Any gamer worth their salt recalls the time that they first played Super Mario Bros. 3, or indeed, Super Mario World. Despite this, the handheld formats have only seen rehashes and re-releases of those classic NES and SNES titles. New Super Mario Bros. is exactly what we were waiting for. A new version of a classic gaming franchise.
I’ve avoided all coverage of this game so far. I wanted to be surprised. When the DS powered up with the cart in place for the first time, the console listened to me whisper softly – ‘tell me you didn’t just go old school.’
But they have. REAL old school, with a massive dose of new school gaming ideas and new technology thrown in for good measure. Mario can use new high-powered springs, and spin down slowly from the peak of the jump ‘ or, attack enemies by hammering to the floor quickly. He can rebound jump from walls, which is essential in places. Just jump, then hold the d-pad in the direction of the wall and press your jump button again. Power-ups can be stored as in SMW and SMB3, but are activated at your whim with the touch screen. Huge mushrooms grow Mario into a screen-sized behemoth, where he can walk through blocks, destroying enemies and scenery such as warp pipes with every step. But I would be cruel to spoil the rest. This is something you need to discover for yourself, so I apologise to you if you feel that this review doesn’t give you enough information. I’m just trying to be a better person, and my karma would take a severe hit if I spoiled this jewel in the Nintendo DS’ crown for you. Sorry, Earl again.
In short, New Super Mario Bros. contains the perfect amalgamation of Mario’s older moves, and a stack of new ones. The same can be said of the sound ‘ with a highlight being the switch to ’standby’ mode. Close your DS, Mario says ‘Bah-bye!’ – open it again, and the classic ‘It’s-a-me! A-Mario!’ plays out. A small, insignificant touch, maybe ‘ but it just serves to highlight the amount of polish that has been rubbed onto NSMB. If you don’t think that’s impressive, wait until you hear the dripping water on the underground levels. It could be coming from behind you ‘ its THAT good. Wandering through the eighty or so levels, you’ll be beaming with joy countless times as a familiar-looking setting appears, or you discover a new way of doing things.
Some highlighted new features would be the ability to climb ropes and scale large gaps by going hand-over-hand to swing across. New switches are available and when activated, coloured coins appear that give Mario a power-up if you manage to collect them all. Warp pipes are back in fashion, and are used to great effect in pretty much all of the levels. The map can be controlled by the touch screen ‘ and contains new locations, such as Mushroom levels, where for just five star coins (of which there are three to collect in each stage) you can play a game to get a power-up or a stack of 1ups, if you’re lucky. This may sound like I’m just cobbling together a list of new inclusions ‘ and essentially, I am. The reason for this, yet again ‘ is that I don’t want to spoil this for you. I want you to buy New Super Mario Bros. and I want you to enjoy it, for yourself.
New Super Mario Bros. isn’t open-ended. It isn’t dark. It doesn’t contain gangsters. There’s no swearing. No police. No graffiti. There isn’t even anyone wearing camouflage, unless you include Bowser’s greenish tinge. But yet, New Super Mario Bros. is a fine, fine game ‘ to the point of eclipsing 90% of the titles that have been released in the last year. One of the finest, in fact. Remember the scores that Super Mario World used to obtain for the SNES ‘ then bear in mind that New Super Mario Bros. is BETTER.
