Super Mario Bros 2
Image: Nintendo

We suspect that most know the story of Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan and the game the rest of the world received. To give a very short summary, the sequel we saw in the West was a reskin of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, as Nintendo feared the true sequel would break players outside of Japan; that's why it's such an un-Mario-like Mario game. We all got the real sequel eventually as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, and it is indeed darn tricky.

In any case, a fun bit of social media that lit up the last weekend was this fan effort that blends Lost Levels stage design with the Doki Doki-style gameplay. You can see it in action below.

Once it blew up Sammu explained how the project came to be:

Oh my gosh! Looks like you all liked this a bit! Thank you! For a bit of information this is a GameMaker remake of Mario 1 & 2(TLL/J) that of course I don’t really plan to have a “proper release” because of the Nintendo Ninjas but it’s been more of a learning process for me lol

I had an idea a while back for a remake of SMB1/2/Special with extra features, extra graphics styles and new moves (optional) and widescreen (also optional) and maybe even an original level set, called it Super Mario Bros. Legacy

It does have widescreen and a modern mode that has graphics pretty much like Mario Maker’s! It also has a few HUDs to chose from and you can mix and match all 3 of these.

It's another cool fan project, and maybe in a parallel universe Nintendo released this version and Mario has greatly enhanced upper body strength.