New Super Mario Bros Wii (Review)

In a lot of ways, I'm really confused about how I feel about this game. At the very least, it's a huge improvement over the somewhat ho-hum Ds predecessor and is more suited as the proper follow-up to the classic Mario side-scrollers. The game delivers the quality I've come to expect from the main series of Mario titles. But this game also managed to reveal to me why it's took so long to have more 2-d Mario outings...they simply don't have new material anymore. This is somewhat understandable, Mario 3 and Mario World are considered to be the high point of the platforming genre (and gaming in general to some people) so it would be very hard to follow up on such nearly flawless outings as those. New Super Mario Bros Wii is basically a retread of those two games and that's not really a bad thing. Nintendo could very well keep releasing something like this every three to five years and I'd probably be satisfied, but I just wouldn't be as impressed anymore...as was the case here.

Apart from the co-op mulitplayer and the incredible final boss battle, the game doesn't do enough to stand out on it's own. Most of the game is simply filled with shout-outs to the earlier games. The Koopalings, the airships, the final battle from Mario World, the enemies roaming about on the map screen, and the criminally brief reappearance of Yoshi, these are all from earlier titles and with the exception of the Koopalings who are at least a bit harder here than in Mario World, these elements were much better when they were used nearly 20 years ago. That said, it's still nice to see some of these elements return and the new items are ten times better than ones from the Ds outing. There's a propeller suit that makes you fly, an ice flower that's the same as the fire flower...only with ice, and a penguin suit that also allows you to shoot ice and slide around. The items are still more or less tools to get the optional star coins, but they're able to function in traversing stages and attacking adversaries.

The big addition to this game is the co-op mode where two to four people work together or against each other to finish the stage. Having played through the game by myself and with two other friends, I have to say that it's much easier to play alone, but a hell of a lot more fun to play with friends. Most of the difficulty of the co-op mode comes from the other players getting in the way and otherwise disturbing the flow of the game, but it's just so damn funny to watch your friends miss a jump that you passed or toss them into a pit. My friends and I nearly died laughing and while it got a little annoying at times, we all agreed that co-op mode was amusing.
Overall, despite all my complaints, New Super Mario Bros Wii is still a solid outing for the plumber and one of the better games released this year. Apart for Mario Galaxy 2 (which appears to be nothing more than an expansion pack), I'm not sure what's next for the Mario franchise, but I'll eagerly look forward to it.