New Super Mario Bros (Review)

New Super Mario Bros isn't as good as any of the older Mario games that this game acts as an homage to. As a matter of fact, I'd say that it's almost the weakest entry in the main series (Super Mario Sunshine gets the honor of weakest game). However it is a solid and pretty fun revival of the classic era of a stellar franchise. Considering that Mario's ultimate rise to fame was through 2d platforming, it's unbelievable that it took 12 years for Nintendo to revisit the concept. The basic core of the Mario games is still intact here: the running, the jumping, and the classic items are all here on display and feels like old times again. This game did well of reminding me why the series has lasted so long. Of course there are the new things that have been added to spice things up and for the most part, the results are a tad mixed. The triple jump, wall jump, and ground pound from the 3d entries have been included and are implemented extremely well. It's very fun to bounce of walls and hop like a manic through some of the stages.

The new items are the big addition and while the new powers do seem interesting, in reality... they're not. The mega mushroom is my favorite and the most fun to use even though it's really just a starman that makes you giant and grants you the ability to knock over stuff. The tiny mushroom makes Mario really small (and weak) so he can enter hidden areas or reach star coins with his heightened ability to jump...somehow. The worse item is the blue koopa shell which gives you protection when you crouch but when you run you'll start spinning out of control and most likely fall of the stage. The main problem with these items is that only exist so you can collect the optional star coins, unlike the older games where new items gave you a new way to attack and traverse the levels (well the blue shell does that...in the most ass way possible).

Something that really bugged me was how you can only save the game after beating a boss. Granted it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to reach a boss, but still...I shouldn't have to. You can use the star coins you collect in stages to open up new levels and upon doing that you can save...but it's still not the best way to go with save feature. And then for whatever reason, you unlock the ability to save anywhere after you complete the game. Haven't handheld games evolved enough to allow auto-saving after every level? Hell Super Mario Land 2 auto-saved and that was game was released 12 years prior to this. Oh...something else that annoyed me..fighting Bowser Jr twenty-something times before the end wasn't very engaging either.

New Super Mario Brothers is a decent addition to the old school Mario games of the NES and SNES era, it's definitely one of the better DS games. It retains the classic feel and gameplay that those games had, though at times it feels more like it piggybacks off of their success. If the game had been longer and more difficult and had the new items been developed better, the game would live up to the high standards of the franchise. There's gonna be a sort-of sequel on the Wii this year and it looks to be an improvement...it has Yoshi so it has to be much better than this.