Many of you know that Super Mario Bros. 2 from the NES days is actually a somewhat edited version of Doki Doki Panic, a game released in Japan.

Japan had an altogether different Super Mario Bros. 2 title with graphics very similar to the original Super Mario Bros. It had some various changes and new things such as poison mushrooms, flying Bloopers, and wind. It was a much, much more difficult game than the first in the series. It was later released as Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels in America.

For America at first, however, a game called Doki Doki Panic was changed into Super Mario Bros. 2. The essentials remained the same; however, characters were switched out for Mario characters, among other things.

Now, some gamers think it's a great, classic title while others think it goes too far outside of Mario elements. I personally think it is a classic Mario title. And interestingly, numerous Mario games afterwards used characters from this game. So if you think the Mario-ized Doki Doki Panic is a bad game, take a look at some of the newer games. Examples being most of the Mario Kart games, Mario sidescrollers and all of the Mario 3D platformers.

Popular Mario characters were taken from this Doki Doki Panic game. Bob-ombs, Shyguys, Pokeys, and even Birdo are from this game. Looking at the Mario series as a whole, those characters are quite important.

So there you have it. Doki Doki Panic and its Mario version definitely prove to have great impact in the Mario series. Without them, much of what is considered today to be Mario stuff, even Mario characteristics, could possibly not be a part of Mario games.

Thanks for reading.

---

Since this is a gaming website, I thought I'd post a blog about games.