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Nintendo’s plumber goes back to his 2D roots. Mario has appeared in just about every single genre imaginable. He began with kart racing and board games, but he quickly moved on to a full range of sports titles. New Super Mario Bros. strips all of that. The name, while a bit unusual, accurately describes the game. It’s more of the classic Super Mario Bros. action you know and love.
Mario games have always followed a pretty typical formula for its story. This game is no exception. The cause for this new adventure is once again the princess, who has been kidnapped by Bowser Jr. To find the princess you’ll have to go through at least six of the world’s eight levels, with include deserts, undersea and underground levels, and well, the typical Mario fare.
The gameplay is a clear homage to the older Mario games. The game gives you one button to jump and the other multitasks as a running button when held and lets you shoot fireballs if you have that ability. That said Mario has been quite busy since the original side scrolling games, so you’re given his acrobatic talents from Super Mario 64. For instance, the game lets you wall jump, stick to walls, and slide down walls. The classic butt jump is included as well. You’ll use the abilities to take on the enemies scattered throughout the different levels, as well as the occasional boss fight.
You don’t have to sorely rely on Mario’s abilities though since the game includes quite a few power-ups. The expected Mario power-ups are included, though the game tosses in a few new ones as well. There is a blue shell that lets you take out the enemies in that bit of the platform, a small mushroom that turns Mario tiny, and a mega mushroom that makes him fill up the whole screen.
The game includes some multiplayer action. The main mode is a two-player game in which Mario and Luigi race through levels trying to collect more stars than the other player. By jumping on one’s head or hitting them with a fireball, they drop stars. The game also includes the touch-screen minigames sound found in Super Mario 64 DS.
Visually, the game’s mix of old-school 2D gameplay with 3D graphics works very well. Mario, the enemies, and the foreground are all polygonal and look quite great on the DS Lite’s bright screens. The backgrounds are just what you would expect from a side scrolling Mario title.
Aurally, the game sounds just like a new Mario game should. There are plenty of new sound effects to go with the new moves and levels, as well as sound effects from past Mario titles that help add to the sense of nostalgia. Likewise, there is plenty of new (and fitting) and remixed music in the game, in addition to the expected Mario speech.
New Super Mario Bros. is a great addition to anyone’s DS library. The game manages to recreate the awesomeness of past titles while making sure it feels like a new game. It’s definitely recommended and I’ll even go as far as to say that it is essential to have in anyone’s DS library. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Aug 28, 2006
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