New Super Mario Bros.
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It may not be new anymore, but it's an awesome game that will be remembered by gamers, especially since it brought the Super Mario series straight back to its roots.
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New Super Mario Bros. is a side-scrolling 2.5D action-adventure platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS, initially released in May 2006 in North America. It's a reboot of the classic 2D Mario platformer series that received several sequels and follow-ups on Nintendo's future platforms, starting with New Super Mario Bros. Wii in 2009 as a follow-up and 'New Super Mario Bros. 2 as a direct sequel.
Plot
Mario (or Luigi) and Princess Peach were walking together around Peach's Castle, and when a thunderstorm suddenly strikes the castle, causing Mario to investigate it, but he left Peach only to cause Bowser Jr. to kidnap her. Mario gives chase, and Bowser Jr. drags her behind him. When Mario and Bowser Jr. go offscreen, Mario takes a hit, reverting him back to his small size. Bowser Jr. and Mario both turn around, and Mario continues the chasing even after the hit.
Throughout the worlds, Bowser Jr. takes Peach into every Tower and Castle he finds in each of them. After Mario defeats Bowser Jr. in a Tower, Bowser Jr. then runs away, taking Peach with her again and running into another Tower or the Castle of that same world before running away to get into the next worlds that also have their own Towers and Castles.
The first boss in a Castle level is Bowser, who then turns into Dry Bowser after falling into the lava that removes all of his skin. Bowser is not met again until the first Castle of World 8, where he is still in his skeleton form, returning as a boss at the end of the level with new attacks. This time, there is no lava in the boss, meaning that after being defeated again, Dry Bowser will fall into the pit, breaking him into pieces. However, Bowser Jr. finds his father's bones, to then toss them into a cauldron in the end of the final Castle of World 8, which not only resurrects Bowser, but makes him three times bigger than normal. Mario, Bowser and Bowser Jr. then proceed to battle against each other, while Peach watches the fight with fear from a platform above.
After both Bowser and Bowser Jr. are defeated and sent to another pit, Mario proceeds to save Peach. The aforementioned platform breaks, and Peach kisses Mario, making him respond with a nervous chuckle. After the ending sequence, Bowser Jr. drags his unconscious father across the castle floor, before noticing the player watching him, making him respond with a growl and then continues on dragging his father.
Gameplay
New Super Mario Bros. comes with a very similar gameplay from the older 2D platformers from the Mario franchise. Mario can jump, walk, climb, attack, and dash only using 3 different inputs, much like Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3. There is still a timer that forces the player to complete a level before it reaches 0, causing Mario to die and end the level. The player can also move the camera sideways during a level by using the L or R buttons.
Why It's Super
- It marks the return of 2D platforming in the Mario series that was inactive since Super Mario Land 2 on the Game Boy released in 1992 (unless you count the 2004 Game Boy Advance game Mario vs. Donkey Kong, or any of the remakes of the NES and SNES Mario games on the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance) and with the introduction of Super Mario 64, which then made the franchise completely move on to 3D platformers until then.
- The Wall Jump makes its first appearance in a 2D game since being introduced to 3D Mario games, starting with Super Mario 64. Now with wall jumps, you are finally able to save yourself from falling down a bottomless pit, as well as jumping up to other areas by using them.
- Even though it is a 2D platformer, the graphics for every character along with enemies now use 3D models rather than just 2D, mixing with 2D level tile sprites. This makes the game extremely visually appealing, along with a fluid and native 60 FPS output.
- The game features three new power-ups which can be really helpful in a tough situation (although they sadly have flaws, see one of the Bad Qualities):
- The Mega Mushroom that makes Mario turn into a giant temporarily to destroy everything he runs into.
- The Mini Mushroom which causes Mario to shrink down.
- At last but not least, the Blue Shell, which lets Mario zip around in a Koopa shell and allows much better swimming.
- Tight controls that are much easier to handle and less slippery than in the previous Mario entries which are also easy to master.
- Being one of the most popular video games of all time, it also has some of the most iconic music ever heard in video game history, being very catchy and appealing to listen to. Also, the castle theme is epic.
- Also it introduces the iconic "bah bah" sound effect which is a staple from the New Super Mario Bros series with the Koopas dance and swing its arms at the tune of the song as well as any other enemy and power-ups.
- Succeeding the Yoshi Coins in Super Mario World which only gave an extra life for every Yoshi Coin collected in a level, Star Coins finally became important collectibles that must be picked up to unlock Toad Houses locked up by signs or alternate paths with extra levels. This makes the secret levels much easier to access than in Super Mario World, which requires finding hidden shortcuts for that.
- A ton of enemies and bosses have made their appearance in this game, including some of the most creative ones such as Blockhoppers (enemies that are disguised as a brick and ? Blocks on top of them), Snailicorns (those who attempt to charge into Mario to damage him when they see him), and Skeeters (who always skate aimlessly on waters and drop blue bombs drawn with white skulls underwater).
- In the ending screen, you can see a code in the background that says to press L+R, hold then and choose a file. Doing so will give you the ability to play as Luigi, which is somewhat nice to change things up and they can be changed anytime!
- By default, the screen can be scrolled at any direction horizontally, but by completing the game, you can pause the game while on the map screen, then press a combination of buttons to enter Challenge Mode (L-R-L-R-X-X-Y-Y while holding the Start button). This mode prevents the player from backtracking at any time, making the completions feel like Super Mario Bros.
- The game offers a phenomenal competitive two player mode between Mario and Luigi named Mario Vs. Luigi, where players must collect a certain amount of Stars to beat a round. It comes with five stages that almost all have their own hazards.
- Like Super Mario 64 DS, mini-games come packaged with the game, with a majority of them being directly ported to this game, and all mini-games are already available for play without having to unlock them. Along with them is a multiplayer mode for mini-games named Vs. Battle, where up to four players can compete each other to get the most points depending on what place they got after a mini game ends.
- Due to the game's commercial success, it spawned some sequels/follow-ups, which were just as good, if not even better.
Bad Qualities
- You cannot save your progress in story mode at any point until you complete a castle or buy access to Toad House or an extra level using Star Coins. By finishing story mode however, you can save your game progress at any point, but before you do that, the save system can be frustrating, especially if you are trying to complete the rest of the game before the final castle.
- Thankfully the next game (New Super Mario Bros. Wii) added a "Quick Save" feature where you can save at anytime and it will create a temporary save state, but once you play the game again the save state will be deleted.
- Some new power-ups have some flaws:
- The Blue Shell doesn't let you swap it out for any other power-up besides the Mega Mushroom (despite this, some Star Coins or paths are absolutely mandatory to 100% the game such as 1-fortress).
- The Mini Mushroom isn't really that useful other than passing through mini warp pipes to access secret shortcuts and tiny pipes. Like Small Mario, Mini Mario dies in one hit, but the player has to ground pound enemies in order to kill them.
- Unless you're grinding for all Star Coins, this is an easy game. An example that proves this is that you can use the Mega Mushroom to kill bosses in one hit. There are also 1-UP Toad Houses where you can earn as much lives as you want, and the possibility of getting a game over is unlikely.
- The 100% completion reward other than three stars showing on the save file is not useful, as it also only gives you an opportunity to buy all of custom backgrounds for 20 coins per each (20x4=80 star coins).
- Interrupting a Vs. Battle connection will trigger a horrendously creepy error screen with the same scary alarm sound from Super Mario 64 DS, and much worse as it shows a darker background.
- The minigame mode is rather pointless, and not only it does not contribute to the main game similar to Super Mario Advance games and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, but also there are several minigames that share those from Super Mario 64 DS, with the worst offender being the Table minigames (not just only having 3, but being a gambling minigame), however, there are some new games.
- Wario and Yoshi appear only in the mini-games.
Reception
Reviews of the game were very favorable. Praise focused on improvements made to the Mario franchise. New Super Mario Bros. received several honors, including Game of the Month awards from Game Informer and Electronic Gaming Monthly, and Editors' Choice Awards. On Metacritic, the game received an aggregated 89/100 score from critics and 8.5 from users,[1] many of them being positive. RewiredMind gave it the best score with 100/100, saying that "as pure game as players could ever wish to play, adrenaline, frustration and addiction and the largest hunk of retro gaming pleasure that they could purchase."
New Super Mario Bros. became the best-selling Nintendo DS game of all time, going to over 30 million units sold worldwide as of March 2018.
Trivia
- This and Super Mario World are the only two 2D Mario platformers in which their final worlds have two Castles a piece.
- This is the only New Super Mario Bros. game that has no bonus ninth world.
- The "bah-bah" sound it comes from an audio sound clip in the Best Service Spectral Vol 1 sampling CD which plays in the Track 53.
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