Playing Nintendo v22 – Deconstructing Mario

I beat New Super Mario Bros. on the subway yesterday, nearly one month to the day since I bought it. Though I can confidently say that I like the game, somehow I still don’t know just what to make of it. That’s an odd thing to say, cause, ya know, it’s a Mario game, and I’m a raving Nintendo fanboy, so there should be no issue at all, right? Nonetheless, that’s the way I’ve felt about the game since day one, and it bothers me.

There are tons of things I like, even love, about NSMB. Level design is incredible. A lot of the graphical elements are top notch. The opening pantomime skit is classic. The bottom screen is constantly useful and never distracting. The sound is fantastic. The butt stomp rocks. The wall jump is *perfection*. The blue turtle shell power-up is cool (when you can actually get it to work without falling off a ledge first). The water effects are really nice. Two player is lots of fun. The flagpole finish is back. Tiny Mario (Wii Mario??) is crazy fun in an oh-no-I’m-gonna-die-any-second kind of way. Finding the big coins is a blast, and a great addition. The control just *feels* right in a way that only a Mario platformer can. Bowser’s fire-breathing effects in the final battle are wicked cool. It’s a nice treat to play as Luigi. The random cannon pipes are a (literal) blast…and the list goes on and on.

What about the not-so-good, then? For starters, is it just me, or do some of the graphics stand out as looking a bit tacky and cheap, almost like some bad clip art from Windows 98? That may sound harsh, but I think it’s a reality. As an example, take the backgrounds in the ghost house levels (and, to a lesser extent, the castles). They have a grainy, cheap, pre-rendered sprite look, in contrast to the nice-looking foreground elements. I may be a bit prejudiced here, as I *hate* prerendered sprites in basically everything other than the original Donkey Kong Country, but it’s still a valid point. Same goes for the backgrounds in the swimming levels. When I first saw screenshots of the underwater areas, I thought they looked awesome, but I kind of assumed there’d be a bit of visual variety, not the *exact same thing* over and over again. Sheesh. The first few levels of World 8, however, take the cake as far as I’m concerned. Man, talk about dull, uninteresting backgrounds. Those dead trees get old after you’ve seen *one*.

Then there are the maps. Do they look okay? Sure. Could they have been a lot cooler? Absolutely. They do a decent enough job of setting up the mood and so forth, but they feel cheaply put together, especially so in comparison to those of Super Mario World or other Mario platformers. I hate comparing, but I can’t help it. In relation to visual prowess and beauty on their respective platforms, take a look at Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island, then take a look at NSMB. All things aesthetic in the former two look to have been created with the utmost care and love, pushing the limits of the hardware to create a world that would truly immerse the player. NSMB, on the other hand, is hit and miss in this regard, and often looks like it was thrown together rather hastily. Fortunately, the gameplay is a different story, and that’s what really counts. Still, from the visuals alone, I can’t help but feel like I’m playing a product that wasn’t quite the labor of love that its predecessors were, and that just ain’t right.

Another area in which the game let me down was boss battles. Though the castles themselves were superbly designed edge-of-your-seat twitch fests, it was a bit disappointing to reach the final boss only to find that, yet again, it was Bowser Jr. or some meaningless enemy lifted straight from Super Mario 64 DS. Add to that the fact that with a Fire Flower there was literally *zero* challenge involved, and it all equals a series of rather unsatisfying mini-finales. It’s been said before, but it bears repeating: NSMB needed Bowser’s kids. Larry, Wendy O., Ludwig Von, Morton Jr., Iggy, Lemmy, and Roy could have done wonders for the game, and spiced up both play and presentation in a big way. Major missed opportunity, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know what Shiggy was thinking. Oh, and the save system sucks, plain and simple. Makes no sense whatsoever. Famitsu had to run a special feature the week after it was released showing people how to save, for crying out loud. That shouldn’t have been an issue, not in a Nintendo game largely targeted to the casual crowd.

Don’t get me wrong, I really do adore the game. I had a genuine smile on my face, the kind that only a Nintendo game can conjure up, during nearly every moment I played it, and I know that will continue as I go on to unlock the secrets that still lie in wait. What remains, however, is the fact that there’s something about the game that bothers me, something tough to put my finger on. I suppose you could say I’m nitpicking (NOTE: In reality, I’m well aware that *all* of the above could and will be called nitpicking), but this is the best way I can describe it: Something about NSMB makes it feel not so much like a brand new Mario platformer on its own merits, but rather like a kind of tribute to previous entries in the series, especially the NES original. I can’t say that’s a bad thing, because it isn’t. At the same time, however, I also can’t say it’s nearly as “special” as Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World (which I still have not actually finished), or Yoshi’s Island. A lot of fans have called foul on 1up’s Jeremy Parish for his 8.0 review of the game, but if you haven’t noticed, I can pretty much see where he was coming from.

When I started writing this article, I truly didn’t know what to make of NSMB. It’s funny, but now I have no such dilemna. Were I to score it out of 100, I would bestow upon it an excellent 88 points, relative to the 100 points that I give both SMB3 and Yoshi’s Island. That’s good and fair, as far as I’m concerned. In a nutshell, here’s my verdict: New Super Mario Bros. is a fantastic Mario platformer from beginning to end, but ten years from now, it will be remembered as the 2D Mario game that had all the ingredients except one – a little thing called magic.

PS: Click here for the coolest review of all time.