The Biasphere

Christian-A (gaming profile | personal site)

Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:14 pm EDT
7 Game Reviews

New Super Mario Bros. Wii was one of the highlights of the Nintendo E3 press conference in 09. Everyone who had played it had complimented on the great fun that they had and also on the new addition of multiplayer. After finally getting the game, I can say that everything that people have said has been true.

Story
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As with all mario games, the plot is always a little nonesensical and vaporous. This game is no different, where we see Mario, Luigi and two toads at Princess Peach's birthday in her castle. Out of nowhere a giant cake appears on screen and the Koopa Kids, along with Bowser Jr., jump out and take the princess. As you can guess, it's up to Mario, Luigi... and two toads? to rescue Peach and bring Bowser and his children to justice.

Gameplay
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This plays like a classic 2D mario game from the days of the NES and SNES. Think Super Mario Bros 3 mixed with a few elements from Super Mario World. The MapeWorld system of the game is just like that of Mario 3. There are the mushroom houses with card games, small castles and roaming bad guys along the way. In some levels, the game has Yoshi (from Mario world). This is both a great addition and a dissapointment. It's good because, well, who doesn't love to ride on Yoshi's back, lick things up with their tounge and even jump that little bit higher? The dissapointing part, however, is the fact that he is only contained in a few levels. So, just when you're begining to enjoy riding on Yoshi's back, you have to leave him and continue to another level.

Controls
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For this game, you hold the Wii-mote sideways ala NES style. The Dpad is obviously used to move and the 1 and 2 buttons are used to attack and jump respectively. Also if you pres the A button you can turn into a bubble, if you hold 1 and shake the remote you can pick objects up and finally, by shaking the remote normally you can do a spin jump or if you have some of the suits on unleash a special move.

Multiplayer
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The newest and most hyped addition of the game is of course the multiplayer. up to 4 people can play at once, and when they do it's complete havoc. Utter chaos. I mean that in a good way. There are plenty of ways that you can play with other people: You can all play in the story mode together, traversing across the various levels. You can Play 'Free Mode' which let's players repeat previously beaten levels (from story mode) and try and finish with the most coins, points and enemy kills. Finally there is Coin battle that pits players against each other to nab the most coins. All of these are extremly fun, especially when competeing. Of course, if you choose to play through the story, there are several ways of approaching it with your buddies. Firstly, you can simply just get through the level, as normal. You can also fight against each other, by picking one another up and trying to throw each other into pits and into enemies. Or finally, you could work as a team to complete each level. Admitedly, it is much easier to accomplish a level as 1 player mind you. At any time in the game, players can turn into a bubble (press A), floating accross the screen until someone touches them and pops them out. This can be used to your advantage or dissadvantage. If you're a lesser skilled player, you may want to do this so that your friend can complete the harder parts of the level. If your friend i particularily mean, though they may choose to pop you just above an enemy, causing you to fall to your death. This is probably also why Nintendo decided to add a 'shake' funcion to the bubble, where if you shake the remote, your bubble will move in that direction.

Many people have complained that there is no online multiplayer for this game, although it may have been nice to play with people over the internet, I don't think that this is a huge problem, especially if you have a group of friends willing to play with you.

Characters
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As previously mentioned the playable characters in this game are Mario, Luigi and two toads. When these characters were playable at E3, it was generally assumed that there would be a few more characters added later on. This however never happened. I can understand having one toad, as I'm sure some people like him, but why two? They really just did this so that didn't have to design any other characters into the mix. Why not have Wario or WaLuigi in it? Why not Daisy or Donkey Kong? Why not Masterchief or Link? Even if Nintendo didn't want them immediately available, they could at least be unlockable at the end. There's one more final problem with the characters. They all play exactly the same. No one can run, jump or fight better. I realise that Super Mario Bros 2 was just a repackaged Doki Doki Panic, but having Lugi jump higher or something like that would have been a nice addition.

Power ups
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As  well as classic items like the mushroom and fire flower, there are some new, cool additions. There is the propeller suit that allows you to fly for a short period once shaking the remote. The ice flower which allows you to shoot snowballs, freezing enemies upon contact and finally the penguin suit which acts just like the ice flower, but can also help the player swim better.
It would have been nice to see some of the power up seen in previous games like the giant mushroom from New super mario bros ds or the racoon suit from Mario 3.

Bonusus and Extras
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Like its predessor on the DS, this game also has the large collectible conins. Here, they help by allowing you to watch movies of how to complete levels or how to get other secrets. Then there is the 'Super Guide' If you die 8 times in one level, You'll be given the option to view the super guide. Basiclly, this is where Luigi will come along and show you the method of completing the level. Its a good feature, especially for those having real troubles.

Conclusion
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This game is something that every Mario fan AND Wii owner should have, full stop. This is the best Mario game in years, and also one of the best 2D platformers of all time. Although there are one or to points that let the game down, they are so insignificant that you can easily forget about them

Buy this game!

deraj45 - 7/6/2010 (reply)

Very nice review!

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