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Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Okey-Dokey Doki Doki

The below image compares concept art for Super Mario Bros. 2 and Doki Doki Panic, the Japanese game that the former was based on. And when I say “based on,” I mean “hacked from,” if by a more legitimate crew than is normally responsible for hacking. I wish I could find the Doki Doki Panic image in higher resolution, but so far this is all the internet has yielded. What’s especially curious about these two images is that they’re both hand-drawn art, but for whatever reason the artist who drew the left panel, which depicts the American version of the game, decided to preserve the design of the right one almost perfectly.



Whoever drew the Super Mario Bros. art posed all the characters almost exactly as they appeared in the Doki Doki Panic art, just with a thicker line style. Mario, for example, is about to throw a turnip in the same way that Imajin, the turbaned fellow who starred in the Japanese game, is about to throw a mask — an African tribal mask, no less. You know, like you throw at people. Same with the rest of the cast.

What strikes me as even odder about these pieces is that the artist could have easily traced everything on the right side of the river for the Super Mario Bros. 2 art, as those characters did not change. Or if not trace, than they could easily have just pieced in the new art using whatever people in the 80s used before Photoshop. They didn’t. They re-drew it all, sometimes in poses that are almost jus barely different. Look at Birdo, for example. She’s just slightly in a different pose, her snout is shaped differently and her bow is a different color.

Another note: For whatever reason, the American art doesn’t change the sound effect of the bomb exploding from the Japanese “BOM” to how it appears in the American game, “BOMB.” Even the hills in the background appear similarly, just with different swirls on them.

Odd. To me, anyway.

EDIT: Long after this went up, I stumbled across this absolutely beautiful promo artwork that kind of makes me want to see a Doki Doki Panic realized in such a gloriously colorful fashion.

doki doki panic official art super mario bros. 2

Or at least a hint that Nintendo hasn’t completely forgotten these characters.

2 comments:

  1. Just browsed my way in from... I'm not even sure where....

    Very entertaining, but one thing I wanted to point out: Birdo was male at this time, was he not?

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  2. Possibly. When Birdo was introduced in the American Super Mario Bros. 2, the character was allegedly a boy who liked to pretend he was a girl. However, the character has always been known in Japan as a Catherine, even since being introduced in Doki Doki Panic. I'm actually not sure how Catherine's gender works.

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