp leading to subspace became the magic potion, the heart container became the mushroom. The star and clock were also held over as well. The level designs all remained the same with no changes as far as I can recall. Even the warp zones are intact but slightly more colorful than the US version. The only drawback I can recall is the bonus round where everything is rather plain against a green background as opposed to a more graphical bonus round in the US.
 
CONTROLS - A
 
The controls vary slightly depending on the character you control. You still jump on the enemies and toss them at enemies at other ones. Holding the jump button makes the character run faster with speeds varying by character but the big kicker with character differences is the jumping. Imajin is akin to Mario with average jump and speed. Mama is akin to Luigi with a long and high jump without the bicycling motion. Papa is akin to Toad with the fastest speed and quickest pickup speed. Lina is akin to Princess Toadstool aka Princess Peach with a floating horizontal jump. The squat charge jump is still intact too.
 
GAMEPLAY - A+
  
There are 20 levels of gameplay with 6 levels of 3 and the final level containing 2 sublevels. Unlike its US counterpart, where you can choose your character for a certain set of levels and complete the game once, you have to complete the game with each of the characters in order to see the games true ending where the children and the subcons are rescued.
 
MUSIC/SOUND - B
 
The music is all the same with the exception of the subcon and the invincibility music which both carry an Arabian feeling much like the game itself. With it being on the Famicom Disk System, the music and the sounds are more enhanced to give a high quality feel that is good to listen too just like it was with Metroid on the same system compared to its US counterpart.
 
REPLAYABILITY - A
 
As stated earlier, you must beat the game at least once with each of the characters in the game to see the true ending so replayability is a total must. There is no need to worry about doing everything in one shot as all the levels are saved onto the disk so you can go back to play it at any time of your leisure.
 
OVERALL - A
 
The final grade is an A. There was a few minor issues here are there but there was nothing to keep you from enjoying this game. It is always good to play the original as this was hacked into Super Mario Bros. 2 for the western audiences. However, the hacked version would eventually make its way to Japan under the name Super Mario Bros USA for the Nintendo Famicom as the Famicom Disk System stopped making new games as frequently around the time of its release and on a side note, the westerners did get to play the original Super Mario Bros 2 eventually under the name Super Mario Bros: Lost Levels as part of the Super Mario All-Stars (Super Mario Collection in Japan) lineup. It would have been cool if Yume Koujou Doki Doki Panic had been included in the collection. I am kind of curious of what face lifts Nintendo would have given this game.