List of Super Mario Bros. 2 pre-release and unused content

This page pertains to the beta elements of Super Mario Bros. 2.

See also: Doki Doki Panic.

Beta elements
In 2005, a prototype copy of Super Mario Bros. 2 sold on eBay for $350. It was significantly different from the final release version of SMB2, making it possibly the biggest single leak of beta information in the history of the Mario series.

The prototype cart has a SNROM-02 motherboard rather than the final version's TSROM-04. This means that it uses CHR-RAM instead of CHR-ROM and utilizes batteries. This was probably changed because SNROM-02's ROM size is 1 Mebibit, rather than TSROM-04's 2 Mebibits.

The title and story screens of the prototype use a different color pallet, which includes tans and oranges, as opposed to the final version's red and blue scheme.

On the prototype version's character select screen, an ellipsis divides the phrase "EXTRA LIFE" from the number of lives remaining. Strangely, the ellipsis returns for Super Mario All-Stars.

The character's sprites are not significantly different between the two versions, but Mario and Luigi lack sclera in the prototype, and the Princess's sclera are pink. This may be because Mario, Luigi, and Peach's sprites have more colors than the NES hardware can normally handle, and so their sclera actually have to be rendered as a separate sprite from the rest of their bodies.

Several other character sprites are slightly different. For example, the princess has more hair in the prototype. One noticeable incongruity of the prototype's sprites is that, although all the "item carrying" sprites are finished, the items being carried float at the height the original Doki Doki Panic characters would have carried them at.

In DDP, players couldn't use the B button to run; this was, in fact, almost exclusive to Mario games at the time. This mechanic hadn't been added when this prototype was compiled.

The prototype used a magic lamp to access subspace, as did DDP. The final version used a magic potion.

In the prototype the player only had to throw four vegetables at Wart to defeat him. The ending also gave out Prize Money instead of Contributions. Depending on how many times the character died, the player would be rewarded with a different amount of money at the end of the game.

For a complete comparison, see The Mushroom Kingdom: Lost Bytes: Prototypes: Super Mario Bros. 2.