It has been about 15 years since the last new Mario sidescroller. After Super Mario Land 2, everything has been a remake for the Game Boy Advance. Finally, 15 years later, New Super Mario Bros is released for the Nintendo DS. Has Mario withstood the test of time?
This Review will be scored on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being best
Gameplay: 8/10
This game tries
its best to play like a classic Mario game. You have Super Mushrooms, Fire
Flowers, and Starmen, which is good. The game also includes three brand
new power ups, which include the Mega Mushroom, which transforms Mario
into a 25-foot monster that demolishes everything in his path; the Mini
Mushroom, which makes Mario microsized, allowing him to reach small places
and secrets; and finally there is the Koopa Shell, which transforms Mario
into Koopa Mario, who can go inside a shell and ricochette off walls and
hit enemies. However. I find these items to be somewhat gimmicky and uncreative.
Classics like SMB3 had very original powerups like the Frog Suit and Tanooki
Suit. The game features eight worlds, and the world maps are very similar
to those in SMB3 and SMW1, so you have a bird's eye view of the world and
can move across the land to select a level. But some of these maps
were very bland. Unlike SMW, these simply take one path rightwards
with few forks in the road, which is very boring. One thing I like about
this game, though, is the fact that it retains unlockable levals that can
be accessed through secret exits in other levels, just like SMW had. And
the secret exits arn't easy to find either, unless you have the Player's
Guide. On another positive note, the game features midway SMB3 Fortress-like
Towers where you must fight Bowser Jr, just like fighting Boom Boom or
the Reznors in SMB3 and SMW. Each world also has a castle at the end where
you fight the world boss. A cool thing is that they included the classic
bridge battles from SMB1 in a couple worlds. In short, this game tries
to retain many of the things that made the classic Mario games great.
I found the game design to be somewhat different from the classics. The
game also has Star Coins, three in each level to collect. These are your
currency, and can be used to go into Toad Houses to get items. Sometimes
the levels feel unchallenging or as if lack of thought and creativity was
put into the levals. A reason for this is probably the fact that if you
read the manual, in the credits section, you will see that Shigeru Miyamoto
had absolutely 0 to do with this game. This is still great solid gameplay,
earning it an 8/10.
Fun Factor!:
8.5\10
This is a very
fun game. It's a block smashing, Goomba stomping good time! It still pales
in comparison to my top three Mario games: Yoshi's Island, Super Mario
Bros 3, and Super Mario World. In one level I was riding a 100-foot Wiggler,
and in another I was dodging huge eels that could eat Mario whole. It was
just fun. There really isn't much to say about this, this is B+ material.
I also thought it was fun to see fireworks sometimes after clearing a leval.
This game is a little to easy for me though. I can compare the difficulty
of SMB3's world 3 to New Super Mario Bros's world 6 as being about the
same.
Sound: 9/10
This game has
superb sound, an example is on the world maps. You hear Mario's footsteps
everytime you move across the map. As usual you hear Mario's grunting sounds
every time he jumps. There's even a voice segment after you clear a level.
And in ghost houses sometimes you will here a creepy Boo's laugh in the
background.
Music: 9/10
I really liked
the music in this game, which includes both old game music remixes and
new music. The new music (I think) is mostly ragtime music in the overworld,
which I thought was very catchy in some parts of the piece. The castle
music is pretty much your dungeon type music, I had to take one point off
for the castle music, which I despise. The remixed music includes the classic
Mario underground theme, and at the end of a level if you get fireworks,
it will play the Mario 1 clear a level theme. The underwater music was
pretty peaceful in this game. And I thought the world map music was great
too.
Graphics: 9/10
I loved these
graphics, they have combined 3D objects and enemies with 2D gameplay. The
movements of things are extremely smooth and crip. The shading is good,
too. A point off, though, because the backgrounds on the world map (particularly
world 6) appear to be cardboard-like rather than 3D to me. The game is
very colorful and vivid. There is even a ripple effect when you toss something
into the water in this game.
Lasting Appeal:
7/10
This game may
seem very long at first with 80 levels, but the thing is that I beat it
in 2.5 days. I unlocked all the secret levels too. I'm extremely
good with platformer games, but that's still pretty short. You could even
breeze through this game in a couple of hours using the warp cannons to
skip whole worlds. If you don't do that, you could even skip the secret
worlds 4 and 7. Even then, unlocking the secret levels doesn't take as
long as you might think. After you beat the game, the only thing left to
do is collect all 240 Star Coins. Unless you're very determined for a stupid
reward you earn, who would want to collect coins that are a pain in the
neck to collect sometimes? You could also play the minigames, some of which
are recycled from Super Mario 64 DS, while some are new. The length and
appeal of this game is "decent".
Overall and Recomendation:
Overall, I think this game deserves about... an 8.2 out of a 10. It's still
not as good as the classics, and nothing ever will be. If you are thriving
for a new Mario game and are sick of remakes, I say go buy this game right
now. Considering that Miyamoto had nothing to do with this game, it's pretty
darn good. It tries its best to be the next greatest Mario game but falls
short of what made the classics, well, classics. It is still a great game
that you should definitely consider.
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