Editing Super Mario Bros. 2 (section)

=== Background and conception ===
{{Quote box|width=33%|quote=The idea was that you would have people vertically ascending, and you would have items and blocks that you could pile up to go higher, or you could grab your friend that you were playing with and throw them to try and continue to ascend&nbsp;... the vertical-scrolling gimmick wasn't enough to get us interesting gameplay.|source=—[[Kensuke Tanabe]] at [[Game Developers Conference]] 2011, on the gameplay mechanics that were later used for ''Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic'' and ''Super Mario Bros. 2''.<ref name="Secret History of SMB2" />}}

Nintendo originally released a different game called ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' on Japan's [[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]]''). Its engine is an enhanced ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'', with the same gameplay and more complex level designs, character features, and weather features. Some of the advanced level content had been culled from ''[[Vs. Super Mario Bros.]]'', a 1986 coin-operated arcade version of the original ''Super Mario Bros.'' for NES.<ref name="Secret History of SMB2" /><ref name="History of SMB at IGN">{{cite web|url=http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/09/14/ign-presents-the-history-of-super-mario-bros|title=IGN Presents The History of Super Mario Bros.|last=McLaughlin|first=Rus|website=IGN|date=September 14, 2010|access-date=April 9, 2014|archive-date=November 9, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109000531/https://www.ign.com/articles/2010/09/14/ign-presents-the-history-of-super-mario-bros|page=3|url-status=live}}</ref> All of these factors combined to yield an incremental game design with significantly higher difficulty.

Also that year, the young subsidiary [[Nintendo of America]] was just beginning its launch of the new [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] and its flagship game, ''Super Mario Bros.'' 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 which had not directly affected the mature Japanese market. Nintendo of America did not want the increasingly popular [[Super Mario|''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series]] to be too difficult to a recovering, transfiguring, and expanding market — nor to be stylistically outdated by the time the Japanese ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' could be eventually converted to the NES's cartridge format, localized, and mass-produced for America.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 declined the Japanese sequel's localization to America and instead requested a newer and more player-friendly ''Super Mario Bros.'' sequel for release outside Japan.<ref name="History of SMB at IGN" />