Since childhood, I have been absolutely enthralled with the world of Super Mario and his friends. The rules of the world (hit a brick to get coins, stomp on a turtle’s head to kick its shell, make your way to a castle only to find that your princess is in another one) have become so second-nature to me that I hardly, if ever, stop to think about what I am doing. New Super Mario Bros. Wii uses that concept of “second-nature” gameplay and refreshes it for veteran gamers by adding multiplayer to a familiar experience while simultaneously appealing to the people who never picked up a controller before Wii Sports. But, does New Super Mario Bros. Wii truly refresh and refine the platformer genre with its gameplay or are its multiplayer aspects simply there to plaster something “new” on the box?
Thumbs Up: Level design, multiplayer, Super Guide, the music, perfect pacing, the return of the Koopa Kids, and wonderful presentation.
Thumbs Down: Nothing. The game is way too fun to find a valid complaint.
Eh…: The lack of Yoshi carry-over between stages.
First and foremost, I feel compelled to state that the game is easily one of the best paced Mario platformers of all time, if not the best. I’m sure that this will bring smiles to the faces of critics of the original New Super Mario Bros. who groaned at the original game’s difficulty or lack thereof. New Super Mario Bros. Wii does an absolutely fantastic job of spacing out the action. One minute players will be traversing through epic landscapes and the next, they’ll be exploring the game’s mini-map which is filled to the brim with secrets and bonus stages. Challenging levels are almost always followed by a simple stage, castles are uniquely filled with obstacles and enemies meant to keep players on their toes, and airship levels, while far and few between, are a perfect footnote to many of the game’s worlds.
The game also does a phenomenal job of adding replay value to each of the game’s stages. For example, on the first run of World 2-1, I tried finding all of the Star Coins and reaching the end. The second time through, I had to go save the Toads that were kidnapped and stuffed into coin boxes by Bowser Jr. And, in my third time through the level, I played through it with three other friends and we competed to see who could reach the goal first. Needless to say, there is never a dull moment in New Super Mario Bros. Wii and the game’s levels are used so creatively that you’ll never have the same experience on the same level twice. Of course, if the player absolutely hates going through old levels again, there’s still plenty of content that will keep a gamer satisfied.
One of the biggest selling points for New Super Mario Bros. Wii has been its four-player multiplayer support and its co-operative/competitive game-play. Back at E3 in June, when I was first able to get my hands on the game for myself, I absolutely fell in love with these multiplayer components and I found myself drawing comparisons to Miyamoto’s first “single-player turned multiplayer” game, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures. For all intents and purposes though, I actually think New Super Mario Bros. Wii pulls off this sort of gameplay better. Most anyone who has ever played a game can grasp the simple concept of pressing one button to jump and using the d-pad to move so I feel as though the barrier to entry on this game is much lower. Not to mention, the game is a heck of a lot of fun to play with other people and even if a player has gone through a level ten times before, the game makes these stages feel fresh when other players are added into the mix. Add that to the fact that the game’s two multi-player centered modes, Free for All and Coin Battle, are just as much fun to play as the main game, and players are given one of the best party experiences on Wii on top of an already stellar single player game.
The music in New Super Mario Bros. Wii is also extremely catchy, which is to be expected of a 2D Mario platformer. Each of the game’s songs are perfectly tailored to their respective stages and their melodies are just as infectious as the best of their predecessors in Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3. In fact, the songs are so catchy that if you look closely at the enemies that inhabit the various stages of the game, you’ll notice that the characters will hop and bop to the beat, even while their peers are being stomped on by Mario, Luigi and the Toads. If the game’s music can make a Koopa dance in the face of having their brother thrown off a cliff, you know it has to be good.
One of the game’s coolest features though, which I’m sure many of you have already read tons on, has to be the Super Guide. Back in January, a leaked NIntendo patent talked about a feature in upcoming Nintendo games that would provide “moving strategy guides” for players who would otherwise never be able to complete a title all the way through. And, as it turns out, the Super Guide, as it is presented in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, is essentially that. The only thing that seems to have changed from the initial patent earlier in the year is the fact that there is no menu present that allows players to actually choose to have the Super Guide run. In fact, the feature is integrated much more intuitively than I initially expected.
Basically, after a player has died eight times on any given stage, a little green box will appear at the beginning of the level that the player is having trouble with. When the player jumps and hits it, the game will ask if they want to have Luigi play the level for them. If the player confirms their choice, Luigi will then go through the level to the end and at any time in Luigi’s run-through, the player is allowed to jump back in the action. So, if someone is a semi-experienced new player who has only been having trouble with one stupid jump, Luigi can get through that part and the player can redeem his pride by reaching the end of the level themselves. And, on the flip-side, if someone is really an experienced gamer who is making it through the game with no problem, they will never see the Super Guide feature. So, while it may sound a little bit like cheating at first, the feature actually comes off much more like what it was initially touted as: an interactive visual player’s guide built into the game. The Super Guide can teach in-experienced players the “rules” of the Mario world, allows these players to complete a game they otherwise would have never finished, and gives experienced gamers the choice to ignore the feature.
Honestly, if I have one complaint about the game, and really this is stretching it, it is a disappointment that the game, unlike its SNES predecessor Super Mario World, does not allow you to take Yoshi outside of the levels you find him in. This exclusion just seems like a missed opportunity and very out of place considering the fact that every other power-up carries over to the next stage the player travels to. On the topic of missed opportunities, it could also be argued that for a game so multiplayer centric, it’s a shame that the game has no online multiplayer support. However, to be honest, the local multiplayer experience present in New Super Mario Bros. Wii is so strong and so built around the idea of four friends hanging out and playing the game together in the same room that it hardly feels like an exclusion to the package.
In the end, there is nothing more to say about New Super Mario Bros. Wii that hasn’t already been said. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is, bar none, the best platformer currently on Wii, outclassing outstanding previous Wii efforts like Lost Winds, A Boy and His Blob, and Klonoa with ease and even outshining the stunning Super Mario Galaxy. There hasn’t been a 2D console platformer with this level of quality and polish since the Super Nintendo days and even then, New Super Mario Bros. Wii stands tall among its critically-acclaimed brethren Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3. If you have a Wii, you need New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Period.
VICE VERDICT: Buy
Popularity: 2% [?]
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roger, i usually back you up on your reviews, but this time i need to disagree with you on a few things. for one, while the game is great, it surely has its flaws. first off, i think the graphics couldve been a lot better. listen, i know its a wii game, and i like owning a wii, but for a 2d game this looks like shit. it just seems like a DS game that has been stretched out soo much, i can only imagine how it looks on a 40inch and higher. being 2d, the game couldbe been a lot cleaner and crisper. also, the fact that the players collide into each other while jumping has been a pain recently, cause a lot of stupid deaths occur whether intentional or not, and whether the player next to me was skilled or not. and the two random toad charaters were kind of a let down, because you and i both know the catalog of characters nintendo had to fill the 3rd and 4th coop player void. and on a side note, im sure many will still say smb3 is the best one. and as a platformer, i personally think galaxy goes above this by far since that brought a whole bunch of new elements to platforming in general. all in all, as i stated, i usually enjoy whatever you write on here, but this time i think the fanboy in you got the best of you, cause this is far from even the best 2d mario game imo.
Nice second opinion, Keith. I wasn’t convinced by Roger. Think I’ll stick to playing the homages in LBP!
I have to disagree with your take on the graphics. Granted, I’ve only turned the game on once and it was for like 15 minutes, but I thought it looked good. Not great, but there aren’t many games on the Wii that are capable of looking “great”. But I can’t really speak about anything else since I only played for such a short amount of time. I’m immensely looking forward to playing co-op this weekend, though.
dude, i totally stated that i know the game is a wii game. i KNOWWW the system cant handle hd or anything of that sort. but that doesn’t excuse a 2DDDD game that is sidescrolling from looking so pixelated when it clearly shouldn’t. Wii or not. im not asking for a sf2 hdr, im asking for cleaner lines and less pixelation.
Have you even played the game Keith? It really sounds like you’ve never even played it since you are complaining about things that aren’t even problems in the game and the fact that you say it looks like a DS game means you clearly haven’t seen the game outside of Youtube videos. Before you critique a well written review, you should also check your spelling and grammar. It makes you come off looking very uneducated. Overall though, the fact you say it looks pixelated is utterly ridiculous. You should trade in your money-hat to whatever game console alliance you have and put on an unbiased hat to look at the game. You’ll realize that Mario Bros. Wii is undoubtably the best Wii game in a while and a major contender for GoTY alongside Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Assassin’s Creed 2. Sorry about the rant guys, but I had to vent. That Keith kid sounds like a major troll.
thanks tony
Very well written review but I have to agree with Keith on the topic of the two Toads. I mean, I am sure that they could’ve added Wario and Waluigi or even DK instead of just the Toads. They are fun characters but it seems like they should’ve added them. Totally agree with the point that it is the best platformer on Wii though. I play Wii almost exclusively and the level design was superb. Seriously, this compared to the level design of Galaxy which seemed like it was meant for five year olds, is non-comparable. Either way, good review.