Archives for Posts Tagged ‘Mario’

The New Super Mario Bros

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Mario & Luigi

Title: The New Super Mario Bros
System: Nintendo DS
Game play rating: 3
Plot rating: 1
Replayability rating: 1
Bonus points: 1

Overall Score: 6

The New Super Mario Bros seems to be a return to the simplicity and difficulty of the original at first glance. However, after you breeze through the first world, it becomes apparent that Mario needs some additional skills for you to accomplish all of the feats and secrets that are available in this Mushroom Kingdom. Taking cues from Mario 64 with graphics and wall jumps, and adding a few new power-ups, this Mario title is certain to please the newcomer and the returning Mario fan alike.

Overall I give this a timid recommendation. It didn’t blow me out of the water, and the extra items introduced, while fun, did not significantly add to the game play. This title will be a pick up and play while you wait game, and not one you’re likely to return to over and over again.

Plot – 1 stars
Mario games have very rarely had strong plot lines. Bowser, or in this case, Bowser Junior, kidnaps the princess. Mario fights millions of minions on eight different worlds to save the princess. Basic, yes, but somehow there’s still that satisfaction when you get the kiss at the end of the game.

Game Play – 3 stars
This Mario release features the standard game play that has been integral to the platformer since its inception back in 1985. In fact, some elements from Mario’s debut in Donkey Kong in 1981 are still present in almost every Mario title. With the addition of the mushrooms that make Mario gigantic and tiny, this has added some new and fun levels of play that haven’t been seen before. It has served Nintendo well for over 20 years, and it continues to deliver solid fun on each and every level.

Replayability – 1 stars
I’ve played this game through twice now, but nothing begs for you to play it again, from what I can tell. After you rescue Princess Peach from the evil Koopa clutches, you get a code that lets you play as Luigi. However, the levels are all still completed if you did them all as Mario. The only difference, from what I can tell, is there’s now a blue mushroom house on World 1 that allows you to change the skin on your lower screen while you play. The rest of the levels – exactly the same. I didn’t want to play it much after I beat it the first time or the second time. If you’re a Luigi fan like I am, I recommend playing it with him from the start. Just hold down L+R when you select your game file, and the green bandit will be glad to save Peach instead.

Bonus Points – 1 star
I’m giving this a bonus point for throwback. Since I’ve been around since Nintendo was a babe, I appreciate throwbacks to the original 32 levels from the first game. While they weren’t necessarily obvious, if you died by the spineys in world 4 in the original as many times as I did, you can appreciate and recognize that they used the same block structure at certain points instead of only recognizing the obvious ones for worlds 1-1 and 1-2.

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Posted in DS | No Comments »

Super Mario Brothers 3

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Four hours and forty-one fun-filled minutes of my life were spent last night playing two-player on one of my most beloved games: Super Mario Brothers 3.  This game was so big at the time, that it was introduced in a feature film called The Wizard.  That movie got me and the rest of the NES geek boys and girls excited about the upcoming new Mario title.  Considering the ending of Mario 2 was waking up from a dreeam, it’s a wonder I even gave it a try – I guess my requirements were not as high back then.  The first game I bought with my own money was Jackal, I mean come on.  Contra 2 was better.

After its release, it was offered as a replacement for the original Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt cartridge, which I played into the ground when we first got our Nintendo.  But I think that more than any other game, this game embodies the best of 8-bit gaming.

In addition to being a side-scrolling platformer like its predecessors, Super Mario Brothers 3 added a game board overview of each world, and allowed choices, secrets, and bonuses more than any Mario title before.  This template would carry the Mario series to a new level, spawning the two successful Super Mario World games for SNES and carrying that theme of choices all the way to Super Mario Galaxy, the latest in the series.  For the first time ever, there were levels you didn’t have to play!  In fact, if you used your items wisely, you could skip several levels and never have to play them again.  Before this, your only choice was to know where the secret warp pipes were – and they were only on specific levels – which dropped you somewhere down the otherwise strictly linear game.  The choices offered in Super Mario 3 allowed for a much more dynamic game, and a higher replayability.

Among the cool things that this game introduced to Mario were the four new suits that Mario could wear – the raccoon, the frog, the tanooki, and the hammer brother (and the boot!) – that gave Mario additional abilities until he was hit by an enemy.  Also, you could keep certain items for use before you start a new level, allowing you to power up before a more difficult level, helping you get to the end of the game.  With enough secrets to keep the enthusiast occupied and enough simplicity to make the game beatable, this game is what I think of when I think Nintendo.  This was the NES’s masterpiece.

If there is one game that embodies the essence of the Nintendo Entertainment System, it is without question Super Mario Bros 3.  Play it if you haven’t!

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Posted in NES, Nintendo | 1 Comment »