Malstrom: "The new 2d Mario games are suffering the SMB2J problem"

[WiiBox3]

Slimebeast said:

Mr Khan said:
SMB2J was really, really hard, for one.

A different factor to look at, however, could be Nintendo's mis-promotion of the coin gimmick. I was a little bothered by the premise of the game up until the point i started playing, when i realized that the coin counter is pretty much just a coin counter, and aside from the effects of the Gold Flower or Gold Rings, the game doesn't have a dramatically higher number of coins than other Mario games

We'll have to see what NSMBU does to properly assess what's going on here, though (and even that will be skewed by NSMBU being a launch title)

I am confused. Isn't SMB2 supposed to be easier according to reviews? (The new 2d Mario game for the 3DS with a stronger focus on gold coins)

And what exactly does the J mean in "SMB2J"? Is the Japanese version different?

Yes. SMB2 in the west is a different game than SMB2 in Japan. The Japanese one looks exactly like the first SMB with new levels and fetures added. SMB2 in the West was not originally a Mario game. They took the game Doki Doki Panic from Japan, reskined it with Mario character, improved the balance and animation and called it SMB2. (Don't be confused, Doki Doki Panic may be the game they skinned, but they did a lot of changes to take a medocre game and make it great.) Later they released the western version of SMB2 back in Japan as SMB USA.

Side note. I love SMB2 even more than SMB3. :) I know I will get some hate for this.