"A 'New' Super Mario Bros Game That Lost The Enjoyment Of Past Games In The Series"

I really liked the Mario side scrollers of old, sure they were never able to come with a decent storyline, but the gameplay was good enough to make up for this lack. This newest version is described as going back to the style of gameplay that essentially made the Mario Bros series. I found it to be extremely lacking in every aspect, as the gameplay that they were trying to recreate becomes lost in the effort to try and make it look up to date. Between this mismatch of styles, the new content that has been added fails to make the game enjoyable to play, and the enjoyment of the past games they're trying to recreate seems to be missing.

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Storyline (3/10)
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There's not much to comment on here, it's essentially the same plot that's been used in Mario games for the past two decades. There are no new elements to the storyline, so technically, calling it the ‘new' Super Mario Bros is misleading. Peach has been captured, and basically, you play as Mario travelling from map to map trying to rescue the princess.

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Gameplay (5/10)
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The first thing I want to criticise is the touch screen support, or rather, the lack of. This is the main selling point of the DS, and this new game by Nintendo themselves barely uses it. The only real use for it in this game is when you get to store an item for later use, which is a feature that existed in Super Mario Bros 3. The dual screens don't really make that much of an impact on the gameplay, so essentially, this could have been made on the GBA sans the 3D graphics.

Speaking of features that were just lifted up from previous Mario Bros games, the whole gameplay feels like that. In a way, yes, it's a good thing, and cashes in on everyone's search for gaming nostalgia. However, aside from updated graphics, there is no real gameplay difference, it's the same old method that's been used in countless games. In fact the only new control that exists in this game is the decision whether to use an item that you've stored up, or whether to save it for later where it could possibily be more useful. There's the new power-up that makes you grow, and then you go on a spree of stomping on enemies and other things that build up a meter, which when filled will award you with extra lives.

This is an aspect that makes the game far too easy. There's way too many ways to get extra lives, and thus basically never lose the game, while you die a few times. It's not like the gameplay is extremely difficult either, in fact it's very standard platforming, with some very minor exploring in there as well. The original Mario Bros games gave the player some really good rewards for exploring areas you wouldn't think of straight away, and it doesn't really feature as much here. The way they've tried to incorporate it into this game is to make you collect star coins that are hidden away, in very obvious areas, and then these will let you open up different routes on the world map. To me this isn't much of a reward and found that I finished the game without using most of the coins I went out of my way to collect as I thought they may have some use by the end of the game.

On the enemies front, you'll pretty much only encounter ones you've seen before if you've ever played any Mario Bros game, and the boss ‘fights' feature either jumping on their heads or fireballing them to death. There is no other strategy to them than that, because in all honesty, they die far too easily.

My main problem with the game is that it's just not interesting. For being trumped as a ‘new' Super Mario Bros game, it succeeds as it is a new game in the series, but in terms of new features or new abilities and gameplay elements, the game just falls flat on it's face. Nowadays, everyone is weary of cheap rehashes of popular games and badly made clones; however, Nintendo seems to have got away with it, purely for the fact it's a new Mario game.

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Graphics (7/10)
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I have to say the graphics do look good and they're very fluid. Everything from the sprites to the backgrounds are done really well, although a lot of it once again just looks like updated graphics from the old games. I can appreciate that they're trying to go for a retro feel with the game, but a lot of it just feels uninspired. While the game is full of pretty effects, they don't mesh well with the retro style that the rest of the game seems to be about.

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Sounds (7/10)
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A lot of the music seems to be taken from the older games, although there were some new ones mixed in. However, a lot of the sounds are used very often and thus can get annoying pretty quickly. There's not much else to comment on here. The addition of new voice overs for Mario is pretty much the only major new addition that distinguishes the sounds in this game from those of the games in the past.

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Replay Value (1/10)
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I haven't done this before for any of the other reviews I've written, however, I feel it is warranted here, as to be frank, there's not much appeal to the game to start with. I played the original Mario games over and over, and since this game is trying to recreate that experience, I don't consider it unfair to have the expectation that I'd want to play this game over and over. However, I felt it was a chore just to finish it, and in reality, only finished it to convince myself it wasn't a waste of time getting it, although I still felt that way afterwards.

The extra items such as the mini games are ones that are basically taken from Mario 64 DS. I didn't really like most of them on that, and so I was really annoyed to find them on here. Also, that was when I was even able to play them, a lot of the time the game crashed whenever I tried to make them load. Thus I don't really recall playing any of these on this game, since basically I'd had my fill of them when playing them for a bit on Mario 64 DS.

There's just nothing enjoyable to take away from the game, it's incredibly short, and doesn't feature any real difficulty, as seems to be the case with all recent Nintendo produced games. There's no depth to the game, and you don't get anything new or shiny for having the patience to finish it, nor are you really greeted with an interesting ending. When you've finished with the game you are left with very little to make you start playing the game all over again. Just about the only thing to do is maybe play the levels you didn't bother with the first time around and try to collect all the hidden star coins.

In my opinion, this isn't anything that appeals to me, and while after game extras aren't something that should be considered essential for a game, however, when you consider how incredibly quick this game finishes, it definitely needs something to make up for this fact. In summary, you don't get anything to make the time you spend playing this game worthwhile.

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Fun (4/10)
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Another factor that I don't usually include in reviews, however, there's a word limit on the review contribution form, and there really isn't enough content to comment on in other areas :) Aside from that, it is an important area for discussion in this game, as it's using other games in the series as it's basis that were fun, this game however, isn't. It can have it's moments while the game lasts, but unfortunately, the experience is over way too quickly for this to amount to anything. It does have the nice retro feel to it, however, the game just doesn't have anything more to it than that.

The game has some major flaws, ranging from lack of content to lack of variety. There are different areas, and they make minor differences to the way the level will be played, but a lot of the levels play very similar to each other and only have a slightly different layout. The new power ups aren't of any real use, as the giant mushroom can only be used properly on some levels, on a lot of them you'll find there isn't enough room to move about, and thus get trapped waiting for it to run out. The koopa shell has pretty much no use, as it makes you hit enemies as if you were to throw a koopa shell. In the only instances where you'd need to hit an enemies with a koopa shell, there is generally a koopa trooper provided in order to allow you to accomplish this, and thus making this power up redundant.

The gameplay gets very stale very quickly, and it's large due to expectation. This is the latest game, using the latest handheld technology that Nintendo has, and the game they've produced is one that's a step backwards from the games that they're trying to recreate. In their desperation to add new content into a game they must have realised wasn't too interesting, they must have came up with the koopa suit, which shows in how utterly useless it is.

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Summary (3/10)
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In my opinion, it was a bad idea to make this game. The theory is sound, and as mentioned, people will always buy into nostalgia; however, this game just simply doesn't deliver. It's trying to be old and new at the same time and gets horribly lost in between. The use of the new technology is almost non-existent, and so is the fun of the Mario games of the past. They should have stuck to re-releasing the old Mario games on the GBA, instead of trying to make a new one in that mould, OR they could/should have tried to make a new game. Fine, keep the shoddy storyline, but make it fun to play!

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/12/07