"A new super disappointment"

I, like many other gamers, have enjoyed the Mario games for the past 10-20 years so you can guess how exited I was when I heard that they were releasing a new Mario game with the same concept of the old ones. I was bitterly disappointed.

Story: 10/10

It's the exact same as every Mario Bros game to date, Princess Toadstool has been kidnapped but this time it was by Bowser Jr instead of his farther. It happened when Mario was on a walk with her and saw the castle being attacked by something, when he went to investigate Peach was taken.

Gameplay: 6/10

You'd think that after two very successful games that this one was clearly based on they'd get it right but they tired to make this one stand out and in doing so they ruined it completely. You're in for a long ride here as there is so many things to talk about.

First lets look at what they added. Two new moves, the wall jump and triple jump. Although the triple jump worked like a dream in the 3D games the levels in this don't give you enough room to make it past the second jump throughout the entire game making this move completely pointless, they have hit something with the wall jump. Basically you just have to hold in the direction of the wall and jump to kick off it and reach new heights. Not only can this be used to get past some tricky areas and grab large coins (more on those later) it also can be used to avoid falling into bottomless pits making it the most useful added feature in the game.

If only that was it, but they also took it upon themselves to add two new mushrooms and a whole new power. “What's wrong with that?” I hear you ask. Well I'll tell you, the new power is a blue koopa shell that allows you to ram into things without being hurt when you're going at some speed but whenever I get the shell I can never go at enough speed to become invulnerable without hitting something first.

One of the new mushrooms can make you so big that you can destroy everything on the screen. This is great fun, for the first time then you see it for what it really is, a pointless gimmick that takes the challenge out of the level. What's worse is that you can get these on hold guaranteed by unlocking the path to a huge mushroom house (and trust me there's plenty of those). This means that you can just carry one around until you get to a part of a level you can't do them use it. I think you can even use these against the boss's and I shudder to think how easy the last boss could be if you chose to bring one of these along.

The second mushroom makes you tiny. This means you can enter tiny pipes and run on water. This could have been a great idea but the tiny mushrooms, unlike their giant mushroom counterpart, are so rare you barley get to use them. Not only that but with one in effect you can only take one hit. And due to your size you can't kill enemies and are most likely to run into one, as they are now huge in comparison.

Now these alone wouldn't be so bad but what's worse is THEY TOOK ALL THE OTHER POWER UPS! That's right other than the normal mushroom; fire flower and the odd starman all other power ups are gone from the game. So there's no flying with the cape, no swimming with the frog suit and no stomping goombas with a giant boot. These power ups were fun and made the game fresh whereas now you're stuck with fire flower after fire flower, they have these all over in every level too. You rarely get to see Mario out of his firepower suit as every time you lose your firepower another fire flower is there.

Now for the large coins I talked about. These are larger coins with a star pattern on them (so they are also called star coins). They are three in every level and can be used to unlock gates on the world map leading to mushroom houses (where you can get power ups or 1-ups), shortcuts or extra levels. The only problem with most of these is that they're hidden in the same sense as the clouds. You just need to look for them and they're there. Sometimes they are right in front of you but very rarely do you have to do anything to hard to actually get them.

The final thing I have to say on the subject of gameplay is the world map it's just a wasted opportunity. It is in the same layout as SMB advance 4 with the exception that where SMBA4 had several routes and SMBA 2 had secret routes, this game is mainly a straight line from start to castle with a fortress on the way. Any alternative routes must be unlocked with the giant coins and most of them take you to a mushroom house. This wouldn't be so bad but the only way to save the game is to either beat a castle or fortress for the first time or unlock a gate. And as their isn't even a save and quit option if you want to stop playing then opening a gate is your best bet. This makes the limited gates valuable for saving and therefore you never open them until you want to stop playing or you beat the game (in which case you can save whenever). Why you're not allowed to save whenever you want is beyond me as the power ups are not rare in the slightest so there is no reason for people to try and hang onto them by turning of the power when they lose one.

Also if you want to play world 4 and 7 you have to unlock them! This means you actually have to work hard to get to an entire world when you should be working hard to avoid them. Unfortunately the game designers decided that both options should be included so with a bit of searching you can unlock your way to a warp cannon. This means you can skip even more or the game with little effort.

The only reason this game even got a 6 is because despite these downsides it still plays as a Mario game, you still have to jump on enemy's to kill them and you still have to avoid falling in lava and hitting spikes. And if you're like me you can put the effort into unlocking the other worlds and play them all in order as oppose to just skipping to world 8.

Sound: 10/10
Same old, same old. Nothing new here which is good as nothing needed to be changed. The music for the world map changes depending on which world your on and it all gels together nicely.

Graphics: 9/10
Hmm. They decided to make Mario and the enemy's 3D whilst the background 2D. For those of you who played Sonic Rush then it's done like that, if not then use your imagination. This half works as I can't see Mario wall jumping in 2D and the boss's do look cool. But it also makes things look a bit blocky. I gave this a 9 anyway as it doesn't look too bad.

Difficulty: 4/10

This is the games largest downfall of all time. I could have overlooked most of the other problems but this just takes the biscuit. I have never seen the game over screen even once during the two days it took me to finish this game. Mainly because they fill you up with 1-ups from the word go. Every green mushroom house gives you the chance to gain loads of 1-ups, and then you get a 1-up for finding the 3 giant coins in a level. You get another for getting 8 red coins in the time limit after hitting a switch and another for hitting the top of the end-of-level flagpole. If you crush a lot of stuff whilst a giant mushroom is in effect you get extra 1-ups as an added bonus. You also get one for getting 100 normal coins, this would be ok but the coin limit doesn't reset after a level so it's only a matter of time before you hit 100.

It's not like you get to waste them either, they're about 10 power ups in each level, most in easy-to-reach places. What makes things worse is not only are the levels easy but most of them are also very short. In SMBA4 the levels were short but very hard so it balanced. The very last world for every other Mario game I can remember playing was hard. It was a golden rule to have insane levels, which take days of practise to complete for world 8, but in this game that rule went out of the window. They seem to have spent all their time making levels for world 8 spooky that they forgot to have any difficulty in it. Even the last castle was easy. There was only 1 level that gave me trouble and a quick trip to a giant mushroom house allowed me to destroy everything there. Walls, enemy's and falling rocks are not a problem when you fill up most of the screen and can destroy anything just by touching it.

Even the boss's are weak, only a very few can give me trouble. All the others are a joke. The fortress boss is always Bowser Jr and he only ever has two fighting styles. The only thing that changes is the stage you fight on and most of the time this makes no difference as the only real change is at the sides but as you stay away from the sides it doesn't matter it it's instant death or just a single hit it will not concern you as if you fall down the side the battle is pretty much lost anyway.

The very last battle is a joke for sure. There is nothing new, no combo or fancy moves to do just plain old, plain old.

Overall: 5/10

In this they seem to take the worse or each game and leave the things that made up for it. This leaves a game that is both large disappointment and a waste of money. The worse thing is that Nintendo know that because it's a Mario game they can sell it regardless of how bad it is and still be able to sell the next one without so much as a drop in sales. If you do buy this game please say exactly what you think and don't just forgive it's flaws because it's Mario.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/27/06