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 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.
I think part of what makes the original NSMB feel so weird is the fact that it's pretty blatantly built-off the back of Super Mario 64 DS, using much of the same models and assets. The star theme is the one from Super Mario 64, most of SM64DS's minigames return in a side mode, and there's this lingering feeling that Nintendo just took SM64DS's engine and locked you to a single axis. None of this is a bad thing though, it all gives New Super Mario Bros its own unique flavor. It feels like this cool fusion between 2D and 3D Mario, harmonizing both styles years before the 3D Land games really dedicated themselves to it. I also love the minigames from SM64DS, so I'm all for having them brought back to NSMB right out of the box. Throw in a surprisingly fun multiplayer mode called Mario Vs Luigi and you get a pretty complete package, only slightly held back by this game being the only NSMB entry to not have a postgame world. The only thing you get for collecting all the Star Coins are touch screen backgrounds. New Super Mario Bros is also noteworthy for its soundtrack, most of which is composed of original tracks by Azuka Hayazaki, one of my favorite composers from Nintendo. Her quirky and distinctly Nintendo style really shines through here, and the fact that most of her work isn't reused in later entries make NSMB's music stand on its own even more.
As a whole, New Super Mario Bros is my favorite NSMB game and one of my favorite 2D Mario games in general, but that's not really uncommon. Most people seem to like this game quite a bit, even those who hate all its sequels. To this day, I'd say it still lives up to the name Nintendo gave it.
New Super Mario Bros Wii Is Iconic
New Super Mario Bros Wii is one of the most memorable games in the entire series. 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 caps things off with that iconic rollercoaster stage and one of the most beloved final bosses in the entire franchise. 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.
NSMBWii feels like it has the broadest appeal of any entry in the New series. It's easily the hardest of the four, especially in its second half, but it has a good amount of features like the Super Guide and item holder so that kids never get too stuck. Its levels are a lot wider and bigger in scope due to having to support multiplayer, but the tougher difficulty and increased amount of hidden nooks and crannies make up for that. Speaking of which, the multiplayer is very fun. While I do appreciate Wonder removing colission, with the right people, the sheer chaos of Wii's multiplayer is still just so fun. Part of what makes a lot of Wii's stages so memorable is just how fun it is to stumble through them with friends. NSMBWii also makes some last few adjustments to the 2D Mario formula. It brings back SMW's spin move and even lets you twirl in mid-air to adjust your landing, but not too much as to make the game too easy. Yoshi is back too, and while he's sadly locked to specific levels, he shows up enough that he doesn't feel underutilized. But best of all, NSMBWii even brings back the postgame world, now your Star Coins contribute to unlocking levels in the especially brutal World 9.
That being said, NSMBWii tends to be considered the point where the New games start to feel a bit soulless and I do admittedly kinda see that. While the goofy hodgepodge of SM64 assets give the original NSMB a lot of charm, the redone animations in Wii feel lacking in expressiveness. The new soundtrack is also far less punchy and memorable than DS's, and of course, it doesn't help that it would be reused in 2, U, and the Mario Maker games. And of course, the Koopalings are definitely a downgrade from the original bosses in DS, though their fights in Wii are easily the most fun. I'd even say that on a purely mechnical level, Wii has the best bosses in the NSMB games, especially if you factor in Bowser Jr's fantastic airship fights. I also have to say that Wii's side content is probably the weakest of the four games. 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 Mario Vs Luigi.
That being said, despite these issues, I think NSMBWii is still really good, it's my second favorite of the NSMB games. The fact that both its sequels borrow so much from it makes it easy to take its new ideas for granted, but going back to Wii always reminds me just how instantly iconic it and so many of its levels is. It may lack the sheer amount of original enemies and platform types as DS, but it carries over its chaotic spirit in its multiplayer and setpieces.
New Super Mario Bros 2 Is Weird
New Super Mario Bros 2 is probably the entry I'm the most split on, because it does some really great things but falters so hard in others. NSMB2 is known for its divisive coin mechanic, which mostly just means the game showers you with coins incessantly. This of course means that lives are practically meaningless, but when you put that aside, trying to go for the highest scores you can on each level is genuinely quite fun. I always appreciate exploration in my platformers, and the fact that NSMB2 has so many hidden opportunities to get more coins means I'm constantly discovering new things about the levels every time I played. And those levels are genuinely quite fantastic. Nintendo used NSMB2 as a place for new employees and people from other departments to learn more about game design, and it definitely shows in how strange and unorthodox some of the stages can feel. NSMB2 is filled with weird new platform types, and sudden subversions. Once you feel the game is settling into a groove, you get hit with a new environment like the totems in World 2, a twist on series' conventions like the warp zones and World 3 being a fusion of beach and forest, or something else kinda weird like that one level built around the Mini Mushroom. Playing through the NSMB games really does make me realize that beyond most of the level biomes being the same across all of them, the actual level mechanics at play often aren't.
NSMB2's level design shines and it's cool to see all the new ideas from fresh new developers, but I do feel like they're all held back by this game's central limitation: It takes too much from New Super Mario Bros Wii. I already mentioned the biomes being mostly the same, but the music is also the same (barring a few added bahs), many of the assets are the same, and the bosses are nearly the same. This game has easily the weakest roster of Koopaling fights, the ones that aren't ripped straight from Wii have become completely mindless. It's a real shame too because I actually think NSMB2 looks better than Wii, it's a more colorful and bright game, regaining a bit of that extra punch that its predecessor lost. I'd even say that this is the most visually-pleasing NSMB game, but it's hard to notice when so much of it is borrowed. The side content is an improvement though, Coin Rush is a fun and difficult sidemode with some fantastic DLC stages in particular.
As I said, NSMB2 is a game that has me mixed. The level design is so good and it makes some decent improvements on a presentation level, but it adds so little to the table and feels so held back by its inability to diverge from previous entries. The concept of having fresh faces design levels for the newest Mario game is so cool, so it's a shame they couldn't really go wild... until they did. Super Mario Bros Wonder was also primarily designed by new game developers, and unlike NSMB2, they had all the time and freedom in the world to do whatever they wanted. What we got was an endlessly creative and colorful game that's on par with 2 in terms of level design, but has the unique assets to back that creativity up. So while NSMB2 wasn't able to live up to its own potential, we did eventually get a game that did.
New Super Mario Bros U Is Refined
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 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.
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 does complement NSMBU 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.
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... Uneven
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, but I do think that the first two in particular shine the brightest and are often dealt a bad hand because of their sequels. NSMB DS and Wii still hold up as two of the best 2D Mario games, in my opinion. They're solidly in the Top 5 alongside Land 2, World, and Wonder in my eyes. NSMB2 and NSMBU is where things get a bit shakier, but they are still good games at their core. I think NSMB2 has some stellar level design that paved the way for Wonder, and NSMBU is carried by its polish, incredible side content, and the Baby Yoshis being so perfect. 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
- New Super Mario Bros Wii
- New Super Mario Bros U + New Super Luigi U
- New Super Mario Bros 2
- New Super Mario Bros U
- New Super Luigi U
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