Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels Was Almost Given Away for Free in Nintendo Power

The story behind Super Mario Bros. 2 is a wild one, which makes it a great subject for a book — one penned by game journalist Jon Irwin, to be precise. There are two games by that title: one a dream about plucking vegetables, the other a souped-up remix of the first Super Mario Bros. The latter became known out in the West as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels when it appeared in enhanced form as part of the Super Mario All-Stars collection on SNES. In its original form, the game never came Stateside, but it almost did as part of a Nintendo Power giveaway in 1991.

During his research, Irwin learned that Gail Tilden, former vice president of brand management at Nintendo of America, was cooking up ways to boost subscriptions of Nintendo Power magazine, of which she was also one of the founding editors. Since the original Super Mario Bros. 2 was left behind in Japan, she thought it would be a fun treat if subscribers were gifted a free copy to see what our friends in the East were playing. Nintendo Power had previously given away copies of Enix's Dragon Quest (then known as Dragon Warrior) to positive results, so why couldn't such a move work again?

Nintendo produced a single NES cartridge of the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, but decided not to go ahead with the promotion for fear that consumers would get confused with the version of Mario 2 already on the market. But as we all already know, Japanese Mario 2 did eventually worm its way onto our shores two years later.

You can purchase Irwin's Super Mario Bros. 2 book when it goes on sale October 6. The digital version will be $4.95, the paperack $14.95, and the combo $17.95.

Via: Nintendo World Report