GameSpy: New Super Mario Bros. (original) (raw)
Reviews
By Phil Theobald | May 15, 2006
It's been a long time coming, but Super Mario is back in a, well, new side-scrolling adventure.
Outstanding!
Pros:
It feels like an old-school Mario game; tight control and great level design; tons of hidden secrets to discover; the two-player mode is a fun bonus.
Cons:
Bowser Jr. sucks compared to the Koopa Kids; repeated mini-games.
The release of New Super Mario Bros. is a fairly important one in the history of videogames. Consider this: since the release of Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins for the Game Boy in 1992, there has not been a new 2D platform game, the genre that the original Super Mario Bros. helped define, starring Nintendo's beloved plumber.
Sure, there have been remakes and re-releases of past Mario games galore, including the Super NES's Super Mario All-Stars and the Super Mario Advance series for GBA and a few 3D adventures like the N64's Super Mario 64 and the GameCube's Super Mario Sunshine, but no new adventure in the classic "Mario style." And no, Yoshi's Island doesn't count (excellent though it may be) since you played as Yoshi through the bulk of the game.
That's nearly a decade and a half without a "true" Mario game. Until now. Nintendo has finally decided that it's time to create another side-scrolling Mario title and has christened it with the perhaps too descriptive title, New Super Mario Bros.. New SMB brings Mario and company back to the Mushroom Kingdom for another quest to rescue Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser and his son, Bowser Jr. Considering how much of a throwback this game is to the classic titles in the series, I have to admit that I was disappointed to see the comparatively dull Bowser Jr. appear as one of the main bad guys instead of Bowser's seven other offspring, the Koopa Kids from Super Mario Bros. 3.
Don't be fooled by the 3D character models. The polygonal characters are simply a way to allow more animation without having to draw a buttload of sprites. The backgrounds and gameplay are purely 2D, and the 2D and 3D elements blend together perfectly.
Super Mario's Worlds
The action is spread across eight worlds, each containing several levels each. Although the game's control physics feel more like the original Super Mario Bros. than later games in the series, the world map and level design take a cue from the more involved SMB 3. If you're afraid that Nintendo has forgotten that one of the best things about the old Mario games was the seemingly infinite number of hidden secrets, then you can stop worrying. In addition to all the good old block busting, Goomba stomping, Fire Flower collecting, and flag pole sliding that you'd expect to see in a 2D Mario title, there are also plenty of invisible blocks to uncover and hidden vines that, when revealed, will allow you to access new areas of a level.
Seeing as how you can replay stages you've already cleared, you'll definitely want to go back and do a lot of extra exploring. Each world's map screen shows off multiple paths and levels that you won't be able to access your first time through. Think about this: The first time I played through the game, without even using a warp zone, I completely skipped over two worlds. Not levels… worlds. Specifically, worlds four and seven. Now, I have to go back and find the secret exits that will open up those unexplored lands to me. Those are some pretty hardcore secrets.