Mario 40: Revisiting New Super Mario Bros on Nintendo DS

Video Games
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Been revisiting New Super Mario Bros on DS in preparation for playing NSMB 2…

…I had my reservations about the first game as I thought Wii largely made it redundant, but how wrong was I.

NSMB DS is great. The smaller play area means the style of level design is very different, much more focused around platforming in tight areas. There’s also a lot of variety moving between levels.

If I had to summarise it in one sentence I would say it’s the 2D Mario game Nintendo would have made with the SuperFX 2 chip had Yoshi’s Island not been conceived.

Much of the newness, which is still felt today playing it as opposed to playing other titles in the series, comes from how the designers go to town with stretching and scaling environmental scenery, or enemies. One example is these big boo enemies that inflate themselves when you look at them, and deflate when your back is turned to them, or platforms that expand or shrink in time.

At the time of its release I skipped it because on paper it did not have the crazy ambition of Super Mario World, a game that hides level exits behind level exits. But that’s unfair, I think it introduces plenty new, whether that’s the more dynamic environments, the claustrophobic verticality that defines the challenge posed by the game’s new tower stages, the speed-crazy blue shell power-up, Mario’s acrobatic moveset from DK 94 and Mario 64, and even the boss fights being unexpected large versions of enemies (another nod to Yoshi’s Island). And like NSMB Wii it has the difficulty curve that is completely missing in Wonder.

My only complaint so far in world 7 is some of the secrets require a lot of messing around with mushroom houses to get the right powerups. There isn’t an item inventory to store items for when you need them.

Great stuff, then. It’s easy to forget the series was held in high regard until Nintendo announced two new next-gen games in the same year. But even NSMB 2 sounds like a perfectly valid and even creative sequel that could have been a fan favourite had Nintendo just spent more time on the presentation. Perhaps the rumoured New Super Mario Bros Collection will give us the best of both worlds.

What are your thoughts on the game that brought back 2D Mario and ushered in a genre revival?

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Great thread. I love the “New” series but I remember thinking the first one was lacking. Thread makes me want to play it again asap!!

I love the Wii game and especially loved the Wii U game but didn’t play much NSMB2… I should probably fix that.

Wonder was cool but didn’t scratch the itch for me.

Great thread!

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Really nice touch how the game remembers your level completion order for the credits!

The Wii game is definitely the best of the three I have played (DS, Wii, Wii U), I do feel bad for not giving the original a proper playthrough. It really is different to its successors. Even down to the star coins which are almost entirely placed with the aim of providing you with platforming challenge, rather than hidden behind scenery that you might stumble into.

I’m looking forward to picking up New Super Mario Bros 2 once I transfer it fully off the 2DS I bought for the Special Edition of it with the DLC included.

This review convinced me to give it a shot: New Super Mario Bros. 2 (Nintendo 3DS) Review | Negative World Nintendo

Great conclusion and I am guilty of dismissing the game when it released because it appeared old hat on the surface.

For everyone else, NSMB2 does enough exciting new things that I feel it’s worth recommending strongly. Still, this could have been a universally adored release if Nintendo would have just updated the look and feel. That’s the most obvious thing that holds the game back. If NSMB2 goes down as a misfire, Nintendo brought it on themselves.

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So I beat NSMB 2 in about 5 hours and cleared the Star world - enough to get two stars on my save file…

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…I came off it rather deflated.

The coin/gold flower is an amazing power-up but rather uncommon, and in the main game the addition of it (each fireball is 30x as strong as a fire flower’s) and the raccoon leaf make the game significantly easier than NSMB to the point where it’s almost as frictionless as Wonder, while lacking the thematic imagination of that game.

Coin Rush mode is a lot more fun, forcing you to play both perfectly tactically to maximise your score over a run of three stages as coins collected, flagpole clearance height and time remaining all count. Yet inexplicably your high score isn’t saved per pack but on the whole, and it maxes out at 32,000 coins.

No doubt this title was rushed out to help save the then-struggling 3DS with a launch game to couple with the 3DS XL. I didn’t want to dwell much on the presentation but it does add credence to this theory when backgrounds have ugly JPEG artifacts over them, while every track is an arrangement of a track from NSMB Wii.

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Yeah nice write up. I really liked the original NSMB. The context helped a lot, it was the grand return of 2D Mario after 20 years, came during the start of Nintendo’s renaissance, and just after the amazing DS Lite came out.

It was a solid fun game with catchy music, decent 2.5D graphics, nice modern touches like the enemies dancing to the music, but also was obviously a deliberate throwback to the simpler design of the original SMB as well, in line with other things the DS was trying to achieve. The original series of 2D Mario platformers got less arcadey and became more and more about exploration as they went, culminating in the methodical Yoshi’s Island, and this obviously continued into 3D with Mario 64 as well.

It went back to being arcadey, but still had some secrets, I remember it being pointed out how fast it was, you could blaze through levels making perfect acrobatic jumps almost like a Sonic game.

I also loved NSMB Wii which was also solid as a single player game and insane in multiplayer, one of the most hilarious and murder-feelings generating multiplayer games I have ever played. It managed to bring what the Wii was about (accessibility and multiplayer) to a 2D Mario game nicely too.

As such, to me DS and Wii offered something new each. The 3DS and Wii U entries never appealed to me because both were just ‘more of the same’, and they also came out at basically the same time which reduced my interest in both of them, it also didn’t help that I really did not like the slow-ass Wii U (Splatoon is really the only good time I had on the console) and didn’t get a 3DS until the N3DS due to lack on interest in what was on it, and by that time there were plenty of better games to play on it including 3D Land which was basically a NSMB successor in limited 3D space, old style controls, linear levels, three big coins, flag poles etc.

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Nsmb2 is the worst official Super Mario platformer.

They got everything about it wrong, even the title (it’s the third NSMB game Nintendo!). The Coin Rush mode DLC is better than the main game and should’ve been the focus as a standalone spinoff title.

I think NSMBU released only a few months later too as a Wii U launch title and was basically overkill and offered too much of the same as prior games. In hindsight, it was probably the least inspired Nintendo has ever been with a marquee release even if this game itself is decent (it’s a solid 7.5 out of 10).

New Super Luigi U and NSMBW are the two best games in the series by a long shot. And NSMB was a fresh game for its so it deserves to be fondly remembered too.

I’m glad Nintendo finally got past this era of 2D Mario. Wonder was fun even though it was pretty gimmicky. At least you can see they tried.

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The Mario Land games still exist.

I like NSMB2 a lot more than the original on DS, yes it’s less inventive but it’s a lot of fun to run through a stage.

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I stand by what I said.:face_with_tongue:

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Agreed that Wii is the best of the NSMB series, they made the most of that expanded screen view and there are so many new ideas thrown into the mix. Wii also represents the best of Nintendo’s “less is more” philosophy to Mario level design back then, lots of cool challenges are made out of some of the smallest tweaks. One of my favourite levels is built out of ice blocks with fire breathing piranha plants everywhere. Simple in theory but devillishly hard.

One of the things that really stuck out to me about NSMB is the insane amount of secret exits dotted around the courses, while many of them aren’t mandatory it’s still extremely fun to discover them.

Given Wonder was lacking a lot of what made me fall in love with 2D Mario I was expecting the Switch 2 DLC to offer new levels but it seems to be…party/multiplayer modes?

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Hmm, worst Mario platformer…

Mario Land 1 is extremely dinky, extremely easy, only 12 levels (two of which are randomly shoot em ups), weird setting and has completely different physics.

Mario Land 2 is a massive upgrade graphically and structurally but I think it’s 25fps? And has Wonder Boy-like slippery physics that feel nothing like any other Mario.

Super Mario Bros 2 FDS is like a trolling rom hack, which of course it was, a cheap expansion pack.

I haven’t played through NSMB2 but it feels completely uninspired, like a basic Mario Maker set of levels.

It’s weird in that I used to love all Mario platformers, but lost interest completely with NSMB2, NSMBU and 3D World, all felt like just extensions of existing games. Even the titles are weak or make no sense - Mario 3D Land was called “3D” because of the stereoscopic 3D, why is a non-stereoscopic sequel still called “Mario 3D”? I mean sure it’s a 3D rendered game but with digital control and fixed camera it’s far less 3D than all previous 3D Marios except 3D Land. Wonder also hasn’t interested me.

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This is a great question. Would definitely put Mario Land 2 near the bottom of the pile, while it’s great to see a ginormous improvement visually, it ends up feeling half baked and is rather unremarkable as a whole. It’s clear trying to cram Mario World sized sprites and pull off traditional gameplay wasn’t the right direction to take, and the team ended up doing more interesting things with Metroid 2 and the Wario Land games.

I quite like Super Mario Bros 2 after giving it another go. It’s not amazing, but given the original game was likely a rite of passage into NES and Famicom gaming for much of the audience, it makes sense to offer a set of harder worlds. I never made it past world 4 on my GBA copy though…

…Super Mario Bros Wonder would fall near the bottom for me. A game defined by its production values as its simplified level design makes it the Rayman Legends of platformers. Beautiful to look at, but frictionless and shallow. Fun while it lasts, but lacking any long-term appeal.

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