Subcon: The Dream World of Super Mario Bros. 2

LocationSubconSuper Mario Bros. 2

A kingdom named after the subconscious. Also known as the Land of Dreams, Subcon is the dream world of Super Mario Bros. 2, inherited from Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, released in Japan on July 10, 1987. This guide covers Wart, the tyrant who corrupted the dream, the Subcon fairies who live there, and the singular place this setting holds in the series.

Subcon — a name that stays the same in French and in English — is the dream world that serves as the setting for Super Mario Bros. 2, the Western version of the game released in 1988. Also known as the "Land of Dreams", this dreamlike kingdom takes its name from the English word subconscious, meaning the subconscious.

Behind its pastel colors hide a warmongering tyrant, captive fairies and a twist that became famous: what if all of Subcon were nothing but Mario's dream? Here's a tour of this one-of-a-kind place, the cradle of several future stars of the series.

Contents

• A dream world named after the subconscious
• From Doki Doki Panic to Super Mario Bros. 2
• Wart, the tyrant who corrupted the dream
• The Subcon fairies, inhabitants of the dream world
• Subcon, a nursery of future stars
• The final twist: it was all a dream
• Quick facts
• FAQ

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A dream world named after the subconscious

Subcon is no ordinary land of the Mushroom Kingdom: it's a dream world, a nocturnal plane Mario slips into the moment he falls asleep. Nothing like the green-pipe plains of the first Super Mario Bros.

Its name comes straight from the English word subconscious, the "subconscious": the place is literally presented as a projection of the sleeping mind, an idea the game's ending goes on to confirm.

In concrete terms, you travel through seven worlds with sharply contrasting moods — scorching deserts, frozen expanses, cloudy skies and deep caverns — filled with brand-new enemies, without a single Goomba or Koopa carried over from the earlier games.

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From Doki Doki Panic to Super Mario Bros. 2

Subcon was actually born in a game that had nothing to do with Mario: Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, released on July 10, 1987 (Japan) on the Famicom Disk System and tied to a media event run by the Fuji TV network.

For the export market, Nintendo judged the real Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 — known in the West as The Lost Levels — too hard for Western players. So the company redressed Doki Doki Panic in Mario's colors.

That version came out in the United States on October 9, 1988, then in Europe in 1989. During the conversion, the original world "Muu" became Subcon and its tyrant "Mamu" was renamed Wart; in Japan, the game would later be re-released under the title Super Mario USA.

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Wart, the tyrant who corrupted the dream

By the time the heroes arrive, Subcon has already fallen into the hands of Wart (Mamu in Japan), an imposing frog king who holds the entire dream world in terror.

To cement his power, he hijacks the dream machine (the Dream Machine) to manufacture monsters and send his army to every corner of Subcon, while the rightful inhabitants are locked away in jars.

His weakness has become legendary: vegetables. Mario yanks them out of the ground and hurls them in his face, a gameplay mechanic that replaces the classic stomp on enemies' heads.

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The Subcon fairies, inhabitants of the dream world

A subtlety of vocabulary: the inhabitants of Subcon are called Subcon too. They are small, kindly fairies, the guardians of the dream world.

Once freed from their jars, these fairies guide and thank the heroes at every stage; their rescue alone sums up everything the adventure is about.

Four playable characters set out to rescue them — Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad — each with abilities of their own, like Peach's famous floating jump, long an exclusive of this installment.

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Subcon, a nursery of future stars

If Subcon holds a special place in the history of the series, it's because it saw the debut of a whole crowd of now-essential characters, who went on to spread across the entire Mario universe:

• Birdo: the pink egg-spitting dinosaur, introduced here as a recurring mini-boss.
• Shy Guy (Maskass in French): the little masked, bashful enemy, everywhere ever since.
• Pokey: the segmented cactus that haunts the desert worlds.
• Bob-omb: the bomb on legs, headed for a long career.
• Autobomb: the cannon mounted on wheels and driven by a Shy Guy.

Without this founding dream, there would be no Birdo or Shy Guy in the Mario Kart, Mario Party and other spin-offs: Subcon enriched the franchise's bestiary for good.

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The final twist: it was all a dream

The big reveal comes after Wart's defeat: with Subcon liberated and the fairies saved, the final screen shows Mario peacefully asleep in his bed. The whole adventure was only a dream.

In hindsight, that ending gives the name of the place its full meaning: Subcon, the subconscious, really was the plumber's sleeping mind. It also explains why this world clashes so much with the rest of the series.

Long dismissed as a "fake" Mario, the game and its setting ended up fully folded into the canon: Wart, Birdo and the Subcon fairies come back regularly, proof that this dream never entirely faded away.

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Subcon at a glance

French name	Subcon (also "Land of Dreams")
English name	Subcon
Type of location	Dream world (Super Mario Bros. 2 universe)
First appearance	Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic (July 10, 1987, Japan)
Mario version	Super Mario Bros. 2 (October 9, 1988, North America)
Antagonist	Wart (Mamu in Japan)
Inhabitants	The Subcon fairies
Origin of the name	"Subconscious"

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FAQ

• Is Subcon a real place in the Mario universe?
  Yes and no. Within the fiction, Subcon is the dream world of Super Mario Bros. 2, but the ending reveals it was actually Mario's dream. It has since been folded into the series' canon.
• Where does the name Subcon come from?
  The name Subcon derives from the English word subconscious. It captures the dreamlike nature of this world, presented as a projection of the sleeping mind.
• What's the difference between the Japanese and the Western Super Mario Bros. 2?
  The Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 is a brutally hard sequel to the first game, known in the West as The Lost Levels. The 1988 Western version, for its part, is Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic dressed up in Mario's colors.
• Who is Wart and what does he want?
  Wart, called Mamu in Japan, is the frog king who invaded Subcon. He manufactures monsters with the dream machine and imprisons the fairies. His great weakness is the vegetables Mario throws at him.
• Which characters first appeared in Subcon?
  Subcon is the birthplace of several stars of the series: Birdo, Shy Guy, Pokey, Bob-omb and Autobomb, who all went on to join the rest of the Mario universe.

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