It was smooth and responsive, with each character feeling very different to play as. What struck me about Super Mario Bros 2 when I first played it was how good it felt to play. There was an eclectic mix of games on these machines too the one I tried had The Goonies 2, Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros 2, among others – the other Super Mario games were notably absent. Though it was somewhat awkward to be cut off from play when progress was being made, it was a great idea that allowed a number of different games to be sampled at a time. To extend the play time, further coins could be entered. The Pla圜hoice machines were an interesting concept – essentially a NES with multiple titles, they offered a set play time per coin, and this could be used in as many games as the player wanted during the time allowed. I think the West got the better end of the deal, to be honest.Īt the time I first played Super Mario Bros 2, I don’t think I’d even played on a NES it was on a Nintendo Pla圜hoice machine in the pub that I first tried the game. Feeling like more of an expansion pack than a true sequel, the Japan-only Super Mario Bros 2 (first released in the West on the SNES compilation Super Mario All-Stars as Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels) was a punishing exercise in unfair level design. The reason for this is that the actual sequel – which was released in Japan – was seen as too difficult for Western audiences. Starring a turban-wearing character with a passing resemblance to peripheral Mario character Toad (of ‘Sorry Mario, but our Princess is in another castle’ fame), the original game was exactly the same, minus the Mario characters.

Unbeknownst to me at the time – at least for a few years after I first played it, anyway – Super Mario Bros 2 was originally a Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic. In a weird twist of fate, the very first Super Mario Bros game I ever played was series oddity Super Mario Bros 2.

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