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This article is about the version of Super Mario Bros. 2 released outside of . ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' is the Sequel to '' Super Mario Bros. '' outside of Japan , and was released in North America in October 1988, and in Europe in 1989. ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' is a remake of '''', and later in the Game Boy Color ''Super Mario Bros.'' remake), but it was decided by Nintendo that it was too difficult to be released in North America, and they instead remade ''Doki Doki Panic'' as a Mario title. This game was later released as ''Super Mario USA'' in Japan. HISTORY ''The Lost Levels'' was released in 1986 for the Famicom Disk System , a Japan-only disk-based add-on for the Famicom (a.k.a NES ), under the name ''Super Mario Bros. 2''. It featured the same gameplay and level design as the original '' Super Mario Bros. '', with the addition of Poison Mushrooms and a much higher difficulty level than the first game. Due to the similarity in gameplay to the original and its tremendously increased difficulty, this game was not brought to the West. It was later available, with improved 16-bit graphics, in the Super Nintendo game collection '' Super Mario All-Stars ''. In 1999 , when '' Super Mario Bros. Deluxe '' was released on the Game Boy Color, the now-dubbed "Lost Levels" were an unlockable extra (after obtaining 300,000 points in the original 1985 version). The American/European game called ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' is the most unique game in the Mario series. In this game, Mario , Luigi , Princess Toadstool , and Toad have to save Subcon, the land of dreams, from Wart and his minions. The reason that the American/European version of ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' is so unusual is that it was created by making small changes to a Japanese game called ''s and music. (As such, it is sometimes said that the game is not really a 'proper' Mario game at all.) With these small revisions, it was released to the U.S. market in 1988 and made the cover of the very first issue of Nintendo Power magazine. The American/European version of ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' was eventually released in Japan for the Nintendo Family Computer under the name ''Super Mario USA''. It was also released as part of the ''Super Mario Collection'' (in the U.S., '' Super Mario All-Stars '') in Japan. STORY The plot for ''Super Mario Bros. 2'', according to the game's manual: ''One evening, Mario had a strange dream. He dreamt of a long, long stairway leading up to a door. As soon as the door opened, he was confronted with a world he had never seen before, spreading out as far as his eyes could see. When he strained his ears to listen, he heard a faint voice saying "Welcome to 'Subcon', the land of dreams. We have been cursed by Wart and we are completely under his evil spell. We have been awaiting your arrival. Please defeat Wart and return Subcon to its natural state. The curse Wart has put on you in the real world will not have any effect upon you here. Remember, Wart hates vegetables. Please help us!"'' ''At the same time this was heard, a bolt of lightning flashed before Mario's eyes. Stunned, Mario lost his footing and tumbled upside down. He awoke with a start to find himself sitting up in his bed. To clear his head, Mario talked to Luigi, Toad and the Princess about the strange dream he had. They decide to go to a nearby mountain for a picnic. After arriving at the picnic area and looking at the scenery, they see a small cave nearby. When they enter this cave, to their great surprise, there's a stairway leading up, up and up. It is exactly like the one Mario saw in his dream. They all walk together up the stairs and at the top, find a door just like the one in Mario's dream. When Mario and his friends, in fear, open the door, to their surprise, the world that he saw in his dream spreads out before them!'' In the end, Mario and his friends trounce Wart and open a Secret Room containing one of Subcon's characteristic Vase s. After pulling a stubborn cork from the mouth of the vase, eight red Fairies spring out. The four heroes are lauded for defeating Wart, whose beaten body is passed over the crowd and tossed aside. Immediately after, the screen shows Mario snoring, indicating that the entire adventure had been a dream. PLAYABLE CHARACTERS There are four playable characters in the game, each with a score of 1-5 stars for speed, jump and power.
SETTING Despite being a new, supposedly unrelated land from a game not initially intended to be a ''Mario'' game, Subcon is not all that unlike the Mushroom Kingdom . Instead of brick castles and giant mushrooms, however, Subcon is characterized by palm trees and red-and-white vases dotting the landscape. Though it lacks any underwater stages, ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' introduces other concepts to the series — like Desert stages complete with Quicksand , and ice stages. Level 3-1 is notable for taking place against an enormous Waterfall which the heroes must ascend. Levels progress in a linear fashion, but for the first time Mario can backtrack -- in the original ''Super Mario Bros'', the screen scrolled only to the right, but in ''Super Mario Bros. 2'', the screen can scroll both right and left, as well as vertically from one screen to another -- thus, many levels have sequences involving climbing or descending long distances, and the final level in particular is a large and mazelike fortress, in contrast to the linear Castles in ''Super Mario Bros''. ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' consists of seven "worlds," each one containing three stages except for the last, which only has two. GAMEPLAY Players choose from four characters each time they start or restart a level: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Toad. Each has a special ability: Luigi can jump very high, the Princess can remain temporarily suspended in the air, Toad can pick up things quickly and is very agile, and Mario is balanced. In future Mario games in which multiple characters were playable, Mario would always be the most balanced character. A unique ability in this game is the "power squat", by holding Down on the control pad for a few seconds, players could build power for higher jumps. Most enemies are defeated by throwing vegetables and other items which the character plucks from the ground. Most enemies may also be picked up and thrown. Many enemies which first appeared in this game would reappear in later sequels and related games. In each level, there are places where the player can pick up potions, which he can drop to make a door appear. This door will lead to a left-right reversed, non-scrolling version of the section of the level, with no enemies. If a door is created in the right place, there will be coins planted in the ground which the player can pick up, and sometimes a mushroom which will add another unit to his maximum health and re-fill his health. In addition, some jars (the equivalent of pipes in the original game) became "warp zones" that allowed the player to skip to another world. For each coin collected while in these "door levels," the player will get a chance at the bonus slot machine at the end of each level. At the end of each level, the player is presented with a slot machine-type game. He gets to try as many times as he has coins collected from the level he just completed, and depending on what combinations come up, he can get anywhere from 0 to 5 extra lives for each try. (More extra lives could be gained from the game in the SNES and GBA remakes.) MUSIC Most people will agree that the music of this game is reminiscent to basic Ragtime with traces of Dixieland jazz and March in it as well. All music was written by Koji Kondo . ENHANCED REMAKE ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' received a graphical, audio, and gameplay upgrade in '' Super Mario All-Stars '' (in Japan, ''Super Mario Collection'') on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Super Famicom . In the NES version, in the case of losing the last life, the player can only continue twice. In the Super NES/Super Famicom version, a player can continue any number of times, because he or she can continue from a saved game. As for that slot-machine type game, the icons are bigger in the Super NES/Super Famicom version. The player can get up to 10 extra lives in the Super NES version of ''Super Mario Bros. 2'', compared to getting up to 5 five extra lives in the NES/Famicom version. That is because the "7" symbol is an addition to the Super NES/Super Famicom version. In the NES/Famicom version of ''Super Mario Bros. 2'', the player can select a character and must play as that character until the end of that level. In the Super NES/Super Famicom version, the player can select a character at the beginning of each level and after losing a life. Theire was also a remake similar to the All-Star verison for the Satellaview in 1997 titled ''BS Super Mario USA''. ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' received another Enhanced Remake as '' Super Mario Advance '', the first Super Mario title for the Game Boy Advance . It included several graphic and sound enhancements in the form of enlarged sprites, multiple hit combos, and digital voice acting. Two notable additions are the new character, Robirdo, a robotic Birdo who acts as the boss of the third world, and the Yoshi Challenge, which encourages players to revisit stages and search for Yoshi eggs. POPULARITY AND IMPACT Due to its unique style of gameplay and set in a completely different world, ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' has become one of the most popular games for the NES and has made a continuous impact on the entire Super Mario Bros., including adding now-typical enemies such as Shy Guys , Bob-omb s and Pokey s and introducing the concept of Luigi being the taller and thinner brother. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ''DOKI DOKI PANIC'' AND ''SUPER MARIO BROS. 2'' Most of the other differences between ''Doki Doki Panic'' and ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' are small graphical changes, such as animation being added to the POW Blocks , Cherries , and Vegetables for the localized version, mushrooms replacing hearts as health boosters, and the characters shrinking when reduced to only one unit of health. The save feature was also taken out of the NES version of ''Super Mario Bros. 2'', due to the limitations of the NES system compared to the Famicom Disk System. (Battery-backup was also very expensive during those days.) But it was restored in the ''Super Mario Collection''/'' Super Mario All-Stars '' version of ''Super Mario Bros. 2''. Other changes include:
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