New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) [Review] (UPDATE!)

 



Hey, it's new Mario game time.  I don't think I need to tell you I was pretty excited for this game, I'm a pretty big Mario fan.  Not enough to be blind to when I'm having recycled crap shoved in my face though.  So does New Super Mario Bros. 2 bring enough "New" to the table to warrant its existence, or is it like I mentioned before, Nintendo shoveling recycled crap in our collective faces?



Well, to be honest, it's a little of both.  In a Mario game there's of course going to be some nostalgia factor going on, it's a given.  In a game, though, called "New" Super Mario Bros. 2, you kind of expect some, you know, actually new stuff?  Or at least enough content to keep you from defeating Bowser and saving the Princess in like 3 hours.

Yeah, the game is short.  You'll have Peach rescued the same day you buy the damn game.  You won't have  completed the entire game by any means, you still have Star Coins and secret paths to discover if you want, but doing so won't really unlock much of anything (except Coin Rush levels occasionally) so all the left over stuff if there for you to try to arbitrarily squeeze some fun out of your $40 purchase.  Oh, and there's only 6 worlds, too.  There's 3 secret ones on top of that, but they are theme-less and generally bland like the rest of the game's maps.  The level design is fun and brilliant as to be expected, but the presentation of the different worlds on the map screen leaves a lot to be desired.  Look at this comparison.

[caption id="attachment_3318" align="aligncenter" width="256"] Super Mario World's World 1[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3322" align="aligncenter" width="717"] This game's boring world 1 map that is practically a straight line.[/caption]

I mean look at that! One has twists and turns and unique landmarks and animations, while the other is basically a straight line with the ocassional offshoot and, aside from the upgraded graphics, is more or less identical to the one from the original New Super Mario Bros.!  It just reeks of laziness and doesn't have the wonder and mystery of previous Mario maps.  Here's one more:

Gee, which Star World is more interesting?  The star-shaped space plateau or the straight line with some stars in the background?  There might as well be no Star World map at all in NSMB2! This kind of seems like nit-picking, I know, but making the map screen look like a map as compared to a series of points on a straight line really makes a difference between making the game feel like a real adventure and not a series of boxes to check off in a line.  Even Super Mario Bros. 3 had more going on in the map department, and it was the game that introduced map screens to the series!  Nintendo went, "Well, it's a Mario game so I guess we're going to have to throw in a map screen," then tossed one together lazily.  This kind of "do the bare minimum" laziness is prevalent throughout the entire game.  Here's an example, remember the Reznors, those dinosaurs on a spinning wheel from SMW? Well, they are back in NSMB2, which is cool, but they are literally the boss of every tower.  At the halfway point of every world there's a tower, and every goddamn time you are going to be battling the Reznors.  Oh and they are super easy too, every time.  They try to switch around the layout and add more wheels and whatever, but it honestly never gets all that more difficult than the first time you face them.  Where's some other iconic Mario bosses? Where's Boom-Boom or Petey Piranha or anything than just the same thing over and over?

[caption id="attachment_3325" align="aligncenter" width="374"] Get used to seeing these little bastards.[/caption]

The rest of the game's bosses are the Koopa Kids, which I am always glad to see, but in this game they are way too easy to beat.  Sure, I know Mario bosses are traditionally not supposed to be all that difficult, but in this game they are a straight up joke.  Not once did I ever get stuck at one of them for more than 1 or 2 tries, and there is by and far not enough variation between them.  Jump on their head 3 times, they die, rinse, repeat.  Don't expect any of that fun and exciting stuff like that Koopa Clown Copter vs. Koopa Clown Copter fight with Bowser Jr. from New Super Mario Bros. Wii, or hell, even something as interesting as the tilting islands over lava from the first castle in Super Mario World!  Even the final battle with the Koopa King himself leaves a lot to be desired, as you just run from him and then push a button as opposed to, well, actually fighting him.  It does look really cool though, especially in 3D.

If you've paid attention to the advertising and hype surrounding this game you'll notice there's a running theme going on in this particular Mario game.  It's coins. Coins, coins, coins.  Every level is just littered with the iconic little golden treasures, and truthfully they are super fun to collect.  It's just to bad it seems like the rest of the game didn't get the memo about the coin surplus.  The plot (which is the standard "Princess Peach is kidnapped") makes no attempt to explain why the Mushroom Kingdom is now flush with cash.  You'd think you'd be able to like, actually do something with all these coins the game wants you to collect, but really there's nothing.  You can't use them to buy anything, or unlock anything, or as ammo in some kind of coin cannon,  or whatever. Why not let me use the coins to customize Mario, like the Mii customization in Mario Tennis?  Anything would be better than the nothing currently in place.  The game challenges you to collect a million of the things, which is a neat idea, but once you cross that million mark, the game doesn't award you with anything of value.  You get a new title screen. Whoop-de-doo.  It's so strange that the levels would focus so much on collecting coins, and then the rest of the game do so little to reward you for it.  What's the point?  It's a brilliant idea and a truly unique spin on the Mario formula, it's just executed pretty lazily-- much like the whole game, really.  I'd be fun to see this idea explored again in another game.  Maybe in a Wario title where coin hoarding greed would make sense as a theme?

Okay, I'm probably being a little hard on this game.  It is fun, and I did enjoy my time spent in the coin-filled Mushroom Kingdom, it's just that I expect a little more from a flagship Mario title like this-- especially following a game as brilliant and amazing as last year's Super Mario 3D Land, which I never did get around to review for the site.  Let me review it now: 10/10, brilliant, one of the best Mario games ever made, and stands up easily with the classics.  It's too bad I can't say that about this game.  It has no surprises,  and the "new" things in this "New" Super Mario Bros. seem either lazily thrown together, or half-explored concepts.   I used to think that new levels would be all I really needed to enjoy a new Mario title.  I guess that just isn't the case.

The level design is immaculate though.  Every level is pretty amazingly designed and throws the occasional new environment in your direction.  There's a cool totem pole level, a neat castle made of breakable bricks (which is fun when you have the new Golden Flower power-up) and stuff like that.  There's some ingeniously hidden rainbow stages which are fun coin collecting runs, and new cannon levels that actually present a entirely new Canabalt style challenge (although there are way too few of these).  Actually a never-ending cannon level mini-game would be a great addition, and another way to compete with friends for high scores... but of course that's not in the game.  There's definitely good stuff going on here, it's just hard to see it through all the disappointment.

Speaking of competing with friends for high scores, in an attempt to add some replayability to the game, Nintendo has convieved the game's Coin Rush mode, where the game sets you up with three random stages from three level packs and challenges you to complete them as quickly as you can while collecting as many coins as possible.  It's fun and a cool idea, it just becomes completely crippled by the fact that the only way to share scores (and therefore actually compete) is through StreetPass.  If there were online leaderboards or even the ability to share scores with people on your friends list (for crying out loud), this mode would definitely keep me coming back for more.  Unfortunately without these key features, Coin Rush mode never becomes more than a neat distraction that maybe you'll play a few times, but never becomes the addicting coin competition it should be.

You know, I could probably go on and on and analyze this particular game for about a gajillion more paragraphs, but I guess I should wrap it up.  Is New Super Mario Bros. 2 a fun game? Yeah it is. Does it bring enough new stuff to the table to keep things interesting? Not really.  Should you buy it? If you have a 3DS, probably.  I'd tell you to wait until it drops in price, but Nintendo games (especially when they have Mario in them) rarely drop in price.  The original New Super Mario Bros. for DS came out six years ago and still retails for $35 dollars.  If you have yet to get your hands on Super Mario 3D Land, get that instead, I can't recommend it enough.  If you are a big Mario fan and are starving for your next Mario fix, this well do well enough.  Anybody else though, you can skip it and not worry, you won't be missing out on anything actually New in this New Super Mario Bros..

It's a decent enough game, but it's probably the most disappointing one in all of the Mario series.  That's why we here at the PXT are givingNew Super Mario Bros. 2...

PXT Final Verdict: 7/10

A commenter brought up a good point.  My review isn't entirely indicative of the 7 I ended up giving the game.  I did mention that the game at it's core is still pretty fun, albeit pretty dang disappointing.  Let me explain how I came to that 7, I swear there is a method to my madness.

Yeah, I know, all I did is complain about the game and then give it a 7, which on my scale means decent to slightly above average.  My reasoning? Even a bad Mario game is apparently still a pretty decent video game.  Let me put it this way, compared to other games of this genre and on the 3DS, this game rates at about an 8/10.  As a Mario game, it doesn't stand up hardly at all to the rest of the Mario canon.  In this respect, it's like a 5/10.  It's no Super Mario Bros. 3 but it's certainly not a Super Mario Land.  So between the 8 and the 5, New Super Mario Bros. 2 lands at about a 7.

Hope that clears it up!