Mario is back and still holding strong after all these years!
New Bro, same flow!
It has been roughly fourteen long years since the last Super Mario Bros. title was a 2-D platformer. New Super Mario Bros. breaks the mold by returning to the roots of gaming. Does the title live up to the legends? Is it worthy to be classified with the rest of Mario’s 2-D adventures? Find out in the review!
Graphics:
The graphics are top notch. As most of you know, the game is entirely in 2-D. Even though New Super Mario Bros. is based on 2-D, Nintendo did not cut any corners when working on the graphics for this title. The game consists of smoothly rendered graphics and very little, if any pixilation. The world map and levels are highly detailed and full of content. There are usually several colorful layers of background to add life and depth to the 2-D world. Mario and the enemies on screen are very animated and there doesn’t seem to be any blocky movement or quirky physics. Nintendo really took their time with the title and made sure even the smallest graphical blemishes were touched on. I loved the graphical direction that was taken for New Super Mario Bros. and was highly pleased with what the hardware capabilities of the DS could really pull off.
Gameplay:
The overall gameplay is very similar to Super Mario Bros. 3 released on the NES. There are a total of eight colorful worlds for Mario to venture through. However, two of these worlds are somewhat of a secret and are usually passed up by the average player. The environments can consist of all the traditional areas Mario is known to visit such as haunted houses, creepy castles, scorching deserts, frozen tundras, bottomless oceans, sunny beaches, and your traditional grassy plains. I was pleased with the number and variety of worlds found in New Super Mario Bros. The physics and movement of our hero Mario have been modeled after his star platforming titles found on the NES. I never once became frustrated by the controls or felt cheated by a flawed physics scheme. If you were able to control Mario in his past platforming titles, you should feel right at home with the controls of New Super Mario Bros. Like most cases, with a new edition of classic Mario platforming comes a few great new items that he will be able to use on his adventure to save his beloved Princess Peach. The traditional Fire Flower and Mushroom remake their appearance in the title but new to the Mario platforming world are the Blue Shell, Mega Mushroom, and Mini Mushroom items. The Blue Shell has a variety of effects on Mario. When Mario begins to run he can tuck inside the shell to use his momentum to mow over his enemies. He can also tuck inside the shell at anytime and be protected from most outside enemies, similar to the Tanooki Suit’s defensive capability found in Super Mario Bros. 3. Lastly, when worn, the Blue Shell gives Mario an added degree of underwater mobility for some of those more difficult underwater stages. I wasn’t much of a fan of the Blue Shell. I felt the item made Mario too difficult to control sometimes. I would begin running through a stage only to find that Mario tucked himself inside his shell and had begun bouncing all over the screen, only to wind up in a bottomless pit. While at times the Blue Shell had its fun moments, overall it was just a pain to try and control. Next on the list is the Mega Mushroom, an item that makes Mario grow to gigantic proportions. I tend to have the same mixed feelings toward the Mega Mushroom as I did the Blue Shell. Many times when I used the Mega Mushroom, instead of completely destroying everything in my path as intended, I would instead get stuck on some part of the environment and remain stuck until the effect of the Mega Mushroom wore off. It seems that there are only a few specific levels were the Mega Mushroom could have come in handy. Once again, the item is fun to use at times but I just never really found any practical use for the Mega Mushroom. Lastly we have the Mini Mushroom. As you might of guessed this item has the exact opposite effect of the Mega Mushroom and shrinks Mario to a miniscule size. In this miniature state, Mario has the ability to jump higher and fall slower due his light weight. Like my view of the other two new items, the Mini Mushroom feels gimmicky. There are few areas were it would be put to practical to use and the Mini Mushroom is mainly used for reaching alternate exits or secret routes in a particular stage. Unlike the other two items, I didn’t really find the Mini Mushroom> that fun to use and out of the three new items I would say it is my least favorite addition. The new items add a bit of depth in the game but for the most part they are hardly necessary and rarely used. I am actually glad that a lot of focus was not put on these additional items but that more of the focus is on the classic Mario platforming we all know and love. Moving on from the new features, let’s take a look at what classic gameplay Nintendo has decided to keep. The world map found in New Super Mario Bros. is very similar to that of Super Mario 3 or Super Mario World. You will move Mario from point to point completing various stages till you reach the final castle and boss of that particular world. The length it will take to complete New Super Mario Bros. is roughly a little more than it would take you to complete Super Mario Bros. 3. There are the classic warp pipes that can be found throughout the stages and can be used to totally skip through a few of the worlds. If you were playing hastily you could easily complete New Super Mario Bros. in one sitting. Some complained about how short the game was but I believe Nintendo developed it this way so that you could pick up the title and play it every now and then, similar to how you could Super Mario 3 or the original Super Mario. Nintendo has catered to both the hardcore and the average gamer in that New Super Mario Bros. contains secret routes, warp pipes, and two secret worlds to unlock. While the main game can be played in one sitting there are still many hours to be played to completely unlock everything. Each stage found within the eight worlds is played out as your traditional 2-D side-scroller. Mario has the ability to hold an item that he collects similar to the feature found in Super Mario World on the SNES. This is a great feature to help with the more difficult levels later on. The only complaint I have about this feature is that you must touch the items icon in the bottom screen to activate it. While this may seem picky, I don’t particularly like putting paw prints all over my DS just to use the touch screen features. It can also be aggravating to constantly take out the stylus for a game that is primarily played via d-pad. It would have been easy to assign a button such as Select, L, or R to activate the item. All the traditional elements of Mario can be found such as 1-up mushrooms and the collection of one-hundred gold coins for an extra life. New Super Mario Bros. does add a somewhat new concept to the whole coin collecting idea. Throughout each stage there will be three hidden star coins which when obtained allow Mario to buy alternate routes on the world map. These routes can lead to Mushroom Houses which Mario can take a gamble and try to earn extra lives or extra items from. Lastly, I found that New Super Mario Bros. had a solid level of difficultly. I found that the stages designed were a tad easier than the Original Super Mario Bros. , Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World. As far as game modes go, New Super Mario Bros. comes with a variety of different mini games that appeared in Super Mario 64 DS as well as a few new ones. There is also a two player mode called Mario Vs. Luigi, which was fairly fun. The extra features aren’t really explosive but they do add a little extra topping on an already great single player adventure mode. The gameplay sticks to the original roots which is right were any 2-D plat former should be. I believe New Super Mario Bros. can be placed right up there with Super Mario 3 and the original Super Mario Bros. It is a legendary game that really stresses the fact that the solid gameplay of 2-D platformering is still alive and well in our age.
Sound & Music:
I found nothing wrong with the music and sound within the game. There were quite a few remixes of the original Mario songs found throughout his 2-D era. Each stage’s music fits perfectly with its world environment and the sound effects are top notch. I never found the songs to be annoying or repetitive. There are also a few original songs that are quite nice and definitely worthy of being Mario music. The music was highly nostalgic and I honestly enjoyed the sound of New Super Mario Bros. from beginning to end.
New Super Mario Bros. is a great representation of what the 2-D platforming of Super Mario was all about. The environments, the enemies, the sound effects and music will all bring you back to that golden age so long ago. I would highly recommend this title to not only Mario fans and old school gamers, but pretty much anyone. The title offers many different types of gamers a chance to take a trip down memory lane and provides a type of game you will want to pick up over and over again (Like its other 2-D predecessors). In my opinion, New Super Mario Bros. is one of the strongest titles on the DS. From graphics to gameplay, this game has you covered.
Final Score: 9.2