SUPER MARIO BROS. 2
At this point, it’s one of the most well known gaming “legends” there is – Super Mario Bros. 2, as we know it, was never a Mario game at all. The original Super Mario Bros.’s breakout success prompted Nintendo to commission a sequel, and the developers over in Japan came up with one, which… wasn’t the ideal follow up to the original, let’s say that. It was designed to be freakishly difficult and positively hostile to players, and not in the way that something like Dark Souls is, but in a way where the game was outright unfair. Nintendo of America took one look at that game and realized that releasing that as “Mario 2” could sabotage the burgeoning brand that they had built their success off the back of – and so they decided to take charge of the situation. Taking a Japan-only side scrolling platformer called Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic (also developed by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, amusingly enough, unlike the “real” Mario 2), they decided to reskin it with Mario characters and release that as Super Mario Bros. 2. The rest is history – Super Mario Bros. 2 was a huge success, with indelible impact on the series. It introduced several new enemy types that remain mainstays of the franchise, and it added unique controls and characteristics for its characters that remain a part of the series to this day – such as Luigi being taller, and having a higher jump but less traction, and it remains one of the few Mario platformers to have Princess Peach as a playable character. The “actual” Mario Bros. 2 would eventually release in the west in subsequent anthology releases as “The Lost Levels” – but honestly, that’s not nearly as good of a game. Nintendo made the right call here.
