As you may know, Doki Doki Panic was hacked and turned into the North American version of SMB2 since we never got the original, harder one. The game underwent a lot of changes when hacked, and this page will explain some of them. There is probably a much more expansive version of this at SMB2 Worship, so go there. Again, thanks!

First, look at the title screens above. The DDP ones is very bland and boring, don't you think? It was a little more interesting when turned into SMB2. But when Japan released SMB2 as SMUSA in Japan, it's title screen simply underwent a color change. At least they didn't get anything special. Ha!

Now, let's take a look at the characters. In DDP, you had a choice to play as one of the four Arabian family members. The main character was the son named Imajin. He was changed to Mario in SMB2. Next is the mother, named Mama, who was changed to Luigi (^_^). Then, the father named Papa, who was changed to Toad. Finally, the daughter named Lina, who was changed to Toadstool (Peach). This is not a fact, but merely speculation. It has been confirmed that Imajin is Mario, Mama is Luigi, Papa is Toad, and Lina is Peach.

The story line in DDP was a bit different as well. Two young children are reading a storybook and suddenly get sucked in. Their pet monkey sees the whole thing and alerts the family of four to hop in and rescue them from the clutches of the evil Wart. So, in DDP, you are inside of a storybook, but in SMB2, you are inside of a dream. In multiple shots of DDP, like the pause screen, it shows your information (stage no.) on the pages of a book. Another example is the character selection screen. In SMB2, they change the spine of the page to make it look like a stack of cards. Personally, Nintendo did a pretty good job of covering up the book atmosphere.

When selecting the character, instead of having a stage-like thing, you had to select one of their heads in a book-like thing. DDP also had a save feature, unlike SMB2. You select a character and are forced to play the entire game with them, unlike SMB2 where you could switch in between stages. Another difficult feature was that you couldn't get the ending until you've beaten the game with all four characters. DDP also didn't have the run option like SMB2 making longer jumps a challenge. DDP was obviously a lot harder than our SMB2. Nintendo once again figured we couldn't handle it and modified it to an easier title. Figures ...

A lot of the game in DDP was book-like. Why? Well, two children get sucked into a book by a monster and the family jumps in to save them. That's the plotline, and that's why. Instead of worlds, they were chapters. In SMB2, when you paused, you got a card stack-like screen. But in DDP, you got a page.

So, not only did Nintendo make some reasonable changes, but they also made some changes that made absolutely no sense at all. The following image will show you what I'm talking about.

Some of these make no sense at all. In DDP, very few of the items were actually animated. In SMB2, grass moved with the breeze, the leaves on vines moved, cherries bounced around, POW blocks' text scrolled, etc. Notice that, in DDP, grass patches are black. In SMB2, they were changed to red but you can still see the black part when you actually pick up the vegetable. Another change was, instead of having heart containers on the left, they were diamonds in DDP. Not much of a change, but still something. Also in DDP, you fought 3 Mousers throughout the game. In SMB2, they removed one and turned it into a new boss called Clawgrip. Nintendo invented a boss for SMB2. I guess having to fight Mouser over and over got a little boring after a while. Some other changes were found in the music and sound effects. Such sound effects as Birdo's egg spitting and the water spurting out of the whale were changed for some odd reason. Some music changes were reasonable, such as the Subspace and Starman music. It would have been nice to see a more expansive soundtrack in SMB2, however, or at least in SMA, but the game still consists of an outside song and a very repetetive inside song. Boring.

If you think that is boring, check out the bonus screens. Both bonus screens are very boring. The DDP one is very bland. A green screen ... wow. However, though the SMB2 one has more stuff in it, it is simply the title screen picture. Wow. You would think they could at least come up with an original slot machine screen or something, but no. Both screens are incredibly boring.

That concludes my section on DDP. Personally, I find it interesting how all of these characters featured in DDP, such as Shy Guy and Bob-omb, ended up being common Mario characters and even playable in some games! Peach, in Super Smash Bros. Melee, can float and use vegetables to fight with! Also, all of the DDP characters that appeared as trophies were credited as first appearing in SMB2, but doesn't Nintendo think gamers should know the truth? Still, if you think about it, it's kind of a rip-off for the people who made DDP, but quite interesting if you know the history behind SMB2 and DDP.

A much more expansive DDP section can be found at SMB2 Worship. Please go there.