Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
It was re-released in Japan for the Family Computer on September 14, 1992, as and has been remade twice, first included in the Super Mario All-Stars collection, released on July 14, 1993, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and as Super Mario Advance, released as a launch game for the Game Boy Advance on March 21, 2001.
Shortly after the release of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic in the summer of 1987, Nintendo of America was looking for a more accessible Super Mario sequel that incorporated new gameplay and better graphics, worrying that The Lost Levels would discourage new players due to its drastic increase in difficulty from the first game.
Nintendo of America's Gail Tilden recalls that president Minoru Arakawa's request to convert the thematically unrelated Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic into a Mario sequel was "odd" at first but not unusual for Nintendo, which had already converted a canceled Popeye prototype into Donkey Kong and reconceived that into Donkey Kong Jr.and Donkey Kong 3.
Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic needed only a few alterations for its conversion into the Mario series because its gameplay elements were already so heavily rooted in it: Starman for invincibility, the sound effects of coins and jumps, POW blocks, warp zones, and a soundtrack by Super Mario Bros.composer Koji Kondo.
A late prototype of the game covering these changes was exhibited in the first issue of Nintendo Power, dated July/August1988.
Super Mario Bros.2 was first released in North America on In PAL regions, the game released the following year.
Like all Satellaview games, it was released episodically in a number of weekly volumes, only in Japan, and only in this format.
The staff complimented it and other third-generation games for being a greater improvement than sequels around 2012, which they thought had seen only small improvements.
In the Pak Source edition of Nintendo Power, which rated all NES games released in North America from October 1985 to March 1990, Super Mario Bros. 2 was among the only three games (aside Metroid and Mega Man 2) to receive the maximum score of 5 in at least one of the categories evaluated, which was not awarded to either Super Mario Bros. nor Super Mario Bros. 3.
He recalled: "I remember being pulled over to Fuji Television one day, being handed a sheet with game characters on it and being told, 'I want you to make a game with this'.
Summarizing Tanabe's recollections within a 2011 interview, Wired said "Although the initial concept for the game had been scrapped, the development of that original two-player cooperative prototype inspired all the innovative gameplay of Super Mario Bros.2".
Entertainment Weekly picked the game as the #6 greatest game available in 1991, saying: "The second and still the best of the Super Mario franchise".
In 1997 Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked the All-Stars edition as the 14th-best console video game of all time, calling the level designs "unlike anything you've seen before" and highly praising the boss challenges.
They said that as it was a five-year old game it felt dated and were disappointed it was just the older game with Mario-themed graphics.
Conversely, IGN praised the choice, calling it "one of the most polished and creative platformers of the era".
Next Generation reviewed the Game Boy Advance version of the game, rating it three stars out of five, and stated that "This classic probably shouldn't have been brought back.
It is based on Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic (1987), released in Japan, with the characters replaced by those of the Mario series. Outside Japan the title is SUPER MARIO BROS. 2 (1988).
Notably, Yume Koujou: Doki Doki Panic was released outside Japan as the ROM cartridge title "Super Mario Bros. 2", and was later brought back to Japan as Super Mario USA.
Nintendo of America did not want the increasingly popular Mario series to be too difficult to a recovering, transfiguring, and expanding market — nor to be stylistically outdated by the time the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 could be eventually converted to the NES' cartridge format, localized, and mass-produced for America.
Utilizing its regional autonomy to avoid risking the franchise's popularity in this nascent market, Nintendo of America rejected the Japanese sequel's localization to America and instead requested a newer and more player-friendly Super Mario Bros. sequel for release outside Japan.
After the smash hit Super Mario Bros. in 1985, Nintendo quickly released an adaptation of the original with advanced difficulty titled Super Mario Bros. 2 for its market in Japan on June 3, 1986.
However, Nintendo of America found this sequel too similar to its predecessor, and its difficulty too frustrating, for the nascent American market.
Nintendo of America did not want the increasingly popular Mario series to be too difficult to a recovering, transfiguring, and expanding market — nor to be stylistically outdated by the time the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 could be eventually converted to the NES' cartridge format, localized, and mass-produced for America.
Shortly after the release of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic in the summer of 1987, Nintendo of America was looking for a more accessible Super Mario sequel that incorporated new gameplay and better graphics, worrying that The Lost Levels would discourage new players due to its drastic increase in difficulty from the first game.
In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu,the four reviewers gave 6, 7, 6, and 5, for a total of 24 out of 40. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Family Computer Magazine,it scored 20.22 out of 30, as shown below.
In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu,the four reviewers gave 7, 8, 6, and 6, for a total of 27 out of 40.
By early 1990, copies were sold in the United States, eventually totaling million copies worldwide, making it the fourth highest-selling game ever released on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
He recalled: "I remember being pulled over to Fuji Television one day, being handed a sheet with game characters on it and being told, 'I want you to make a game with this'.
Nintendo of America's Gail Tilden recalls that president Minoru Arakawa's request to convert the thematically unrelated Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic into a Mario sequel was "odd" at first but not unusual for Nintendo, which had already converted a canceled Popeye prototype into Donkey Kong and reconceived that into Donkey Kong Jr.and Donkey Kong 3.
Summarizing Tanabe's recollections within a 2011 interview, Wired said "Although the initial concept for the game had been scrapped, the development of that original two-player cooperative prototype inspired all the innovative gameplay of Super Mario Bros.2".
Nintendo originally released a different game called Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Family Computer Disk System in 1986 (later released as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels for Super NES as part of Super Mario All-Stars).
This international adaptation of the Famicom platform had been deliberately rebranded in the wake of the American video game crash of 1983, a regional market recession that had not directly affected the mature Japanese market.
A late prototype of the game covering these changes was exhibited in the first issue of Nintendo Power, dated July/August1988.
Conversely, IGN praised the choice, calling it "one of the most polished and creative platformers of the era".
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