And remember the Hammer Bros., those weird helmet-wearing turtles who throw an infinite stream of hammers at you? Well, in SMB2j they advance towards you, making it harder to sidestep them. SMB2j is also much nastier with its Piranha Plants (those flowers, sometimes spitting fireballs, that emerged from pipes) - in SMB2j they continue rising out of the pipe even if you're standing next to it, making your game life a lot more difficult. (Don't ask me why jumping off of a turtle should give you a boost in the first place - just eat a mushroom and it will eventually become clear, man.) This extra turtle-lift was necessary because the level designs often used extremely long gaps, requiring a mega-jump to clear them.

In many cases, the game mechanics are slightly different - jumping off of bouncy objects (such as turtle shells) was tweaked, adding more lift to the jump. The differences are subtle: Luigi can jump higher and has a little less traction on the ground. You must choose to play either Mario or Luigi from the start.

Most US players have never heard of SMB2j, although we probably would have bought and played it if it had been available. This game is now known to US players as ' SMB2j,' and a version of it was eventually released in the US as ' Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.' But as a kid with an NES in the States, I never knew about this one. 2' that was a very clear sequel - it looked very similar, using the same game engine and the same characters, along with exactly the same plot.

In Japan, Nintendo released a version of ' Super Mario Bros. After playing a few rounds, I don't think I ever asked myself why I was fighting flying turtles, gobbling mushrooms to grow up, or eating flowers in order to throw fireballs - the whole situation was sufficiently trippy that a sensible plot wasn't necessary. Regardless, gameplay was fun, and simple game mechanics (jumping and running) combined with clever level design made the game challenging. While there was a general sense that Mario and his brother Luigi had to save Princess Toadstool from the evil dragon/turtle Bowser, it wasn't really explained why Bowser had kidnapped her in the first place, nor what he planned to gain from the crime. SMB's gameplay was not heavily plot-driven. (The 'B side' of that bundle cartridge, Duck Hunt, didn't get nearly as much play.) And because it was bundled with the NES console in the US, tons of people owned copies and played them. SMB on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) defined a generation of side-scrolling arcade games - its fluid graphics, fun soundtrack, and extensive gameplay gave NES fans a benchmark against which to measure all future games. To start this saga, we have to go all the way back to the original Super Mario Bros. Here's the odd story of how Nintendo crammed Mario into places he was never meant to be. This week, Nintendo released 'New' Super Mario Bros.

Mario bros 2 player