Doki Doki Panic
Video gameWikipedia
21
MENTIONS
10
EPISODES
9
PODCASTS
Search complete. 21 mentions across 10 episodes found for "Doki Doki Panic".
Sep 8, 2026
Phil RainHOST
I'm far from an avid gamer, so I'm working on a pretty limited sample here, but this is just something different and delightful about jumping on an enemy, riding around on them for a while, picking them up, and throwing them.
Phil RainHOST
I remember Mario Bros. 2, and it's originally Doki Doki Panic, and then it was released in America as a Mario game because...
GreerHOST
Yeah, I was gonna ask money.
GreerHOST
Which Mario 2 is he talking about?
Bob MackeyHOST
Okay, we're gonna move on to our last item here.
Bob MackeyHOST
Contrary to popular belief, Doki Doki Panic actually began as a Super Mario game.
Bob MackeyHOST
And yes, uh, through your research, Drew, you discovered that it was originally a prototype for a Mario game that was not Mario enough for Miyamoto.
Drew MackieGUEST
So it came in, um...
Drew MackieGUEST
Instead of traveling left or right, you're going up.
Drew MackieGUEST
And, uh, this was the initial model for, um, what might have been a sequel to Super Mario Brothers.
Drew MackieGUEST
And it was not used, but it eventually evolved into Doki Doki Panic, which eventually evolved into Super Mario Brothers 2.
Drew MackieGUEST
And you can see examples of this sort of, uh, action in Mario Brothers 2.
JasonHOST
That's because Mario Bros. 2 is...
CameronHOST
Doki Doki Panic.
CameronHOST
It was a completely different
JasonHOST
game.
Michael QuinnHOST
That shit was annoying last week.
Joe MurataHOST
Doki Doki Panic starting up.
Joe MurataHOST
All right.
Joe MurataHOST
Folks, without any further ado, before you panic, this is WWF Superstars of Wrestling, February 4th, 1989.
DannyHOST
So they said, nope, don't release it.
DannyHOST
We're going to actually reskin Doki Doki Panic, which then became Mario 2 or Mario USA.
DannyHOST
And we didn't get the Lost Levels until it was actually released in the Super Mario All-Star Collection, and they decided to call it the Lost Levels.
DannyHOST
There we go, that's the history of it.
17 MINS LATER
DannyHOST
Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? It's a funny story.
DannyHOST
And I think we talk about this.
DannyHOST
Was it the right decision to keep it hidden for so long? We actually do have that conversation of whether we think that the developer of America, Nintendo America, did they actually make the right call? Should they have released it at the time and not gone down the Doki Doki Panic route? So we talk about that, so I'm not going to give my thoughts so much on that.
DannyHOST
But three great answers.
Joe BourrieGUEST
Yes, we all know the story.
Joe BourrieGUEST
Doki Doki Panic was a Nintendo game that became a Mario game when it got brought to the US.
Joe BourrieGUEST
It actually got re-released on the Famicom as Super Mario USA a few years later.
Joe BourrieGUEST
So what we call Super Mario Bros. 2 does exist on Famicom in the Mario form as well.
Josh CovilHOST
But
Joe BourrieGUEST
shortly after the release of Doki Doki Panic, Konami releases on the same Famicom Disk System platform, Biomerical Bokutei Upa.
Joe BourrieGUEST
You familiar with that game? Oh, I've
Josh CovilHOST
seen this game actually, yes.
Nick SutnerHOST
Not only is it a jump to a sprite-based 3D arcade game, but it also gives the impression that the title was handed to a team of developers that hadn't worked on the previous games, or even that the game hadn't been Campanella branded until they realized they'd sell more copies of it, was reworked as a sequel to their top-selling series." Um, so I think that's maybe kind of part of the feeling here.
Nick SutnerHOST
It's a little bit of, like, a, you know, Doki Doki Panic vibe or something.
Nick SutnerHOST
Um, [lip smack] and I also just wanted to re- I, I think, I think the sort of, like, feelings and opinions on this game were a little all over the map on Discord.
Nick SutnerHOST
I don't think there was sort of a central, like, take on it like some of the more recent games.
Rob C. ThompsonHOST
It's just Mario 1 extended.
Rob C. ThompsonHOST
But they have a version that their Mario 2 is Doki Doki Panic, which is from the 1987 communication carnival in Osaka.
Rob C. ThompsonHOST
and tokyo and uh there's two female protagonists in that game so the japanese also a female protagonist the gender question resurfaces again and again the book it's not a book about gender there's a chapter about gender um but it's such a central question i think in video gaming and it's one that's very rarely i think tackled from the standpoint of the 80s the arcade hated women is a deeply misogynist space, but girls picked up the home consoles.
Rob C. ThompsonHOST
And Sega, for example, in the mid-90s had more female players than they had male players.
MattHOST
...
MattHOST
Super Mario Bros. 2 was originally called Doki Doki Panic?
MaggieHOST
What?
MattHOST
Wow.
Michael QuinnHOST
Wasn't even them
Joe MurataHOST
Miyamoto developed Doki Doki Panic.
Michael QuinnHOST
I get it, but they-
Joe MurataHOST
Uh