Review: New Super Mario Bros. DS

The Introduction

New Super Mario Bros. for the DS is a return to a familiar for Mario and Nintendo; the new two-dimensional platformer is a feature-filled quest with the purist of intentions and gameplay.

The Background Story

The Mario series of games is synonymous with the Nintendo moniker. Indeed, much like Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario is one of the most well-known computer game characters of all time. Despite Sonic being inherently ‘cooler’ with many young people because of his speed, cool tricks and care-free attitude, Mario’s affection and undying devotion to Princess Peach earns him some points in the hearts of guys and girls alike. New Super Mario Bros. is a return to the grass roots for Nintendo — one of their first and most popular titles, Super Mario Bros., was released on NES back in the late eighties.

The series has come full circle after detouring slightly into three dimensions with the release of Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo64 some years ago. Mario has returned to his two-dimensional ways, with a bang, and as usual, Princess Peach has managed to get herself kidnapped by one of the Bowser family –this time Bowser Jnr., and it’s up to Mario to save the day.

First up: the box and its contents

The box art is typical of the Mario series; it shows Mario prominently, and displays some of the other characters in the game. This particular image though seems to allude to the effect that the Mega Mushroom has on Mario, with him towering over everything else.

New Super Mario Bros. supports wireless multiplayer for two to four players, and you only need one game cart to access all of the multiplayer features of the game. There are two different types of multiplay: a versus mode where Mario and Luigi battle each other to collect stars in one of five different, circular levels, and a minigames mode where up to four players can play any one of 28 included minigames. Nineteen of these minigames are available in single-player also.

The documentation booklet accompanying the game is very thorough, colourful and informative. It details each of Mario’s abilities and how to perform his special moves, as well as instructing you on the basic Mario gameplay mechanics (how Mushrooms work), for those that are (heaven forbid) new to the series.

Thats all well and good, but how does it play?

The gameplay of New Super Mario Bros. is excellent. At walking pace, Mario moves very slowly and the game is quite easy for the first few worlds; however, hold down the dash button and you are in for a surprise, as the difficulty increases greatly and you are left wondering if your Mario skills really are up to scratch!

The various gameplay elements in New Super Mario Bros. seem to be a collection of everything from all Mario games in the past, with some new additions: there’s all of Mario’s regular moves from the old two-dimensional side-scrollers, plus his Ground Pound and other tricks from Super Mario 64, and now there’s also the ability to wall-jump, which makes for some challenging coin-collecting sequences within the game.

New Super Mario Bros. can be played through quickly — easily within four or five hours — if you blast through the levels without much thought for the real challenge within the game. To unlock various parts of each world, and also to gain access to two of the eight worlds, you need to pay a toll of Star Coins. There are three Star Coins to collect in each level; sometimes they are obvious, and sometimes they are hidden, or require you to perform a special series of tricks to be able to obtain them. There are 80 levels in total throughout the game, set in one of eight different environments: plains, desert, tropical island, forest, ice, mountains, sky, and Koopa Kingdom.

The multiplayer versus mode is awesome fun, but it does lose its appeal more quickly than the minigames. Although most of the minigames are simple, there are a few complex puzzle and card-based games that do challenge your brain, especially when you play against other people. One nice feature of New Super Mario Bros. is that four players need only one game cart to utilise all of the multiplayer features.

How it sounds: new, updated and remixed

The music accompanying most of the levels in the singleplayer adventure is new. Most of the tracks are ‘airy’ sort of sympathetic tunes that accompany the gameplay well; they play in the background and add to the atmosphere, propping up the sound effects and on-screen action to a tee. There are some excellent remixes on the playlist also; with the classic World 1-1 music from the original Super Mario making its renewed aural appearance in Toadie’s mushroom houses you visit along the way; as well as the classic World 1-2 underground techno being brought back to life with some sleek new musical stylings.

How it looks: 20 years of refinement

If you weren’t aware, 2006 is Mario’s 20th anniversary. In such time he has appeared in a plethora of games. New Super Mario Bros. has 20 years of graphic history behind it. The uniquely stylized features of the various graphical elements in the game are instantly recognisable, such as the half-circle hilltops in the background, the cutesy, perfect grass, and the wandering, docile enemies. The main adventure game is presented in “2.5D”; whereby the majority of the background and enemies are two-dimensional sprites, with Mario and select enemies being rendered in a full three dimensions. The animation is smooth and the framerate constant.

New Super Mario Bros. makes extensive use of the touchscreen for each of the minigames, though its utilisation is limited in the main adventure game. Basically all of the minigames (bar perhaps one, which uses the microphone) make use of the touch-screen in some manner.

The Verdict

New Super Mario Bros. is a culmination of all Super Mario games prior; it combines the traditional graphical stylings with all the old moves, and introduces some new ones too. The gameplay is tried and true, the music is superb and does its job well, and the minigames and fully-featured multiplayer round out a top game overall.

If I were to give it a score out of ten, I’d give it a nine.