With Super Mario Bros Wonder having been released, it's interesting to look back at the divisive New Super Mario Bros games. They're often regarded as boring, stagnant games that mark the low point of the Mario series, and Wonder being as fresh and creative as it is only made that feeling grow more fierce. Personally, while I do agree with the general sentiment and vastly prefer Wonder to any of its direct predecessors, I also don't feel anywhere near that harshly about the NSMB series. I grew up with these games so I have a decent amount of fondness for them, but there's also some things I genuinely prefer about them to Wonder like the levels being quite a bit lengthier and tougher, and the increased amount of side content. So, I wanted to look back at the New Super Mario Bros games and really try to see what they did right, what they did wrong, and what sets them apart.
New Super Mario Bros Is Fresh
At the time, New Super Mario Bros was a pretty important and transformative entry in the series. While most of its additions have felt less impactful over time, it's easy to forget that NSMB DS added important mechanics like the wall jump and ground pound to 2D Mario. It's also easy to forget just how original it still feels to this day.
The level design in NSMB almost resembles the first Mario Galaxy game in just how... spontaneous it feels. This is a game that isn't afraid to toss weird one-off mechanics at you that'll never show up in any other game. From bizarre enemies like the Snailcorn, to strange variations on the question block, to terraforming dunes, to sudden cameos from SM64 characters like Unagi and Dorrie, to a random gag where you pop a cork out of a pipe, to a memorable final stage where you get to flip gravity around, NSMB keeps you on its toes with its frankly unhinged level design philosophy. Even the boss fights are unique, beyond the several Bowser and Bowser Jr fights, most of the main bosses are entirely original encounters like the Mummipokey, Monty Tank, and even a 2D fight with Petey Piranha. Granted, not all of those fights are great, a lot of them can really be cheesed, but the good ones are really good. The presentation is also a real standout here as the usage of Super Mario 64 DS assets helps the visuals pop more than you'd expect, and the energetic soundtrack by Azuka Hayazaki is easily the best out of all of these games, especially since much of NSMB DS's music wasn't reused in later games. There's even a bunch of neat side modes like a bunch of minigames carried over from SM64DS and a fun multiplayer PvP mode.
However, replaying New Super Mario Bros did make me realize that this game unfortunately still has quite a lot of issues, particularly in the powerup system and the collectibles. NSMB has four major powerups, three of which are entirely new: The Fire Flower, Mini Mushroom, Mega Mushroom, and Blue Shell. This sounds like a great expansion of the formula, until you realize that the latter three items are completely rare. The Blue Shell in particular can't even be found in levels, only in item roulettes. As a result, you will be spending almost the entire game with just the Fire Flower and it can feel a bit repetitive. The bigger issue though is the fact that many levels have Star Coins and secret exits locked behind those rare items, particularly the Mini Mushroom, and since there's no way to stockpile items, you will almost always have to do some backtracking to get all the collectibles. It doesn't even feel especially worth it since you don't even unlock a postgame world for your efforts like in later games. Ultimately, I think New Super Mario Bros is best experienced completely casually. Just let yourself enjoy the wacky level ideas and try not to care about the Star Coins and secret levels you've missed.
Still, despite these issues, I would still put NSMB on the upper echelon of Mario games. At its core, this is a very tightly designed platformer with inventive levels and a charming presentation, and it's absolutely the most unique of the four NSMB games. It may not be my favorite anymore, but I still think that this is the one entry that still feels thoroughly "new".
New Super Mario Bros Wii Is Iconic
New Super Mario Bros Wii is one of the most memorable games in the entire series for me. This might sound like a weird statement considering just how much the NSMB games seem to blend together for people, but hear me out. NSMBWii is defined by its standout setpieces, of which there's at least one in every world. There's so many instantly recognizable moments in the first half alone, like the rotating cogs in 1-Castle, the sandstorm in World 2, the fun sliding stages with the Penguin Suit, the switch palace callback in late World 3, and the cloud-riding stage with Yoshi in World 4. World 5 amps things up with the Brambles, the flying manta rays, the boat that sinks with too much weight on it, and Iggy's memorable Chain Chomp boss fight. World 6 has the sewer stage, the giant skewer, the boat stage you can entirely skip with the Mini Mushroom, and the bumper car fight with Bowser Jr. World 7 has the floating bubbles, exterior fortresses, the parabeetle parade, and those platforms you can move by tilting the remote. And World 8 is just straight-up the best world in any of these NSMB games, with every level being a standout in terms of creativity and challenge, and the final two bosses being series highlights. I'm by no means saying that NSMBWii is up there with Land 2 or Wonder in terms of creativity, the biomes themselves are still pretty basic, but Wii has some cool level ideas and it executes these ideas in ways that stick in your memory.
I also think NSMBWii stands out for fixing a lot of the issues that NSMB DS introduced, and adding a surprising amount of cool new mechanics of its own. The spin twirl is a great addition to your movement that helps new players land jumps more easily, and helps veterans speedrun more effectively, the inventory letting you stockpile items make Toad Houses feel more valuable, the new powerups like Ice Flower and the Propeller Suit are some of the best in series history, the world maps are more dynamic, and the shift to widescreen lets you see way more of what's ahead. The Star Coins in Wii are some of the most well-executed collectibles in a 2D Mario game too, usually asking you to carefully examine the environment or complete a tricky platforming challenge rather than having to backtrack for an item, so they all feel really satisfying to collect. And of course, you actually get rewarded with a very fun and very challenging postgame world for collecting them all. It's a real shame that later games stole so much of Wii's thunder, because at the time, I really did add more than enough new ideas to justify itself as a sequel to DS, even down to some of the smaller additions. We all know Wii reintroduced Yoshi and the Koopalings to the series, but did you realize that it also brought back the Monty Moles, the POW blocks, airship levels, along with some cool new enemies like the Huckit Crab, King Bill, and Stalking Piranha Plants.
However, I can't deny that NSMBW has some of the most obvious issues out of any of the NSMB games. I personally love the addition of multiplayer in Wii, and I think the levels in this game are the most well-built for multiplayer madness. However, this does come at the cost of the level design in generally feeling more spread out than in DS. This isn't much of an issue past World 3 once the difficulty does start to pick up, but the first two worlds are pretty barren and I can't blame people for being turned off by those early levels. I also think the visuals are a pretty massive downgrade compared to DS, with more muted colors and blurry 2D assets that just don't mesh well with the Mario cast at all. The Koopalings are definitely a downgrade from the original bosses in DS in terms of variety, though their fights in Wii are easily the most fun. I'd even say that on a purely mechanical level, Wii has the best bosses in the NSMB games, especially if you factor in Bowser Jr's fantastic airship fights. But while all of that is stuff I can look past, I think my actual biggest issue with NSMBW is the weak side modes. Free For All is a pretty useless mode, and while Coin Battle is decently fun, it is for multiplayer only and doesn't hold a candle to DS's Mario Vs Luigi.
Despite all these issues, however, I still feel pretty comfortable calling NSMBW my favorite of the series. It may look pretty rough at first glance, but it makes a lot of great mechanical improvements under the hood, and once the game really gets going at World 3, Wii is nonstop quality all the way to the end. I've played Wii more times than I can count, from speedrun attempts, to secret hunting, to countless hours in multiplayer, and yet it's still an absolute joy every time I revisit it.
New Super Mario Bros 2 Is Weird
New Super Mario Bros 2 is the game that gets accused the most of feeling derivative, and I always kinda just believed people because this was the entry I've played the least of. But upon actually playing it in full recently, I can't disagree more? Dare I say, I even think you can make a case for NSMB2 being the best one.
Like with Wii, NSMB2's perceived flaws are very surface level. It reuses a lot of assets from Wii, particularly the soundtrack which has barely any original tracks this time around. The one main mechanic is solely built on the game encouraging you to collect as many coins as possible, but NSMB2 doesn't actually encourage you to do that beyond simple score-hunting. It feels like the most unoriginal game in the series, but in execution, I actually think NSMB2 is more inventive than many give it credit for. The level design feels like a return to DS's tighter, more experimental design and that makes sense since Nintendo used this game as a place for new employees and people from other departments to learn more about game design. So you get levels that use powerups like the Mini Mushroom in unique and clever ways, far more visual shakeups to existing biomes, and lots of wacky platforming concepts that leave me guessing all the way to the end. Collecting a Star turning the entire level into coins? Sure. A bunch of desert stages taking place atop totem poles and ruins? That's pretty cool. An autoscroller set on a golden ship ala Rainbow Ride? Awesome! World 3 fusing both the beach and desert biomes? Why not? This is especially aided by the fact that NSMB2 actually has three special worlds this time, which means there's even more opportunities for the level designers to go wild with the theming. Granted, I don't think every level idea is a slam-dunk as I'll further go into down below. The first Ghost House unironically being a "pick a door" stage is a noticeable stinker, but the highs here are very high.
Beyond just the level design once again being really fun and fresh, I'd say NSMB2 also does a great job at combining the best aspects of both DS and Wii. Being a handheld game, the level design is more compact just like in DS, and the presentation feels a lot more vibrant. The models carried over from 3D Land blend in really nice with the more saturated 2D assets, and the environments in general feel a lot more varied with most worlds having multiple biomes to swap through. And while most of the soundtrack is reused, the added bahs and leaf beats do make them sound a bit more exciting than the versions in Wii. But on the other hand, NSMB2 still carries over some of the QoL improvements that Wii added. The Star Coins are once again hidden very well and rarely ever require you to bring in items from outside, the addition of the Tanuki Leaf (which feels way better here than in SMB3 by the way) makes the item roster feel a lot more well-balanced, and the optional worlds are unlocked through Warp Cannons rather than having to beat a boss with a Mini Mushroom. But I also think NSMB2 adds some improvements of its own as well. I love the addition of a coin counter for each level since it gives you more of a reason to explore for hidden areas and find setups to maximise your coin output, and the new autorunner minigames whenever you use a Warp Cannon are a ton of fun.
That being said, once again, there are some issues I do agree with. 100 coins still netting you a 1-up in a game that showers you with coins is ridiculous, and while I don't think I ever run out of lives in any of these games, I do still think NSMB2 can feel pretty lacking in challenge. The levels often feel like they're more focused on exploration over white-knuckle platforming, which is fun in its own right, but it is one area where DS and Wii very much have 2 beat. In addition, the Koopaling boss fights in 2 are pretty awful. Half of them are worse retreads of their fights in Wii, and the other half are just plain poorly thought-out. The Koopalings are infamous for how easy they are to cheese, but it's especially noticeable here. And while Coin Rush is a great new side mode, the fact that most of its best content is locked to DLC is a bit of a shame. But I think the biggest issue for me is the sheer amount of autoscrollers that NSMB2 has compared to other games, especially with how many of them have secret exits right at the very end forcing you to do them twice. This has always been one of my biggest pet-peeves in platformers, and it really got on my nerves in Worlds 4 & 5.
In a lot of ways, I think you could make the argument that New Super Mario Bros 2 is the perfect NSMB game, a clean fusion of DS and Wii's design philosophies with an added layer of polish and vibrancy. However, while the level design is indeed super creative and silly, the low level of challenge and abundance of level ideas that just fell flat for me left me preferring DS and Wii overall. Despite this, though, I still think NSMB2 is incredibly underrated. It may seem derivative on the surface, but once you actually play it, NSMB2 proves itself to largely be a joyous bundle of pure fun.
New Super Mario Bros U Is Underwhelming
New Super Mario Bros U came out at the point that Nintendo had really settled into their four-step level design philosophy, and it shows. NSMBU's level design is incredibly polished and thoughtful, with each stage taking a single concept and fully fleshing it out. It lacks much of the spontaneity of previous games, but it makes up for that with a razor-sharp sense of focus. It also actively tries to add something new to the series. We finally have a new main theme, the general art direction is slightly more surreal thanks to the more food-themed environments the characters visit, the plot flips the standard formula on its head by having Peach captured in her own castle, and we even get a fully interconnected world map like in Super Mario World. It also adds one of my favorite new mechanics in the entire quadrilogy in the form of the Baby Yoshis. There's three Baby Yoshis you can find across the game that each give you a unique ability like using one as a balloon and blowing bubbles you can jump across (which basically became Wonder's Bubble Flower). They're fun and satisfying to use, and I even prefer using them to standard Yoshi, they've got a bit more of an interesting skill ceiling and you can carry them between levels. The Baby Yoshis also look absolutely adorable, and even sing along with the level music. If you were to tell me that NSMBU was your favorite New game, I would 100% understand. I loved it to bits as a kid, and sunk a ton of hours into it as one of the ten Wii U owners out there. However, despite its attempts at evolving the series, New Super Mario Bros U kinda feels like the most stagnant 2D Mario game to date.
Let's start with the presentation. While the new backgrounds are certainly nice, the biomes and especially the character animations remain identical to previous installments, so that change doesn't really feel meaningful. NSMBU's new main theme is nice and all, but it's kind of a downgrade from the previous overworld themes in terms of memorability and energy (at least unless the Baby Yoshis are singing because they make every song better). And while the level design in NSMBU is certainly well designed on an objective level... the good level design doesn't mean much when at least 80% of its level mechanics are ripped straight from Wii. Remember the rotating cogs? The skewers? The rollercoaster? The elevator? The boat with a weight limit? The parabeetle parade? The Brambles? They are all brought back in NSMBU and are executed worse. Four-step level design works in games like 3D World when the ideas being introduced are genuinely new and inventive, but in a game that primarily reuses assets, NSMBU's stages feel more restrictive, clinical, and easy compared to Wii's. There are some genuinely unique stages in NSMBU that do stand out as highlights of the game, like the giant beanstalk in World 3, the Giant Land and Van Gogh homages in World 5, and a particularly inventive airship level in World 7, but they're few and far between. And sometimes, U's unique ideas aren't even executed especially well, like the final world which is supposed to be set in a lavafied Peach's Castle, but doesn't actually do that much with Peach's Castle as a location. It really frustrates me because NSMBU seems so refined and polished on the surface, but I truly can't emphasize how much more formulaic it feels in practice. In that way, it's pretty much the polar opposite to Wii.
Ultimately, where New Super Mario Bros U truly shines is in its side content. New Super Luigi U was a genuinely cool DLC campaign with entirely reworked and harder versions of NSMBU's levels. NSLU doesn't stand on its own at all and can feel a bit tired considering most of the levels it rehashes were already reheashes, but its shamelessly tough design and inventive repurposing of NSMBU's level assets does complement the original quite well and covers for some of its weaker spots. NSMBU also brings back Coin Rush in the form of Boost Rush, it's not quite as tough and memorable but it's still a fun time. Coin Battle is back but even better this time since you can rearrange the coin placements in some of the original stages, in what feels like an early version of Mario Maker. And best of all, NSMBU introduces a Challenge Mode which comes with 60 fun, inventive, and challenging missions that easily stand out as some of the most fun material in any of the NSMB games. All this stuff is great, but it can't really make up for the fact that the base campaign is the least interesting to me.
Once again, I don't think any of the NSMB games are bad, and neither is U. However, it easily stands out as the least creative entry of the four, borrowing so much from Wii but lacking so much of its memorability factor. It's incredibly polished and thoughtful in its design, and the sheer amount of side stuff makes for easily the most content-rich entry of the bunch even before the Luigi DLC came out, but it really felt like the last straw for a lot of people and it's not hard to see why.
But it does have the Baby Yoshis though...
New Super Mario Bros Is... Not That Bad
Looking back at all of the New Super Mario Bros games, it really surprises me how different they all can feel, despite their similarities. They all have their own unique strengths and weakness, and the only game I really did find derivative was NSMBU. DS, Wii, and 2 are all still great Mario games in my eyes with strong level design and lots of cool ideas even if they aren't as outwardly wacky as Wonder. I'm glad we've entered what seems to be a new renaissance for 2D Mario with Wonder, but I'm still going to look back on the NSMB games for what they did nail, and the hours of fun they've given me.
If I had to rank the games, this is how I'd rank them:
- New Super Mario Bros Wi
- New Super Mario Bros
- New Super Mario Bros 2
- New Super Mario Bros U
- New Super Luigi U
No comments:
Post a Comment